SAN JOSE, CA- The California November ballot’s Proposition 36 is a policy that, if passed, will undo the progress made in areas surrounding issues of reducing crime, homelessness, and substance use, according to an Op-Ed published by San Jose Spotlight this past week.
The Op-Ed was penned by Molly O’Neal, chief public defender for Santa Clara County; Rev. Jeff Moore, president of the NAACP San Jose/Silicon Valley and Raj Jayadev, founder of Silicon Valley De-Bug.
The three wrote that, while Prop. 36 was proposed to help with issues, it will cause more damage to the communities it will apply to by incarcerating more people.
San Jose Spotlight Op-Ed states, “The proposition is falsely guised as an attempt to reduce crime, homelessness and substance use. In reality, the proposition will only exacerbate the issues it claims to address,” adding the proposal will set the progress back accomplished by Prop. 47 in 2014, overturning advances made in public safety.
Prop. 47 worked well in lowering prison populations, providing money to fund crucial programs, and reducing recidivism, and was largely supported by voters, the Op-Ed notes.
The proposition reclassified six low-level felony offenses to misdemeanors as well as earmarking savings through cost reduction in prison sentences and instead developed programs dealing with drug, mental health treatment, housing, and re-entry services.
As stated in the San Jose Spotlight Op-Ed, “The latest California Department of Justice data revealed a decrease in crime in 2023, including violent and property crime. These statistics were ironically recently shared by San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan as he celebrated San Jose being the ‘safest big city’ in the Bay Area, even as he makes false claims of crime spikes to argue for Proposition 36.”
There is still a huge population of people who are struggling and need and deserve support in other areas, the Op-Ed argues, and those who struggle with mental health and/or addiction are finding it harder to survive in a city where prices for living are so expensive, where the solution has largely been incarceration.
The Op-Ed explains in 2022 Santa Clara County declared substance use a public health crisis in hopes of creating better policies.
“That is why Prop. 36 being promoted as the ‘Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act’ is so dangerously disingenuous. Punishing someone with a felony for a low level retail charge does not magically give them housing. Incarcerating someone with a substance abuse issue does not solve an addiction,” the authors note.
The San Jose Spotlight Op-Ed adds incarcerating someone makes them economically vulnerable, creating more barriers in finding employment after release.
According to the Op-Ed, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, who is opposed to Prop. 36, pointed out the proposition claims that it provides more funding for drug treatment programs which is simply “not true.” Instead, the Op-Ed said he believes that people shouldn’t be punished and locked away, just because they are struggling with addiction.
The impact of Prop. 36 would be greatly expanding the prison population in California, using hundreds of millions of dollars annually instead of investing money elsewhere for potential programs, the Op-Ed declares.
The SJ Spotlight Op-Ed then argues, “We don’t need to go back to prison overcrowding, the failed war on drugs that decimated communities of color or criminalizing public health issues. We need to say no to Prop. 36, and yes to real solutions.”
