In the final hours of getting potential bills off the floor of the Senate and one step closer to the governor’s desk, Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, D-Los Angeles, was desperately trying to convince her fellow legislators to make California less safe.
Her idea – Senate Bill 1282 – would make almost all felonies, including vehicular manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon, residential burglary, and shooting into a home or vehicle, eligible for diversion.
That means instead of being sent to prison, defendants would be ordered to treatment and in less than 24 months have their crimes wiped away like they never happened. And they would still be legally allowed to buy a gun.
It failed by a single vote.
Felonies are felonies for a reason. They are more serious than misdemeanors because the crimes have more of an impact on public safety. The punishment is state prison instead of jail time for misdemeanors.
Smallwood-Cuevas – and many other legislators across California – want to ignore these serious crimes and give the criminals who commit them the opportunity to have them erase their felony records and avoid the consequences that go along with being a convicted felon.
But erasing the victims isn’t as easy as erasing a felony off a rap sheet.
The 15-year-old girl killed when the 18-year-old driver crashed a stolen car after a police chase nearing 140 miles per hour is still dead – and instead of accountability the Legislature wants to give the driver a do-over.
The thieves who broke into a family’s house and stole their most treasured possessions, including a 6-year-old’s piggy bank stuffed with her Christmas and birthday money, were real, leaving that home – and many others across America – in chaos, covered in broken glass and dresser drawers, their sense of security stolen along with their grandmother’s jewelry.
When the broken glass and twisted metal are cleaned up and the blood is washed off the asphalt, the victims still remain. Their pain can never be washed away; their agony can never be covered up with a new coat of paint or replaced with a new pane of glass.
Yet, the California Legislature continues to prioritize the criminals over the victims.
Funding for victims’ services is reaching crisis levels. The federal Victims of Crime Act, known as VOCA, provides victim funding not from taxpayer dollars, but through fines and penalties resulting in convictions from federal prosecutions. Since VOCA was passed in 1984, the appetite for prosecuting criminals has changed dramatically in many prosecutorial circles across the United States, resulting in a steady decrease in funds being collected for victims since 2019.
In 2023, California received $153 million in VOCA funding. For 2024, funds dropped to just $87 million, resulting in 44.7% across the board cuts for victim programs.
Here in Orange County, that means cutting victim advocates in all court centers, all victim advocates in Homicide, Family Protection, which handles child abuse and elder abuse, Human Trafficking, and Sexual Assault. These are not luxuries – these are necessities for victims who have suffered the most horrific of crimes.
While crime victim advocates are scrambling to find resources for rape victims and victims of domestic violence, efforts continue to attempt to expand the definition of crime victim to include individuals shot by police whom the police believed were committing a serious crime. In just the last four years, California legislators have tried six separate times to expand the pool of eligible recipients but have done little to mitigate the catastrophic reduction in federal funding for victims of crime.
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Many victims, including children, will no longer have crucial victim advocacy support during difficult testimony or in navigating the increasingly complicated California Victim Compensation application process they need to help rebuild lives shattered by crime. VOCA funding cuts will impact all victims of crime, but the ramifications will be particularly devastating for those in marginalized and underserved communities who already struggle to access the services, resources, and critical support necessary on their journey to healing.
Yet the focus isn’t on the victims. The focus is on erasing convictions through any means necessary – while trying to erase the victims – and the support they desperately need.
Instead of focusing on the victims, Sen. Smallwood-Cuevas is focused on legislating the number of items retailers can allow in self-checkout lines to 15 items.
“When you have understaffed stores, there’s an opportunity for violent incidents, for theft and assault, and certainly in these checkout machines with the understaffing,” Smallwood-Cuevas explained.
The staffing isn’t the issue. When you refuse to hold criminals accountable, you create an environment that encourages theft and violence – and no one wants to work under those conditions.
Instead of focusing on erasing criminal records and monitoring how many items you can have in the self-checkout line, Sacramento needs to start worry about crime victims – and ensuring they have the resources they need to survive.
Todd Spitzer is the district attorney of Orange County.
