California Code, Penal Code - PEN § 14110

(a) The incidence of violence in our state continues to present an increasing and dominating societal problem that must be addressed at its root causes in order to reduce significantly its effects upon our society.

(b) As an initial step toward that goal, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill No. 23 of the 1979-80 Regular Session  1 which created the California Commission on Crime Control and Violence Prevention which was charged with compiling the latest research on root causes of violence, in order to lay the foundation for a credible, effective violence eradication program.

(c) The commission produced a final report in 1982 entitled “Ounces of Prevention,” which established that long-term prevention is a valuable and viable public policy and demonstrated that there are reachable root causes of violence in our society.

(d) The report contains comprehensive findings and recommendations in 10 broad categorical areas for the removal of individual, familial, and societal causal factors of crime and violence in California.

(e) The recommendations in the report are feasible and credible, propose an effective means of resolving conflict and removing the root causes of violence in our society, and should be implemented, so that their value may be provided to our citizenry.