Conservatives often blame California’s 2014 voting plan for the state’s 2014 crime increase. Voters can repeal some of those provisions next month. Should we do that?
california suggestion 47 passed by 60-40 margin The proposal states that “non-serious, non-violent crimes, such as misdemeanors or drug possession, are not treated as felonies, unless the defendant has been convicted of a specific violent or serious crime, including murder or rape.” We are asking for a misdemeanor instead.”
The measure established monetary thresholds for certain crimes, including shoplifting, grand theft, receiving stolen property, and check forgery. Criminals caught committing crimes listed can only be charged with misdemeanors as long as the amount stolen is less than $950. The changes could also apply retroactively to people who have already been sentenced.
suggestion 36Parts of Prop. 47 will be repealed on the November ballot. If the new bill passes, “felons with two prior theft convictions could be charged with a felony, regardless of the value of the stolen property.” It would allow the value of property stolen in multiple thefts to be combined, and offenders could be charged with grand larceny rather than petty larceny in appropriate cases. ”
The $950 cap in the original bill has long been a topic of debate, especially among conservatives. viral social media videos It depicts a brazen robbery carried out by masked assailants in San Francisco. “California has effectively decriminalized shoplifting. Not surprisingly, they’re doing more shoplifting,” said Jason L. Reilly, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Written in 2021 wall street journal editor San Francisco was considered a “shoplifting paradise.”
At a large gathering in Pennsylvania over the weekend, Digression On crime and law enforcement, former President Donald Trump said California’s relaxed penalties were responsible for the state’s rising theft rate.
“If it’s $950, you’re allowed to steal, but if you go over that, you’ll be prosecuted,” he said. “Originally, they would see kids come in with calculators and they would do the math. They didn’t want to spend more than $950.”
Trump has been making similar claims on the campaign trail for weeks. Speaking of August“There are thieves who walk into a store with a calculator and calculate the amount. If it’s less than $950, they can’t be charged with the robbery.”
Of course, it’s not true that shoplifting less than $950 is no longer illegal. It can still be charged as a misdemeanor. “What Proposition 47 has done is increase the amount for which theft can be prosecuted as a felony from $400 to $950 to adjust for inflation and the cost of living,” Alex Bastian, a co-author of the proposal, said in a statement. It is stated as follows. told The Associated Press in 2021. “But most shoplifting cases involve less than $400 to begin with, so there is no difference between before and after Proposition 47.”
And even after the $950 increase, California’s felony threshold is lower than: more than half For all other US states: Red states like Montana and Kansas are set at $1,500, while Texas is set at $2,500.
“Under current law, prosecutors can already aggregate clearly related thefts, such as stealing multiple times from the same store in the same week or stealing small amounts from an employer each day.” memo Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit research and policy advocacy organization that supports criminal justice reform (and opposes Proposition 36).
To be fair, the evidence points to a specific crime did One report found that “property crime, driven by theft, has skyrocketed since Prop. 47 relative to the nation and comparable states.” September 2024 Report By the Public Policy Institute of California. At the same time, that wasn’t the biggest factor. “The evidence is clear that the criminal justice system’s response to the pandemic led to an increase in retail theft, and the increase was greater than the increase caused by Proposition 47.”
Similarly, 2018 survey in Criminology and public policy “Prop. 47 had no effect on murder, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, or burglary. However, theft and motor vehicle theft appear to have increased modestly,” but all increases were small and other potential I discovered that there was a cause.
It’s also worth noting that when Prop. 47 came up for a vote, it wasn’t particularly controversial even among conservatives. Newt Gingrich and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) written editorial In support of this proposal, B. Wayne Hughes Jr. (Republican billionaire Hughes, donated Support for the proposal exceeded $1.25 million, just shy of the amount donated by George Soros’ Policy Reform Fund).
Mr. Gingrich’s editorial said, “It is clear that we need prisons for dangerous people, and harsh sentences should be meted out to those convicted of violent crimes.” “But California overuses incarceration. Prisons are for people we’re afraid of, but we’re filling them up with too many people who are just angry.” ”
“We must change our current system, which wastes tax dollars, destabilizes families, and worse, makes us no safer,” Paul wrote. Masu. “So it’s not surprising that conservatives would embrace this measure…If something brings so much promise to our public safety and public resources, why wouldn’t we embrace it?” Is that so?”
The original proposal was partially Brown vs. Plataa 2011 Supreme Court decision that found caps on California’s prison population were “necessary to redress violations of prisoners’ constitutional rights.” A district court panel determined that the state’s prison facilities housed nearly twice as many inmates as they were designed for, and ordered the state to “reduce the prison population to 137.5% of its design capacity.” However, the extent of the reduction “could reach the maximum capacity.” 46,000 people. ”
“After 10 years of research, we conclude that Prop 47 achieved its objectives,” the Vera Institute said. memo. “Studies conclude that it reduced recidivism, saved the state more than $800 million, and reduced both prison populations and racial disparities. Researchers found that it reduced violent crime, robbery, We have shown that it does not increase robberies.”
