A War on Drugs Revival
Retail Is Retreating Despite Prop 36
Last fall voters in California approved Proposition 36, a measure in large measure offered in response to media accounts of spiraling petty theft at retailers throughout the state. Also, in 2024, Gov. Newsom signed 16 laws specifically aimed at those arrested for shoplifting/retail theft.
Walmart, Target and Home Depot each made seven-figure donations to the campaign in support of Prop 36, which promised harsher sentences for repeat offenders in petty theft and drug possession. Prop 36 went into effect December 8, 2024. The legislature’s bills went into effect on January 1, 2025.
Looking at the justifications for this crime crackdown, two factors were downplayed or excluded. Crimes reported by retail outlets on financial statements don’t generally differentiate between internal inventory losses (accounting errors, employee theft) and external theft. Errors in reporting were falsely used as reasons to support the premise of increasing incarceration.
And there are the dinosaur issues, namely that retail merchandising as we know it is declining. Many big retail brands have been closing physical locations, in what has become known as the “retail apocalypse.” In 2024, store closures exceed store openings. Inventory shrinkage has been attributed to closures, and in many cases has been disproven after the fact.
Via Popular Information:
In 2021, Walgreens closed five stores in San Francisco, blaming theft. The data did not support that claim. In January 2023, Walgreens' Chief Financial Officer admitted the company "cried too much" about shoplifting and was actually "quite happy " with the level of "shrink" at its stores.
Target closed stores nationwide, blaming shoplifting, including a location in South Market in San Francisco. Via SFist:
But CNBC dug into the numbers, and the crime excuse suddenly seems less plausible. CNBC analyzed data and found that particular SoMa Target had the fewest reported crime incidents of any Target in the Bay Area. Moreover, they found the same pattern where the Target stores simultaneously closed in Portland, Seattle, and New York City all had significantly lower reported crime incidents than the ones that remain open.
Crimes including shoplifting are a problem for many retailers. But I would posit that the attention to the problem in the media and elsewhere was used as a justification by groups seeking to influence public opinion in a rightward direction.
Promises made by supporters of Prop 36 included diversions for drug treatment but did not identify a source for funding facilities needed. Nor did they acknowledge the existing shortage of detox beds throughout the state. And, although relapses are part of many addiction recoveries, a stumble by someone sentenced under Prop 36 lands them in jail and out of their program.
Granted, it’s too early in the justice cycle to make conclusions about the impact of these tough on crime measures, but there is data about arrests.
This past weekend, reporters with the San Diego Union Tribune examined arrests connected with the crime fighting packages. What they found was that arrests for drug crimes outpaced retail theft by a 3 to 1 ratio. A large number of those arrested for either category had significant rap sheets, with some arrests going back two decades.
Nearly all defendants charged by the County District Attorney were released on their own recognizance after arraignment. If one were to take an uncharitable view of those releases you’d be hearing about criminals running loose on the streets of San Diego.
From the Union-Tribune article:
Since Proposition 36 took effect, the population at the Central Jail — the county’s main intake facility for men — has risen beyond its rated capacity of 944 beds. As of Friday, the Central Jail held 1,027 people.
Gay Grunfeld, the lead attorney in a class-action lawsuit against San Diego County over conditions in its seven jails, said overcrowding can take a toll on housing set aside for vulnerable populations, like the jail’s mental health unit and medical unit.
An early settlement in the lawsuit created units for people with disabilities, though an inspection in May by one of Grunfeld’s experts — conducted well before Proposition 36 took effect — found people sleeping on mattresses on the floor and conditions she described as “unsafe and unsanitary.”
The nearly $100 million annually saved by decreasing incarceration under the auspices of 2014’s Proposition 47 was redirected to fund drug treatment, mental health, and reentry programs. Only 15.3% of participants in these programs were convicted of a new felony or misdemeanor, according to a report by the California Board of Corrections, a far lower rate than California's overall criminal recidivism rate of 35-45%.
By increasing incarcerated populations, Prop 36 could cost "hundreds of millions of dollars each year" according to the California Legislature's non-partisan Legislative Analyst's office. Those increasingly will have the impact of reducing programs funded by Proposition 47.
Here’s the deal: throwing a bunch of people in jail for non-violent offenses will have a negligible effect on crime. Via The Brookings Institute:
The consequences for communities could be dire. Years of extensive research demonstrate that neither prosecuting low-level offenses nor increasing punishments based on second or third offenses meaningfully deters crime. A definitive analysis of 116 studies showed that incarceration does not deter people from committing future crimes and, in fact, incarceration for short periods can actually make someone more likely to be arrested and commit crimes later (due to heightened barriers to securing employment, identification, housing, and other basic services necessary to successfully reenter society).
Here in San Diego, throwing non-violent offenders in jail can amount to a death sentence. The County Sheriff and her department are determined to keep detention of suspects not yet afforded a trial in life-threatening situations. Consider this story from Jeff MacDonald and Kelly Davis at the UT:
Early last year, Brandon Yates was arrested on suspicion of burglary and booked into San Diego’s Central Jail. He had been found asleep in someone’s backyard shed.
Yates, who was 24 with a long history of mental illness, was dead within 24 hours.
He was beaten and tortured by his cellmate — even though Yates repeatedly pressed the panic button inside his cell, and even though other men in the jail yelled that he was in trouble, a new lawsuit against San Diego County and Sheriff Kelly Martinez alleges.
Don’t get me wrong. There should be punishments for breaking the law. Incarceration should serve the purpose of keeping violent criminals out of our communities, while at least making an effort at rehabilitation.
There should be preventative measures that discourage retail theft, like cracking down on the online marketplaces that serve as repositories for stolen retail goods. Your average junkie isn’t going to try to sell a hair drier lifted from Target on the street, but there are buyers for online operations with cash, no questions asked.
Unfortunately, since online transactions don’t respect state boundaries, the ultimate power for shutting down this crime pipeline would be the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, one of the first agencies shuttered by the Trump/Musk administration.
Costco employees are a great example of what retailers could do to create buy-in to the point where staff feels honor bound to protect store property. And, yes, DEIA is part of that equation. Nineteen Republican State Attorney Generals are threatening legal action to make Costco more like Walmart.
Also from the Brookings Institute:
Indeed, evidence shows that a broad range of preventative investments—from Medicaid expansion to summer jobs, SNAP funding, public school funding, guaranteed income, expanded access to substance abuse treatment, the number of nonprofits, decreases in inequality, and increases in the minimum wage—can serve to reduce property crime. See this report and this evidence brief for more information regarding evidence-informed safety solutions.
Proposition 36 won’t reduce or prevent crimes against retail outlets, but it’s certain to put more bodies into jails for drug offenses. And we all remember just how effective the War on Drugs was, right? /s
DOGE Is Working on Software That Automates the Firing of Government Workers by Makena Kelly at Wired
Engineers for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are working on new software that could assist mass firings of federal workers across government, sources tell WIRED.
The software, called AutoRIF, which stands for Automated Reduction in Force, was first developed by the Department of Defense more than two decades ago. Since then, it’s been updated several times and used by a variety of agencies to expedite reductions in workforce. Screenshots of internal databases reviewed by WIRED show that DOGE operatives have accessed AutoRIF and appear to be editing its code. There is a repository in the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) enterprise GitHub system titled “autorif” in a space created specifically for the director’s office—where Musk associates have taken charge—soon after Trump took office. Changes were made as recently as this weekend.
So far, federal agency firings have been conducted manually, with HR officials combing through employee registries and lists provided by managers, sources tell WIRED. Probationary employees—those who were recently hired, promoted, or otherwise changed roles—have been targeted first, as they lack certain civil service protections that would make them harder to fire. Thousands of workers have been terminated over the last few weeks across multiple agencies. With new software and the use of AI, some government employees fear that large-scale terminations could roll out even more quickly.
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21 DOGE staffers resign, saying they won't help 'dismantle' public services by Bobby Allyn at NPR
In their Tuesday letter, the DOGE employees noted that about 40 staffers in the office were laid off last week. They had been working on improving the technical systems behind Social Security, veterans' services, disaster relief and other government functions.
"Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on these services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems and Americans' data less safe," the resigning employees, who did not list their names, wrote in the letter to Wiles.
Among the 40 who were terminated earlier this month was Jonathan Kamens, a DOGE engineer who said he believes he was targeted for publicly endorsing Kamala Harris for president.
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The Hollow Men of Silicon Valley by Mike Brock at Notes From The Circus
When Musk talks about AI governance or Thiel waxes poetic about seasteading utopias, they're not just proposing alternative political systems. They're advocating for a fundamental rewiring of human society that strips away the very things that make us human. They offer a world where decisions are made not based on compassion, empathy, or a sense of shared humanity, but on cold calculations of utility and efficiency.
Democracy is messy because it allows people to be irrational, passionate, and unpredictable. AI governance, by contrast, seeks to optimize society by removing human discretion. But once you remove human discretion, you remove choice. And without choice, democracy is dead.
This is the dark underbelly of Silicon Valley utopianism. It's a vision of the future that has no place for the Humean understanding of human nature, no room for the passions that drive us, the emotions that connect us, the feelings that make life worth living. It's a sterile, algorithmic authoritarianism that promises perfect efficiency at the cost of our humanity.
