California’s Proposition 36 Won’t Address Retail Theft, Drug Addiction, or Homelessness

Proponents of Proposition 36 call it the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act,” but it won’t create any new housing, shelters or treatment programs. It should have been called “More Money for Prisons, Less Money for Schools and Drug Treatment Act.”

That’s because the proposal, if enacted this November, would send people with drug problems to jail or prison instead of treatment, raising jail and prison costs by hundreds of millions of dollars. ‘year at a time when the state already has a significant budget deficit.

The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office believes that Prop. 36 will eliminate about $100 million annually from substance abuse treatment and reentry programs. And because the measure includes no new revenue or mechanisms to pay for those added costs, it will likely force California to cut funding for our schools, health care and other vital programs.

opinion

The near 36 represents a giant step back. Voters should reject it.

For decades, California and the rest of the nation tried to solve the problem of drug addiction by locking people up. But the war on drugs not only failed to reduce drug addiction, it led to inhumane overcrowding in California prisons, forcing the federal government to intervene.

The war on drugs also disproportionately harmed black and brown people, devastating entire generations of vulnerable youth.

California and other states learned from this mistake. We have both spent much of our careers helping our state forge a more humane and effective path. Instead of locking people up, we’ve encouraged and helped implement effective drug treatment programs and re-entry services so people returning from prison can get the help and support they need to overcome addiction and lead productive lives .

Californians were smart to enact Prop. 47 a decade ago, which reduced drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, and kept people with substance abuse problems out of jail and into treatment. The cost savings of the prison of the Prop. 47 provided nearly $100 million annually to fund mental health and drug treatment, truancy and dropout prevention, and victim services.

As a result of Prop. 47 and other reforms, California prisons are no longer overcrowded. The state’s recidivism rate, which represents the percentage of people released from prison who reoffend, has also fallen steadily.

The defenders of Prop. 36 say that the threat of jail or prison will ensure that people with substance abuse problems complete a drug treatment program, but there’s a big flaw in that argument: California’s substance abuse programs are already in excess The Prop. 36 will make matters worse by taking away money that could be used to expand these programs.

In other words, according to Prop. 36, California will again imprison people with drug problems. It is a return to the failed war on drugs.

The Prop. 36 was falsely sold as a solution to the viral videos of organized retail theft we all saw during the pandemic. But the truth is that despite an increase in crime during the pandemic years, retail theft, like almost all other crime categories, is back down.

Despite this evidence, Prop. 36 seeks to return to the era of mass incarceration by making some petty crimes of retail theft.

There is no evidence that tougher criminal penalties further reduce retail theft. In fact, big retailers told lawmakers that the retail theft laws signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom this year will do much more to address retail theft than Prop. 36. This is also why the coalition behind the pro-Prop. Campaign 36 is underway.

The Prop. 36 will not address retail theft or drug addiction, and will do nothing about homelessness. It is just a return to the failed policies of the past.

We can’t afford to go back.

Brendon Woods is the Chief Public Defender for Alameda County. State Senator Nancy Skinner has served in the state legislature for 14 years.