Overview: Proposition 36, which reversed the progress made by Proposition 47 in criminal justice reform, has been criticized for its impact on immigrants and Black and Brown communities. The passage of Proposition 36 was influenced by a campaign by county sheriffs and their supporters who blamed Proposition 47 for rising crime rates, despite evidence to the contrary. The legislation also raised the stakes for immigrants and added new criminal penalties and enhancements for sentencing. The lack of dedicated funding for rehabilitation programs and the disparate treatment of Black individuals by racist district attorneys have also been criticized.
S.E. Williams
It’s been more than 10 years since California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 47, a long overdue and much warranted step forward in the push for criminal justice reform. The measure downgraded specific felonies to misdemeanors, including grand theft (under $950), larceny, personal drug use and check fraud.
Less than a decade later, however, voters were bamboozled into believing that crime had skyrocketed as a result of Proposition 47. Those who had railed against the bill, including sheriffs, police chiefs and police unions, claimed the rising crime was due to the lowering of charges and penalties resulting from the Proposition. As a result, in November 2024, with the Passage of Proposition 36, California voters not only reversed the criminal justice reform progress attained via Proposition 47, it added new criminal penalties and enhancements for sentencing.
Prop 36 also raised the stakes for immigrants in California. Most individuals who are not citizens, including long-time permanent residents, undocumented persons, refugees, DACA-recipients, etc., now face life-altering consequences not just for major felonies but now, for minor criminal convictions as well.
Sadly, at least to me, the passage of Prop 36 seemed inevitable. My sentiments proved to be correct. This was because as soon as the polls closed on Election Day 2014, and it was determined Prop 47 had passed with overwhelming voter support, county sheriffs, sheriff unions and their “tough on crime” supporters up and down the state began an aggressive campaign to overturn it. Having failed to stop its passage, they were doggedly determined to undermine it.
In the subsequent years, this coalition blamed anything that went wrong in California on Proposition 47. Jokingly, this included everything from drought to deluge, from poverty to poor air quality, for nearly ten years the blame game never stopped. According to them, everything bad that happened in California was because voters had passed Prop 47.
With millions of dollars on their side and county sheriffs using every media opportunity to spread the propaganda, by the time voters went to the polls in November 2024, the state’s majority were convinced voting “yes” on Prop 36 was the best option.
Did they vote “yes” because too many drank the Kool-aid believing that crime was out of control or was it because the legislation promised an option for rehabilitation?
In the years between 2014 and 2024, district attorneys in some California counties, including Riverside and Orange, played their role in the anti Prop 47 effort. They “contributed to skyrocketing incarceration rates, vast racial disparities in charging, and the criminalization of mental illness and poverty,” according to a 2022 report by the ACLU. A separate ACLU report found “57.1 percent of the 455,992 charges filed in Riverside County between 2017 and 2020 were for low-level offenses that should have been declined to charge or diverted.” However, DAs take no accountability for how their tactics impacted the narrative on rising crime.
California Governor Gavin Newsom determined in June that he would not fund Prop 36, citing budget constraints. Although supporters of the legislation listed above called for an annual $250–$400 million in state funding, it was only a request. It was not written into the legislation. So, exactly how they planned to provide drug rehab or mental health support without a dedicated source of funding seems disingenuous or perhaps it’s just an indication of where the supporters’ priorities really lie. It makes it appear the rehab portion of the bill was less a priority than having the opportunity to charge more crimes as felonies.
On October 1, the Judicial Council of California released its first report on the progress of Prop 36. According to the report, nearly 9,000 individuals were charged with a treatment-mandated felony, about 15%of them opted for treatment, 771 were placed in treatment programs and so far only 25 have completed it. This data is far from a ringing endorsement.
At this point it is difficult to see the benefits of Prop 36 for members of the Black and Brown communities–immigrants are at greater risk even without Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics and members of the Black community may now become even greater victims of racist District Attorneys like Riverside’s Mike Hestrin who seeks to earn his bonafides by using his position to further disparate treatment of Blacks who he overcharged even without the benefit of the misdemeanor to felony upgrades included in Proposition 36.
Of course this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.