Getting ‘Tough on Crime’ As an Excuse for Failure

What “everybody knows” about Prop 47 is not the truth

Democrats are responding to Republican charges that California is going to hell in a handbasket by acceding to both the framing of and misinformation about crime.

In Sacramento they’re rolling out a package of bills targeting retail theft. Their selling point was that the legislature was addressing shoplifting without compromising the landmark Proposition 47 criminal justice reform voters approved nearly a decade ago.

Speaker Robert Rivas and Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur are behind a proposal allowing police to make arrests without witnessing the incident or footage of it, creating a new criminal offense targeting “serial” theft, and allowing the value of stolen items from multiple retailers within 60 days to be aggregated into felony grand theft.

“Organized retail crime and theft are harming our communities, undermining business owners and eroding people’s confidence in law and order. That ends today,” Rivas told Politico’s California Playbook.

Cough, cough. Tough talk. But will it be enough to blunt an effort by the law and order crowd to roll back parts of Prop 47?

Backers of a proposed measure undoing several of those decade-old reforms are saying they have enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. The deadline for the group to submit the 546,651 signatures needed is April 23.

Proposition 47 has become the straw man for those seeking an excuse for law enforcement failures to abate property theft crimes and is used by right wing politicians as part of their pitch about a non-existent crime wave.

There simply isn’t evidence of California’s criminal justice reforms being connected to rates of lawbreaking. What gets bandied about as evidence is nearly always some event where Prop 47’s reforms don’t apply.   

From KQED:

• One of the most common attacks on Proposition 47 is over its provision that raised the felony threshold for theft from $400 to $950, meaning that in order for prosecutors to charge a felony, the value of stolen goods would have to exceed $950.

• But there’s no evidence in California or elsewhere that increasing that dollar threshold for felony shoplifting has led to more theft, according to Pew’s Jake Horowitz, who has conducted research on the issue.

• His research looked at 30 states that raised their felony threshold between 2000 and 2012 and found no evidence that it resulted in increased property crime. In fact, theft rates continued to decline after the change. In general, he said, there’s no correlation between property crime rates and the felony threshold.

Despite $25 billion in funding, law enforcement in California has a 7.2% clearance rate (arrest made) for property crimes of all sorts, according to a recent report. In San Diego, the clearance rate was 8% for property crimes, according to this interactive map.

Via KQED:

• But critics blame Proposition 47 for a host of issues, from an increase in drug use and homelessness to what they say is a spike in shoplifting and retail theft, even though state data doesn’t fully support that claim. A KQED investigation found no major increase in reported shoplifting or overall theft since the measure passed, though the crimes appear to be underreported — but the investigation did find a large drop in arrest rates for theft over the past decade.

• The proposed measure wouldn’t entirely repeal Proposition 47, but it would gut some of its key provisions, which were aimed at keeping lower level criminals and drug users out of jail and prison. The proposal would make it easier to charge repeat offenders with a felony and increase penalties for organized retail theft rings. It would also stiffen penalties for selling fentanyl and other “hard drugs” such as heroin, methamphetamines and cocaine. And it would mandate as much as a year in jail for possessing those same drugs — though the ballot measure also gives judges the option of diverting those accused of possession into drug treatment programs. 

In fact, a major factor in property crime enforcement –actual arrests– is the most significant statistical change in recent years.

Via the Sacramento Bee:

• Brian Marvel of the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), a pro-law enforcement organization, said in an email statement to The Bee that at first glance, “the report seems to be missing some important context when it comes to crime clearance rates.”

• He said that it misses that the number of sworn police officers in the state is “well below” 1990s levels, and that Californian attitudes toward police have soured in recent years.

• Marvel said that all those issues “have a massive impact” on police’s ability to deter or solve crimes.

Marvel has a point. He just misses the context. There is a nationwide problem with police staffing. More officers quit or retire than are recruited.

He says Californian attitudes have “soured.” Again, this is a national problem. Confidence in police has been on the decline, and it’s reasonable to say that publicity over actions perceived as negative has played a role. Attitudes toward police and law enforcement reflect political affiliations, economic status, and ethnic backgrounds.

And then there’s the ever-present “crime wave,” as implied or asserted in the campaign materials for Republican County Supervisor candidates Jim Desmond and Kevin Faulconer.

Here’s the scariest thing you need to know about crime waves; they’re largely made up.

Implicit in commonplace explanations about law enforcers is that outsiders are the problem. In some places it’s the state government, in others it’s the city council, and, if those two options aren’t available, it’s some manifestation of what the speaker defines as woke politics. 

I would say San Diego is representative of how police agencies and the unions representing officers have responded to these changes in public attitudes. After scandals become public, police officials promise reforms; politicians will say they have confidence in their departments to do the right thing… rinse and repeat.

I’m certain we wouldn’t be hearing so much about San Diego County’s jail deaths problem if actual changes in policies and procedures had been implemented since we “changed” sheriffs. Is the public going to have a better view of law enforcement after untold millions are paid out in wrongful death lawsuits? Is it the fault of Jeff MacDonald (UT reporter) and Kelly Davis (freelancer) that facilities housing mostly people not convicted of any charge (or, worse, mentally ill) are unsafe?

It’s the simple stuff that gives law enforcers away, namely that those wearing badges are entitled to more privileges (unrelated to their duties) that the average citizen. 

Why wouldn't a county sheriff want to go through a scanner when reporting at local correctional facilities? Why did the SDPD get away with not obeying (or making excuses) a common sense order to get vaccinated during a pandemic? Why would an officer caught perjuring themselves escape legal consequences?

I’ve heard the excuses. Excuses are for losers. And a big percentage of the public is onto the essential wrongness of being above the law. Police departments nationwide have lowered standards for recruitment in order to fill staffing quotas. People would be more willing to serve and protect if they also weren’t asked to participate in an “us vs them” tradition covering up a multitude of sins.

So when the law and order types come calling for votes to undo criminal justice reforms not proven to encourage or allow crime, tell them you know that California doesn’t have a crime problem, we have a police problem.

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Tuesday’s News to Think About

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Librarians fear new penalties, even prison, as activists challenge books via Associated Press

• “Until recently, police and prosecutors were unable to pursue charges against public libraries over materials that make certain individuals uncomfortable. These exemptions have prevented spurious prosecutions of teachers over health and sexuality curriculum, art, theater, and difficult subjects in English classes,” stated a 2023 report from EveryLibrary, a national political action committee that opposes censorship.

• Arkansas and Indiana targeted educators and librarians with criminalization laws last year. Tennessee criminalized publishers that provide “obscene” materials to public schools.

• Some Republicans are seeking penalties and restrictions that would apply nationwide. Referring to “pornography” in the foreword to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a possible second Donald Trump administration, the right-wing group’s president, Kevin Roberts, wrote that the “people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.”

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Republican Suggests Thousands of Seniors Shouldn't Be Voting via Newsweek

• While Hovde did not support Trump's unproven claims the 2020 presidential election was stolen via widespread fraud, he did share some concerns about the election when pressed.

• "We had nursing homes, where the sheriff of Racine investigated, where you had 100 percent voting in nursing homes. If you're in a nursing home, you only have five, six months life expectancy," he said.

• He continued: "Almost no one in a nursing home is in a point to vote, and you had children, adult children, saying, 'Who voted for my 85 or 90-year-old father or mother?"

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Most abortions banned in Arizona after state Supreme Court upholds 1864 law via KTAR

• Abortions are essentially being banned in Arizona after the state Supreme Court issued a highly anticipated ruling Tuesday that turned the clock back to a law passed in 1864.

• The state’s highest court overturned a December 2022 appeals court decision that said doctors couldn’t be prosecuted under the pre-statehood abortion ban.

• As a result, it will be illegal to perform an abortion in Arizona except when necessary to save the life of the mother. The ban goes into effect 14 days from the ruling.