LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ten years ago, Alley Bean joined 3.7 million Californians in voting for a measure that downgraded many nonviolent crimes, such as petty shoplifting and drug operate, to misdemeanors in the hopes that it would support create a fairer criminal justice system helping to end mass incarceration.
Since then, she has seen a rise in crime in her beloved Venice, Los Angeles neighborhood, with some homes being robbed in broad daylight. Meanwhile, the sidewalks are occupied by homeless tents and littered with drug addicts. The opioid crisis touched her personally when she lost her 25-year-old granddaughter Zelly Rose to fentanyl poisoning.
“I thought there would be rehabilitation with criminal justice reform,” said Bean, a lifelong Democrat. “I didn’t think there wouldn’t be consequences.”
A decade after the passage of Proposition 47, Bean’s grievances are increasingly shared by Californians, with shoplifting thefts captured on videos that go viral and create a sense that the state has become lawless. And voters are increasingly blaming criminal justice reform efforts, Proposition 47 and progressive district attorneys.
The issue has led to some tough races in the solidly blue state this year for Democratic and progressive congressmen, mayors and district attorneys up for re-election. And a modern statewide ballot measure, Proposition 36, would partially reverse the 2014 law.
Critics say criminal justice reform was a failed social experiment.
Two years after voters in San Francisco ousted one of the first reform-minded district attorneys, voters across the bay in Oakland will decide in November whether to recall another progressive district attorney.
In South Los Angeles, District Attorney George Gascón, co-author of Proposition 47 and winner of the 2020 election following protests and racist clashes following the police killing of George Floyd, faces stiff competition from a former federal prosecutor who describes himself as “tough.” denotes “center” candidate.
“Mr. “Gascón has been one of the greatest gifts to gangs,” Nathan Hochman said at their recent debate, criticizing him for not seeking to improve gang sentencing in the high-profile murder of “General Hospital” actor Johnny Wactor .
Gascón defends his record, saying the operate of gang enhancements has historically been linked to racial bias and that a special committee decides on a case-by-case basis. His office says it has prosecuted more than 100,000 “serious crimes” in the last four years, a rate comparable to the previous decade.
Gascón has also come under fire for his office’s policy of not trying juveniles as adults, with critics pointing to cases of recidivism.
They include a man who was involved in a gas station robbery in 2018 when he was 16 and was later released from a juvenile detention center, only to be arrested and charged with murder in April this year. Another, a 17-year-old gang member from 2019 who admitted to a double murder and faced life in prison, was released last February and arrested months later in connection with a modern murder.
Hochman, a former Republican running as an independent, has raised nearly $4 million for his campaign, compared to $678,000 for Gascón.
Frustration over retail theft has led Gov. Gavin Newsom to push for a series of bills that target serial predators and car thieves but shy away from making retail crimes a felony again.
Proposition 36 goes further: It would make theft of any amount a felony if a person has been convicted of theft twice, extend some sentences for theft and drug offenses, make possession of fentanyl a felony and require people with multiple drug offenses to do so , complete treatment or serve a sentence.
Voters rejected a similar initiative in 2020, but this time there is a bipartisan coalition supporting Proposition 36. More than 180 Democratic elected officials, including 64 mayors, joined a campaign last month in support of the initiative.
The measure also has support from the California Chamber of Commerce and major retailers such as Walmart, Target and Home Depot. A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found that 71% of likely voters said they would vote “yes.”
“It’s difficult for businesses and communities that are really on the front lines,” said Jennifer Barrera, president of the California Chamber of Commerce. “I think it will probably increase incarceration … but I also hope and expect that it will certainly have an impact on reducing crime.”
Opponents of Prop 36, which include Newsom and Democratic lawmakers, say it would return the state to the policy of waging a failed war on drugs and locking up tens of thousands of people, mostly Black and Hispanic, in overcrowded prisons.
The measure could add several thousand to California’s 90,000 prison population and cost tens of millions of dollars annually at both the state and county levels, according to a report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
It would also reduce drug and mental health funding that comes from savings from incarcerating fewer people.
Twenty-two counties without treatment beds would bear the financial burden under the measure, Newsom said. California already lacks thousands of beds to meet current needs.
“I know people are frustrated. I know people are angry. So am I,” the governor said at a recent press conference. “But that’s not the way to solve the problem.”
There isn’t enough data to quantify retail crime in California, but many point to major store closures and everyday products like toothpaste locked behind plexiglass as evidence of a crisis.
A recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California found a 16% augment in commercial burglaries between 2019 and 2022. However, the study showed that reduced enforcement of property and drug crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic had a far greater impact on crime than Proposition 47, nor did it find evidence that changes in drug arrests led to an augment in crime led.
Salil Dudani, a senior attorney at the legal nonprofit Civil Rights Corp, said reclassifying misdemeanors as felonies will lead to more pretrial detention and therefore an augment in crime.
“It is so destabilizing to a person’s life, taking them away from their community … that it increases the likelihood that they will commit crimes,” Dudani said. “It undermines public safety to incarcerate people for minor crimes, just as Prop 36 requires.”
This claim is supported by a 2017 Stanford Law Review study that focused on misdemeanors in Harris County, Texas, and found that people who were incarcerated for just one week were more likely to commit a crime within 18 months , was 32% higher.
But many entrepreneurs believe the current situation is untenable.
Aaron Cardoza, the owner of Mobil Fits, once ran an affordable clothing store in a historically black neighborhood of Del Paso Heights in Sacramento. He closed the shop and switched to selling online from a van after the store was broken into six times in two months.
“I lost a lot, a lot of goods,” Cardoza said, while the thieves only received a “slap on the wrist” and were released.
Cardoza said he supports Proposition 36.
