Californians’ crime concerns put pressure on criminal justice reform and progressive DAs

LOS ANGELES — Ten years ago, Alley Bean joined 3.7 million Californians in voting for a measure that downgraded many nonviolent crimes to misdemeanors, such as petty shoplifting and drug use, in the hope that it would lead to a more just criminal justice system and help end mass murder. confinement.

Since then, she has seen an increase in crime in her beloved Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, with some homes being robbed in broad daylight. Meanwhile, the sidewalks are occupied by homeless tents and littered with people passed out from drugs. The opioid crisis hit 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 would be any consequences.”

Ten years after Proposition 47 passed, Bean’s grievances are increasingly shared by Californians, with shoplifting incidents captured on videos going viral and fueling a sense that the state has become lawless. And increasingly, voters are shifting the blame for this on efforts to promote criminal justice reform, on Proposition 47 and on progressive prosecutors.

The issue has resulted in some tight races up and down the solidly blue state this year for Democrats and progressives members of Congressmayors and public prosecutors who are eligible for re-election. And a new statewide measure on the ballot, Proposal 36would partially reverse the 2014 law.

Critics say criminal justice reform has been a failed social experiment.

Two years after voters in San Francisco ousted one of the country’s first reform-minded prosecutors, voters across the bay in Oakland will decide in November whether to recall another progressive district attorney.

To the south in Los Angeles, District Attorney George Gascón, who co-authored Proposition 47 and won the 2020 election after protests and racist reckonings following the police killing of George Floydfaces stiff competition from a former federal prosecutor who calls himself a “hard middle” candidate.

“Sir. Gascón has been one of the greatest gifts to gangs,” Nathan Hochman said during their recent debate, slamming him for not pursuing improvements in sentencing for gangs. high-profile murder by “General Hospital” actor Johnny Wactor.

Gascón defends his record, saying the use of gang enhancements is historic tinged with racial prejudice and a special committee makes decisions on this on a case-by-case basis. His office says it has prosecuted more than 100,000 “serious crimes” in the past four years, a figure on par with the previous decade.

Gascón has also come under scrutiny for his office’s policy of not trying juveniles as adults, with critics pointing to cases of recidivism.

They include a man who, at age 16, took part in a 2018 gas station robbery and was later released from a juvenile detention facility, only to be arrested and charged in connection with murder in April. Another, a 17-year-old gang member who admitted in 2019 to a double murder and could have faced life in prison, was released last February and arrested months later in connection with another killing.

Hochman, a former Republican who is running as an independent candidate, has raised nearly $4 million for his campaign, compared to $678,000 for Gascón.

Frustration over shoplifting has prompted Governor Gavin Newsom to become a champion a stack of bills crack down on serial offenders and car thieves, but not commit retail crimes again.

Proposition 36 goes further: It would make theft of any amount a crime if someone already has two theft convictions, extend certain sentences for theft and drug crimes, make possession of fentanyl a misdemeanor and require people with multiple charges to they complete treatment or else serve a prison sentence. .

Voters rejected a similar initiative in 2020, but this time there is a bipartisan coalition supporting Proposition 36. More than 180 democratically elected officials, including 64 mayors, signed a campaign last month in support of the initiative.

The measure is also endorsed by 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 hard for businesses and communities that are really on the front lines,” said Jennifer Barrera, president of the California Chamber of Commerce. “I think the number of incarcerations will probably increase… but I also hope and expect that it will certainly have an impact on reducing crime.”

Opponents of Prop 36, including Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders, say it would return the state to policies of prosecuting a failed war on drugs and locking tens of thousands of people, mostly black and Hispanic, in overcrowded prisons.

According to a report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the measure could increase California’s 90,000-strong prison population by several thousand and would cost tens of millions of dollars per year at both the state and county levels.

It would also reduce drug and mental health funding that comes from the savings from incarcerating fewer people.

Twenty-two counties without treatment beds would bear the financial burden of the measure, Newsom said. California is already thousands short of beds to meet current demand.

“I know people are frustrated. I know people are angry. Me too,” the governor said at a recent news conference. “But this is not the way to solve it.”

There is insufficient data quantifying retail crime in California, but many point to major store closures and everyday products like toothpaste being locked behind plexiglass as evidence of a crisis.

A recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California found that commercial burglaries increased 16% between 2019 and 2022. However, the study found that reduced enforcement of property and drug crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic had a much greater impact on crime than Proposition 47, and also found no evidence that changes in drug arrests led to any increase in crime .

Salil Dudani, a senior attorney at the legal nonprofit Civil Rights Corp, said repeat crimes will lead to more pretrial detention and in turn increase crime.

“It is so destabilizing to a person’s life if he or she is removed from the community… that it increases the likelihood that he or she will commit a crime,” Dudani said. “It undermines public safety to lock people up for low-level offenses, just as Prop 36 provides.”

This claim is corroborated by a 2017 Stanford Law Review study focused on crimes in Harris County, Texas, which found that people who spent even a week in jail were 32% more likely to commit a crime within 18 months .

But many entrepreneurs say the current situation is unsustainable.

Aaron Cardoza, owner of Mobil Fits, used to run an affordable clothing store in a historically black Del Paso Heights neighborhood in Sacramento. He closed the store and switched to online sales from a van after the store was broken into six times in two months.

“I lost a lot, a lot of merchandise,” Cardoza said, as the thieves received only a “slap on the wrist” and were released.

Cardoza said he supports Proposition 36.