FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) — California voters overwhelmingly handed Proposition 36 on Tuesday.
The legislation will reclassify some misdemeanor theft and drug crimes as felonies, creating a brand new class of crime known as ‘treatment-mandated felony.’
Those that are charged and convicted might go into therapy as an alternative of jail.
“We will after the third time that they’re caught with medication after two convictions file a felony and mandate them to drug therapy which can assist them, their households and the group tremendously,” Fresno County District Lawyer Lisa Smittcamp defined.
The brand new legislation rolls again Proposition 47, which was handed in 2014.
It has been extensively blamed for elevated retail thefts throughout the state like a smash-and-grab theft at DripOnDrip in North Fresno final yr.
Smittcamp says Prop 36 goals to discourage these kinds of crimes.
“For people who find themselves straight thugs and stealing issues as a result of it is handy and straightforward and acceptable, then these persons are the individuals we’re actually going to focus on to say, ‘No extra. We gave you two passes, two slaps on the wrist and now you are going to get a felony,'” Smittcamp stated.
Tulare County District Lawyer Tim Ward launched a press release that reads, partially:
“In Tulare County, the variety of petty thieves who’ve three or extra prior prison offenses is up 371% from earlier than the implementation of Proposition 47. As well as, 82% of petty theft offenders have already got a earlier and open pending case trailing in court docket. This new legislation ought to ship a message to those sorts of criminals in our county that my workplace will use each software given to us to carry them accountable.”
Prop 36 will even have stiffer penalties for these trafficking fentanyl, together with elevated time behind bars.
“The specter of jail generally is what stops individuals from this conduct,” Smittcamp stated.
“The specter of jail is what generally catapults individuals into drug therapy.”
UC Merced Political Science Professor Nate Monroe says critics of prop 36 may even see the legislation as an over-prosecution the place the punishment could also be too harsh for the crime itself.
“A consequence of that’s we we packed prisons, and we put, you recognize, lots of people had lots of people incarcerated for a very very long time,” Monroe defined.
“That created a number of stress and a number of financial, you recognize, funding in that.”
Proposition 36 will go into impact no later than December 18th and Smittcamp says the complete affect will take time to see.
“This is not the reply to prison behaviors and patterns in California, however this is step one,” Smittcamp stated.
California Governor Gavin Newsom had tried to maintain this proposition from passing.
In a press release despatched to Motion Information, Newsom defined his issues concerning the Prop 36, writing:
“Even earlier than this initiative handed, my workplace and the Legislature considerably strengthened the penalties for retail theft. My largest concern with Proposition 36 has been the regressive drug coverage written into this initiative. With its passage, native officers in California now have the troublesome activity of sorting by way of a brand new mandate for drug therapy that truly reduces native funding for these applications. I do not envy their work. We’re inspecting the affect of Proposition 36 to see if the state must delay its deliberate closure of prisons in California. Because the LAO has stated, we’ll want to create space for hundreds of recent inmates convicted of possessing medication – and that is going to value taxpayers, doubtless on the expense of different applications.”
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