One California police department released video of two shoplifters learning about a new state law the hard way. Proposition 36, a California ballot measure turning some shoplifting crimes into felonies, with nearly 70% of the vote in November 2024.
It reverses a 2014 measure which downgraded some shoplifting offenses to misdemeanors. Supporters pitched the move as a cost-saving measure and an opportunity to focus on treatment instead of sending people to prison.
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But since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, shoplifting rates are rising in California. Statewide, the rate of theft of goods worth up to $950 went up by 28 percent over the past five years, according to research from the Public Policy Institute of California.
Local police departments, including the Seal Beach Police Department who released the shoplifting video, backed restoring the felony punishment for the shoplifting offenses.
However, Democratic state leaders and criminal justice reform advocates aren’t so sure.
Both groups said the laws will mostly imprison poor people and people with substance or mental health issues. They also said that the change will take away resources from targeting the ring-leaders of larger-scale operations aiming to steal goods and resell them online.
The change may also send prison populations upward. The group Californians for Safety and Justice, aiming to reduce spending on prisons and jails, says the law change will add 130,000 more people to California’s jail system each year.
