{"id":446664,"date":"2024-11-06T06:05:50","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T14:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=446664"},"modified":"2024-11-07T10:54:52","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T18:54:52","slug":"retail-theft-proposition-36-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_es\/justice\/2024\/11\/retail-theft-proposition-36-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Por qu\u00e9 los californianos se han vuelto m\u00e1s duros con el crimen: centros urbanos desolados y robos en comercios que llaman la atenci\u00f3n"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

En resumen<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

Los californianos apoyaron abrumadoramente la Propuesta 36 para alargar las sentencias penales por ciertos delitos de robo y drogas, y para dirigir a m\u00e1s personas a tratamientos contra la drogadicci\u00f3n despu\u00e9s de las condenas. Las opiniones de los votantes cambiaron con respecto a la seguridad p\u00fablica despu\u00e9s de la pandemia de COVID-19.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n

Lea esta historia en Espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From their phones and their television screens and sometimes out their windows, Californians saw their state change quickly in the pandemic. Homelessness grew<\/a> then and continued to grow. Fatal fentanyl overdoses<\/a> soared. Brash daytime smash-and-grab robberies floated from TikTok to nightly newscasts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A constellation of law enforcement, prosecutors and big-box retailers insisted the cause was simple: Punishment wasn\u2019t harsh enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They put forward a measure that elevated some low-level crimes to felonies and created avenues to coerce reluctant people into substance abuse treatment. That measure, La Proposici\u00f3n 36<\/a>, passed overwhelmingly Tuesday night. It led 70% to 30% early Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It undoes some of the changes voters made with a 2014 ballot measure that turned certain nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors, effectively shortening prison sentences. Amid the pandemic\u2019s visible changes to California, in its growing homeless encampments, its ransacked Nordstroms<\/a> and its looted rail yards, critics of that previous initiative finally found the right climate to turn back the law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategy at the center of Prop. 36 is still a matter of debate. Its opponents say harsher sentences will never be an effective deterrent to crime. Much of the science<\/a>, some of it funded by the U.S. Department of Justice<\/a>, backs them up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the victory of Prop. 36, despite opposition from the governor and most of the state\u2019s Democratic leadership, was not about what people know, it\u2019s about what they saw. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An IT technician was afraid to walk five blocks to work in downtown Los Angeles, so he bought a parking pass and drove. A big-box retailer moved all of its goods to its second floor because people kept stealing from the ground floor. The fentanyl crisis had police on body camera videos panicking and fainting when exposed to the substance<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Prop. 36 campaign ran on images like those<\/a>, and it promised to make them go away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Un
Attendees at an event in support of Proposition 36 in Downtown Sacramento on Nov. 5, 2024. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That Prop. 36 would pass has been fairly clear since late summer, when Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s last-ditch attempts<\/a> to preempt the measure with other retail crime bills failed to siphon funding from Prop. 36 or to keep it off the ballot. So how did Californians, who supported more lenient sentences under 2014\u2019s Proposition 47<\/a>, come to support a tougher crime measure a decade later?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we might be seeing is evidence of a course correction of a long path of criminal justice reform efforts,\u201d said Magnus Lofstrom, criminal justice policy director at the Public Policy Institute of California. Prop. 36 \u201ctargets crime and social problems that people can see: retail theft, more merchandise locked up, more viral videos (of thefts) and then the media talking about all of it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s those visible problems, Lofstrom said, that can quickly change voters\u2019 minds. That also includes growing sidewalk encampments of the unhoused, paired with public drug consumption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the pandemic, the rate of shoplifting and commercial burglaries skyrocketed, especially in Los Angeles, Alameda, San Mateo and Sacramento counties. Statewide, the institute found that reported shoplifting of merchandise worth up to $950 se dispararon 28% en los \u00faltimos cinco a\u00f1os.<\/a> Este es el nivel m\u00e1s alto observado desde el a\u00f1o 2000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al combinar los hurtos en tiendas con los robos en comercios, los investigadores del instituto descubrieron que el total de robos denunciados fue 18% m\u00e1s alto que en 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCalifornia voters have spoken with a clear voice on the triple epidemics of retail theft, homelessness and fatal drug overdoses plaguing our state,\u201d said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. \u201cIn supporting Proposition 36, they said yes to treatment.  They said yes to accountability.  And they said yes to putting common sense before partisanship, so we can stop the suffering in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prop. 36 was not the only sign that California voters wanted to see tougher enforcement from law enforcement leaders. A move to recall progressive Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price<\/a> jumped to a big lead in early returns. Los Angeles County’s progressive prosecutor, District Attorney Jorge Gascon<\/a>, lost his reelection bid to Nathan Hochman<\/a>, who in 2022 ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general as a Republican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Californians still want rehabilitation for prisoners<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Opponents to Prop. 36 said the measure was a clever way to reintroduce the war on drugs in a way that was palatable to voters in 2024. They argued that no studies on criminal justice or homelessness support the idea that harsher punishment \u2014 or the threat of harsher punishment \u2014 prevents crime or gets people off the street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prop. 36 will expend hundreds of millions of dollars in court and prison costs, they say, without measurably reducing crime or poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are aware that there’s been a shift in terms of the vibe around criminal legal reform,\u201d said Loyola Law School professor Priscilla Ocen, a former special assistant attorney general at the California Department of Justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t agree with the premise that California is swinging more rightward when it comes to the bad old days of mass incarceration,\u201d she said. \u201cI think on certain issues, yes, the electorate is frustrated with feelings of insecurity \u2014 despite the fact that those feelings are often not grounded in data in terms of your likelihood of being victimized, either by a property crime or a crime against a person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n