On Friday morning, Governor Gavin Newsom signed ten bills designed to crack down on retail crime — a step he hopes will provide effective new tools to tackle shoplifting and dissuade voters from approving a tougher-on-crime ballot initiate in November.
The package enables stricter penalties for repeat shoplifting offenders, for arson with intent to commit retail theft and for possessing items stolen from a vehicle. It also makes permanent the California Highway Patrol’s property crimes task force and requires online marketplaces to better monitor if listed goods are stolen.
But as Newsom and state legislators were celebrating their legislative accomplishment, a new poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that 56% of Californians support the harsher Prop. 36.
If passed, the ballot initiative would reinstate many felony offenses for shoplifting and drug use crimes, effectively rolling back most of the criminal justice reforms passed by voters under Prop. 47 in 2014. It would also give judges greater ability to mandate drug rehabilitation programs for people charged with these felony offenses.
On Friday morning Newsom came out swinging against the ballot initiative, saying, “This initiative has nothing to do with retail theft, this (package of bills) has everything to do with retail theft.”
“That initiative is about going back to the 1980s, the war on drugs,” Newsom said. “It’s about mass incarceration.”
Proponents of the ballot initiative quickly pushed back on Newsor’s words, saying that the proposition is intended to break the cycle of repeat theft and drug offenses by using the court system to push people into treatment.
“Governor, I never want to go back to the era of mass incarceration. But the time to begin the era of mass treatment is now,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahon in a statement on Friday. “Unfortunately none of the bills signed today require drug and alcohol treatment for those who need it the most – treatment that is necessary to save lives.”
The ten-bill package signed by Newsom is more targeted than the ballot initiative. It addresses specific retail crime problems, as opposed to increasing penalties more broadly.
The following is a summary of the ten bills:
AB 2943: Allows multiple shoplifting offenses to be aggregated together into a felony
AB 3209: Allows court to impose a restraining order against someone who stole from a store or assaulted an employee working there
AB 1779: Makes it easier to charge shoplifting crimes that took place across multiple counties in a single court
AB 1802: Makes the CHP property crimes task force permanent
AB 1972: Expands the CHP property crimes task force program to include cargo theft and railroad police
SB 905: Allows theft from a vehicle to be charged as a felony in certain circumstances
SB 1242: Make it easier to charge a felony offense when people start a fire on a retailer’s property in order to commit organized theft
SB 1416: Creates a sentencing enhancement for reselling stolen items
SB 1144: Requires online marketplaces to closer monitor whether goods listed on their site are stolen
SB 982: Allows prosecution for organized retail theft to occur indefinitely
State Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Los Angeles, helped shepherd the package through the legislature as chair of the Assembly Correct Committee on Retail Crime. He said the package focuses on apprehending those who commit a high volume of retail theft instead of targeting those who commit crimes of survival.
“The proposition is very crude in its approach, in that it rolls back a number of criminal justice reforms and allows for felony imprisonment for very minor activities,” Zbur said in an interview, arguing that the package is “more compassionate and cost effective.”
Proponents of Prop. 36 support the package, but say it doesn’t do enough to address the crisis of shoplifting and drug addiction.
“While these bills are an important first step to address the crisis of retail theft, they are just that — a first step,” said Mahon said. “Fully addressing the rise in retail theft requires acknowledging one of the key underlying causes of those thefts – drug and alcohol addiction.”
Newsom said that claims Prop. 36 is focused on increasing drug treatment are misleading because the initiative does not provide funding for drug rehabilitation programs or to handle increased incarceration rates.
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A report by California’s non-partisan Legislative Analysts Office estimates that Prop. 36 would increase criminal justice costs by “tens of millions” of dollars annually.
“If Prop. 36 passes, that takes away funding from schools, it takes away funding from infrastructure and our ability to build housing to attack our homeless challenge,” Zbur said.
Prop. 36 is supported by the California Republican Party, and the California district attorney’s and state sheriff’s associations. It has received funding from major retailers including Walmart and Target.
Earlier this week a coalition of Democratic elected officials led by San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho and Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen, announced formation of a new committee in support of Prop. 36.
The ballot measure also has the support of San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
“In San Francisco, we are making progress on property crimes, but the challenges we are facing related to fentanyl and organized retail theft require real change to our state laws,” Breed said at a February press conference. “I fully support this measure and know it will make a meaningful difference for cities across California.”
On Friday, Newsom pushed back on the idea that a wide swath of Democrats favor the proposition.
“This is not the Democratic Party. It’s just a couple members, a couple mayors,” he said, “That’s it.”
