California Voters Pass Tough-on-Crime Ballot Measure to Address Retail Theft
An overwhelming majority of California voters have voted to pass a tough-on-crime ballot measure that will impose harsher penalties for retail theft.
A whopping 70 percent of the Golden State’s electorate voted “yes” on Prop. 36, which will unravel certain elements of Prop. 47, the increasingly controversial initiative passed by voters a decade ago as a means of reducing prison overcrowding.
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On Tuesday, Californians opted to roll back the 2014 law—which established theft and drug offenses worth under $950 as misdemeanor crimes—approving felony sentences for offenders who steal goods valued at under $950 if they’ve already been convicted twice before.
Also known as the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, Prop. 36 will increase prison sentences for felony theft and give judges the authority to use their discretion when imposing penalties on those who steal, damage or destroy property worth $50,000 or more in cooperation with two or more offenders.
Despite Governor Gavin Newsom’s moves to prioritize the growing issue of retail crime—he signed a historic retail theft package into law this summer and funneled $267 million into local law enforcement agencies last fall expressly for the purpose of boosting retail-crime-fighting efforts—Prop. 36 petition gained steady support throughout 2024, with hundreds of thousands of signatures handily securing its place on the November ballot.
The proposal garnered broad support from a range of sources, from retailers and industry advocates to local law enforcement and lawmakers. San Francisco Mayor London Breed, City of Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock, California Assemblymember James Ramos and State Senator Josh Newman were among more than 100 legislators who backed Prop. 36 on its journey to the polls.
Newsom and the broad coalition of Assemblymembers and State Senators who passed this year’s retail theft package hoped to resist the unraveling of Prop. 47 that would come with the passage of Prop. 36, viewing the incumbent law as an essential tool in addressing mass incarceration and social inequity.
But voters’ resounding approval of the law-and-order policy may well be viewed as a referendum on California’s efforts at criminal justice reform. This is backed up at the local level: Los Angeles County, among the most liberal counties in the nation, ousted progressive District Attorney George Gascón on Tuesday. Criticized for a failure to manage an escalation in public safety issues since he was elected in 2020, Gascón was defeated by Republican Nathan Hochman.
Data from independent research group the Public Policy Institute of California backs up public perception about the rise of retail crime. The group wrote several months ago that shoplifting across the state grew in 2023, and reported incidents were 28 percent higher than in 2019.
Most of the state’s biggest counties saw increases in shoplifting and commercial burglary during the four-year period, but 90 percent of the statewide increase occurred in four counties alone: Alameda (home to the city of Oakland), Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Mateo.
The Covid-19 pandemic poured fuel on the fire, emptying out downtowns and retail hubs and setting the stage for unchecked criminal activity like smash-and-grabs. These acts were indiscriminate, often impacting small businesses as well as national chains.
Big box retailer Target closed multiple problem stores in the Bay Area. San Francisco’s Nordstrom store in the Union Square Westfield mall decided to pack it up after 35 years because of the shifting “dynamic” of the city’s business environment.
Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers Association (CRA), has advocated on behalf of retailers large and small across the state, characterizing rising retail crime as an existential threat to the sector.
The group initially supported Prop. 36, and had a number of members that helped fund the measure early on. “We were also simultaneously working with the legislature on the legislative package, the 11 bills that were eventually signed by the governor,” she said, calling that legislation “more comprehensive in terms of addressing a lot of the different aspects… of retail theft.”
Michelin said that the group tries to stay out of the politics that tend to distract from the creation and advancement of effective policy—though she recognizes the tensions boiling behind the scenes and the different objectives at play.
Ultimately, it will take a multitude of measures to make a dent in retail crime, she believes—and none of them can happen in a vacuum.
Prop. 36 on its own would not have been a silver bullet, in her estimation—”but it passed into every county in California,” she said. “I think that says something. I think people were fed up, which is something I’ve been telling the legislature for the past three years. They didn’t believe how bad of a problem this was until it was almost too late.”
When the legislature finally got hip to the issue, it went broad and deep, creating avenues for cross-jurisdictional prosecution, giving district attorneys the ability to aggregate crimes in the pursuit of a felony charge, and creating penalties for fencing stolen goods, among other actions. Alongside voter-led Prop. 36, the toolkit for addressing retail crime has become more robust.
“What it comes down to is that ultimately, we need there to be consequences for the behavior. We want people to know that it is illegal to go into a store and steal,” Michelin said. “We need to protect our employees, we need to protect our customers, we want to create a safe working environment and a safe shopping environment.”
Retail hasn’t seen the consistent support it desperately needs to make this happen. “I hear a lot from my members that they’ll call, and it takes hour, two hours, three hours, for [law enforcement] to show up,” she said. “D.A.s also need to prosecute. We need to have people held accountable; that’s the only way we’re going to deter [retail crime] and see a sea change in California.”
Retail has played its part in advocating for and advancing policy, and the industry wants to see the powers that be take up the mantle now, according to Michelin.
“I know my members will be calling law enforcement—they will be doing their job,” she added. “We just need to make sure that that they do theirs. The ball is in their court, and we’ll see how this all plays out.”
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