This week, Prop. 36 takes effect. The voters, well-primed by viral videos of crimes that would not be impacted whatsoever by Prop. 36, overwhelmingly supported it—and leading the way was Yolo DA Jeff Reisig.
The narrative that Reisig often mentions for his support for Prop. 36 is that of his nephew, who ended up addicted to drugs. While it makes for a good story, the timeline doesn’t appear to quite work out.
He recently talked about the fact that a football injury sidelined his nephew in 2014, he went from pain medications to drugs like heroin and fentanyl and became homeless. The problem with the narrative is that Reisig has been arguing this point since before Prop. 47 passed in the same year—and he has been attacking the reform ever since it was passed, long before the problems that his nephew have suffered would have become apparent.
Prop. 36 talks a big talk but the reality is that it makes one major change—the creation of felony charges for people with multiple misdemeanor convictions for theft and drug charges.
It is not by any means a full rollback of Prop. 47 and I would question whether it will impact the theft charges people are most concerned about—most of the crimes that have occurred in the viral videos were easily charged as felonies under existing laws such as grand theft, robbery, or conspiracy charges for organized crime.
For instance, in a high profile case, two were charged last week in connection with the Union Square smash and grab in San Francisco.
In that case, the accused are each charged with one count of second-degree commercial burglary (PC § 459), one count of grand theft (PC § 487(a)), one count of vandalism (PC § 594(b)(1)) and one count of organized retail theft with intent to sell (PC § 490.4(a)(1)). Ms. Duree is also charged one count of receiving or buying stolen property (PC § 496(a)).
From the San Francisco DA’s office: “The group was in and out of the store in under one minute and successfully stole 66 bags valued at over $290,000.00 and caused about $250,000.00 in damage.”
Guess what: Prop. 36 would have had no impact on this case whatsoever because of the value of the damage and the value of the property stolen and it was in fact charged under existing law.
In Yolo County, the DA’s own data calls into question the need for such a law.
As the Enterprise reported, “(the graphic) showing larceny theft cases received by the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office appears to show a drop in misdemeanor cases in recent years.”
DA Reisig explains that away, “asserting” that “fewer retailers are reporting the crimes, frustrated by the lack of law-enforcement response to petty thefts.”
Do we have evidence of that? Even the Enterprise used the word “asserts” which means claims without supporting evidence, to describe the DA’s contention.
Reisig has partnered with Measure for Justice on an evidence-based approach, and yet, just as often, he goes off-data when the data do not appear to support his narrative.
Credit to the Enterprise, however, for also telling the other side of the story. They interviewed Public Defender Tracie Olson.
Olson told the Enterprise, “The public voted for this law because they were told it would shuttle people into drug and mental health treatment. They were told that low-level drug possession and theft offenses needed to be felonies to ‘incentivize’ individuals to choose treatment.”
“However, the law came with no funding, leaving counties struggling to figure out how to deliver services that don’t exist,” Olson added. “Without readily available treatment, Prop. 36 risks being a revolving door through the prison system for many of our most vulnerable community members.”
As for the retail theft argument, “I have very few clients who are alleged to be part of retail theft rings,” Olson said. “What I have are clients that need help securing basic things such as housing and mental health treatment. Fixing these issues should be the priority.”
In past columns, we have pointed out that Reisig has railed about the homeless problem, but most of his solutions are punitive-based solutions.
For example, in June of 2023, Reisig and Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper put forth an argument that strangely omitted the problem of housing.
“Our once-great cities are being hollowed out. This requires us to move beyond the tired blame game of politics and the same approaches to the problem that have proven to be abject failures,” they wrote. “We can do better, and we can learn from what other states could teach us if we are willing to listen.
“Several large Democratic states have low homelessness rates, such as New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan and Illinois,” they write. “We believe there is a reason for this: All these states have much stronger hard drug laws than California.”
“In our opinion,” they continue, “fentanyl, heroin and other hard drug addictions — and the associated mental health crises that these drugs sometimes entail — are the root cause of California’s homeless crisis.”
They add, “In California, there is essentially no consequence for hard drug possession. Therefore, law enforcement rarely arrests for the crime. In New Jersey, hard drug possession can lead to a three-to-five-year sentence and substantial fines.”
Leaving the strict issue of causation aside, Reisig and Cooper suggest that they can solve the problem in a year—and yet, they put forth no provisions for things like permanent supportive housing.
“Permanent supportive housing is an intervention that combines affordable housing assistance with voluntary support services to address the needs of chronically homeless people,” the National Alliance to End Homelessness writes.
They note, “Investments in permanent supportive housing have historically helped decrease the numbers of individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. In addition to ending homelessness for people who are chronically homeless, research has demonstrated that permanent supportive housing can increase housing stability and improve health.”
As advocates will and have told us, we know how to address homelessness, and permanent supportive housing is a key component of that—and yet there is no mention of it at all in the op-ed.
Putting people in prison is a more costly solution than a housing and treatment based solution, and yet, when problems arise, we go back to the one method that has been proven not to solve the problem—incarceration.
