California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 36 on Tuesday, capping a chaotic 10 months of bargaining and wrangling at the state Capitol where Democratic leaders unsuccessfully sought to preserve a decade of criminal justice reform.
Instead, the campaign to increase penalties for theft and repeated convictions for drug possession won out.
, opposed by , reclassiffies some misdemeanor theft and drug crimes as felonies.
The measure also creates a new category of crime 鈥� a 鈥�.鈥� People who don鈥檛 contest criminal charges after multiple drug possession convictions could complete drug treatment instead of going to prison, but if they don鈥檛 finish treatment, they still face up to three years in prison.
Property crime after the pandemic while the state, counties and local governments have struggled to contain and control sidewalk encampments of homeless people.
was pitched by its supporters as an answer to those concerns. Led by the retail industry, those supporters pledged that the measure would target drug traffickers and people who commit multiple acts of retail theft.
They raised about $17 million for the measure, which in addition to big checks from major retailers also included contributions from the California District Attorneys Association and the .
Opponents raised about $7.7 million, which included contributions from the ACLU, teachers unions and the labor organization Service Employees International Union.
Prop. 36 reverses some of the changes California voters made to the criminal justice system a decade ago with Proposition 47, which lowered the penalties for some crimes while seeking to reduce the state鈥檚 then-swollen prison population.
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