“We are aware that there has been a shift in the climate of criminal justice reform,” said Loyola Law School professor Priscilla Ocen, a former special assistant attorney general at the California Department of Justice.

“I disagree with the premise that California is moving further to the right when it comes to the bad times of mass incarceration,” she said. “I think in some respects, yes, the electorate is frustrated by feelings of insecurity — despite the fact that those feelings are often not based on data in terms of how likely you are to be a victim of either a property crime or of a crime against a person. .”

The Yes to 36 campaign focused on “a sense of insecurity and uncertainty,” highlighting the most visible elements of crime in the pandemic era, Ocen said. In spite of all rates of violent and property crime much closer to them historic lows than their peaks, certain visible crimes, such as burglaries and car break-ins, have increased year-on-year since the pandemic through at least 2023, the latest year for which statistics are available.

“There’s a frustration that in addition to seeing homeless people routinely on the streets, there’s just feelings of unease, even if it’s not borne out in the data,” Ocen said.

Survey at the end of September showed that just as many likely voters favored expanding treatment and rehabilitation as those who favored harsher sentences.

Supporters of the measure insist the changes will not require the kind of mass incarceration that led to California’s massive prison overcrowding problem in the 1990s and 2000s.

What Californians see downtown

Claudia Oliveira, executive director of the Downtown Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, said downtown Los Angeles businesses have had to make adjustments since the pandemic to combat retail theft — a Burlington clothing factory, she said , moved all his merchandise to the store. second floor for a while due to repeated thefts from the ground floor.

“It’s not something we should be angry about, but sadder that we are in a place where people are not healthy and people are still living in poverty, where they have to steal,” she said.

“Sometimes people say ‘It’s just property crime so why do you care, they have insurance.’ Which is not always true. They have deductibles. I’ve seen small businesses close after being robbed. And it’s not always true that they have the resources to get back on their feet, especially in the inner city.”

Oliveira said he could not vote for Prop. 36 because it is undocumented. But she said she supported the measure because she hopes it will connect people with substance abuse or mental health problems to social services while preventing theft on the scale California has seen since its inception. the pandemic.

Jeff Ashook, 48, said his life in downtown Los Angeles has changed for the worse.

“I started working here in downtown Los Angeles before the pandemic, and I was living in Glendale at the time, and yes, I parked maybe about a half mile from where I work,” he said. “And I felt safe going to work. i did it

“After the pandemic – the homeless came back, but the police officers never came back.”

Ashook said he now lives downtown but drives the five blocks to work out of fear for his safety.

“And I’ve had colleagues who have actually been physically assaulted. Several colleagues who ended up going to the hospital in the short distance we were traveling,” he said. “So yeah, like I said, it made me a little more tired.”

Ultimately, Ashook said he could not support Prop. 36 due to projected costs.

“I don’t like that the fiscal impact (is) anywhere from a few tens of millions of dollars to a few hundred million,” he said. “It’s a lot of money. And don’t say where this money is coming from.”

Voters are shifting California crime priorities

In the end, Lofstrom said, it’s not really a contradiction to have voted for Prop. 47 in 2014 and also for Prop. 36 this year.

In 2014, the state was in urgent need reduce the prison populationfor practical reasons and because of a court decision to maintain the population at no more than 137.5% of the prison system’s capacity.

Today, the emergency is pushing in the other direction, he said. But the causes behind the increase in shoplifting and general property crime are still unclear, he said.

“We don’t know what’s driving the increase in retail theft. We don’t know how much of this is driven by economic and social challenges that lead to shoplifting,” he said.

Even with Prop. 36 on the books, Lofstrom said much about the implementation of the measure is still to be determined.

“Are the cops going to arrest you for this?” he asked. “Will prosecutors pursue these charges? It’s not certain how this will all play out.”

Joe Garcia is a California Local News contributor