SACRAMENTO, CA — As Californians head to the polls, they face a critical decision regarding Proposition 36, which proponents have dubbed the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act,” but critics in a Sacramento Bee Op-Ed argue is not true at all.
According to the Sacramento Bee opinion piece written by Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods and State Senator Nancy Skinner, rather than addressing homelessness or addiction, Prop. 36 could exacerbate the state’s prison crisis by redirecting resources away from treatment programs and back toward punitive incarceration.
Woods and Skinner argue the measure “will create no new homes, no shelters, and no treatment programs,” and suggest the real effect of the proposition will be increased prison and jail populations, sending more people with drug problems into incarceration instead of offering the treatment they need.
This, they warn in the Bee opinion column, could cost the state “hundreds of millions of dollars a year” at a time when California is already facing a significant budget shortfall.
A significant concern surrounding Prop. 36 is its impact on funding, the authors note, citing the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates the proposition would strip around $100 million annually from vital programs like substance abuse treatment and reentry services.
Without generating new revenue, these costs could result in cuts to essential services such as education and health care, the Op-Ed charges, making Prop. 36 “the ‘More Money for Prisons, Less Money for Schools and Drug Treatment Act’” in practice.
Woods and Skinner in The Bee opinion highlight California’s shift away from the failed policies of the “War on Drugs” in recent years, noting under Prop. 47, passed in 2014, the state made efforts to reduce drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, steering people toward treatment rather than incarceration.
The authors claim, as a result, prison overcrowding was alleviated, and recidivism rates have declined. However, their Bee column states Prop. 36 threatens to reverse these gains by making even minor retail thefts and drug offenses punishable by felony convictions once again.
Though proponents argue harsher penalties will deter crime, Woods and Skinner point out retail theft rates are already declining, with larger retailers indicating that recent laws signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom will do more to curb organized theft than Prop. 36 ever could.
“There is no evidence that harsher criminal penalties will further reduce retail theft,” they write in The Bee, charging they fear it will return the state to an era of mass incarceration without addressing the root causes of theft, drug addiction or homelessness.
The Bee Op-ed flatly declares, as California faces an ever-growing budget deficit and struggles with homelessness and addiction, voters must decide whether Prop. 36 is the right path forward—or if it merely represents a costly step back into the failed policies of the past.
