Can Tough-on-Crime Proposition 36 solve theft, drug use and homelessness despite no new funding?

At a Sept. 10 hearing in the state Capitol, Haley identified those problems as rising homelessness and retail theft and “a staggering proliferation of opioid-related deaths.”

“Prop. 36 stimulates drug treatment for addicts by giving them choice, giving them decisive influence in their own lives. … It allows prosecutors to treat a single-theft offender differently than someone who is a serial offender,” she said. “And it allows prosecutors to treat fentanyl like the scourge that it is.”

But experts say those promises may be difficult to keep without a huge influx of resources, given the state’s limited drug treatment capacity, a shortage of police officers and the ongoing housing crisis. Meanwhile, the ballot measure is likely to increase prison and jail spending, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Bureau.

The LAO estimates that Proposition 36 would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year, in part by increasing the state prison population “by about a few thousand people,” roughly the capacity of a state prison. It would also increase the number of people in local jails and on probation and cut Proposition 47 money for treatment programs by tens of millions of dollars each year.

All of this is happening that the state as well as many local governments are facing budget deficits. San Diego County supervisors recently refused to approve Proposition 36 after conducting an analysis that concluded the ballot measure would cost the county $58 million a year, could push the jail population beyond the system’s capacity and cut funding for the Proposition 47 programs.

Law enforcement personnel

Supporters of Proposition 36 argue that by making shoplifting and other low-level theft felonies, it has undermined the ability of police officers to hold people accountable for these crimes. But nothing stops police from arresting felony offenders now — except, according to many in law enforcement, their own resources.

Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, a former lawmaker and longtime critic of criminal justice reforms, told lawmakers at a September hearing that his department “doesn’t have the resources to go after every felony offender” — and that when faced with a decision between responding to a violent crime or a property crime, they will choose the more serious incident.

“We don’t have the resources for contravention stuff, day-to-day stuff because of Prop. 47,” he said. “We only have so much capacity.”

Cooper blamed Proposition 47 for limiting police response to minor crimes. However, this measure did not have a direct impact on police personnel, which hit a 30-year low in Californiawith 3,600 officers lost between 2020 and 2022, according to the California Police Officers Research Association.

Proposition 36 wouldn’t change that staffing crunch, said Tom Hoffman, who headed the state’s parole department from 2006 to 2009 and spent more than 30 years as a police officer. The measure includes no new money for police agencies — and in most cases, police officers will have no way of knowing when a shoplifting call comes in if it qualifies as a crime.

“These cases are the lowest priority,” he said, adding that they should be. “There are 35,000 (misdemeanor) warrants for people in Sacramento County alone for violating these crimes. And the sheriff admits without question that he will not go find them, arrest them, and accept that they be put in jail. And (Proposition) 36 is not going to change that.”

San Joaquin Probation Chief Steve Jackson supports Proposition 36, saying it would “unbalance” the criminal justice system by allowing harsher sentences for repeat offenders. But he acknowledged that some of his promises may not be easy to deliver.

“There’s no money in it to finance all of this,” he said.

A solution to fentanyl and homelessness?

Supporters of Proposition 36 are leaning heavily on the ballot measure’s provisions related to drug possession and use — and what they see as a connection to homelessness.

They note that since Proposition 47 was passed, there has been a sharp decline in participation in drug courts and other diversion programs, which give someone facing a criminal charge the option to attend treatment and opt out to these charges. They link this decline to the increase in homelessness.

“We’ve had a massive explosion in drug addiction, particularly fentanyl, over the last ten years in California since the passage of Prop. 47. And that’s also associated with a massive increase in homelessness,” Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig, who helped craft Proposition 36, said at an Oct. 23 news conference.