Sacramento homeless, C St. near/around Stanford Park. (Photo: sacra.org)
When Will Democrats Admit California’s Prop. 47 Has Been Cataclysmic?
Make crime illegal again
By Katy Grimes, January 23, 2024 8:07 am
California’s Proposition 47 has been a man-made disaster… cataclysmic… a catastrophe. Need more descriptors?
How about, “Make crime illegal again” in California.
There have been numerous attempts to repeal and/or reverse Proposition 47, which was passed by tragically misinformed voters in 2014, and flagrantly titled “The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act” by then Attorney General Kamala Harris, which reduced a host of serious felonies to misdemeanors, including drug crimes, date rape, and all thefts under $950, even for repeat offenders who steal every day.
Prop. 47 which also decriminalized drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, removed law enforcement’s ability to make an arrest in most circumstances, as well as removing judges’ ability to order drug rehabilitation programs rather than incarceration.
The commensurate escalation of crime throughout California is stunning. And there is no coincidence that during this same time period, the exponential escalation of homeless vagrants and drug addicts on the streets occurred.
California’s largest cities resemble third world hellscapes, with people living in stolen tents on sidewalks, covering the sidewalks with human defecation, urine and vomit, garbage strewn on city streets, drug addicts shooting up in public, drug sales, public sex acts, and violence – street fights between vagrants, and open harassment of passers by, with virtually little to no policing.
Sacramento’s District Attorney Thien Ho, a Democrat, has been a pioneer on homeless legal issues, filing the first of its kind lawsuit against the City of Sacramento in September for failing to abate the homeless crisis in the Capitol city. “The city instead chose to enforce some of the laws some of the time against some of the people,” DA Ho says in the lawsuit.
DA Ho said Sacramento’s homeless crisis has exploded by more than 250% in just 7 years, and described the city as collapsing into chaos and said Sacramento’s homeless crisis has become an “erosion of every day life.”
When will Legislative Democrats admit that Prop. 47 has been a disaster for the entire state?
There may be a light on the horizon… it’s an election year.
Some Democrats are starting to imply that parts of Prop. 47 need to be “Reconsidered.” Reevaluated. Reexamined. Revised. Rehashed. Reassessed.
Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) who is running for Sacramento Mayor, is now saying parts of Prop. 47 need to be repealed. “McCarty, the new chair of the Assembly Public Safety committee, introduced legislation to reform Prop. 47,” Spectrum1 News reported. “I think the people of California want us to act, but they don’t necessarily want us to go back to, let’s say, the mid-90s and mass incarceration. They want us to be smart on these things,” McCarty said.
According to a 2022 UC Berkeley IGS poll, 59% of the people support making changes to Prop 47, while 30% don’t want to see the law amended.
Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, a former Democratic Assemblyman, testified at the Select Committee on Retail Theft and stressed there is no accountability when it comes to these crimes. He said his office doesn’t get statistics from retailers, theft is underreported and some stores are told not to report it, ABC10 reported in December.
That Assembly Democrats even created the Select Committee on Retail Theft is breakthrough. But California doesn’t need a legislative committee “to identify policy solutions to this ongoing crisis.” How dangerous and disgusting does California have to get before Democrats will repeal Prop. 47?
Don’t expect miracles. Plenty of the left insists that “Prop. 47 is working.,” including one of the authors of the disastrous initiative. Lenore Anderson, president of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, co-authored Prop 47 still stands by this law despite growing criticism of its effectiveness, ABC 10 reported. “Anderson sees the positives in the law she helped write.”
“Without a doubt, it’s been overwhelmingly successful,” she said. “Nothing in Proposition 47 prevents local and state law enforcement from responding appropriately to the kind of retail theft that voters are concerned about,” Anderson said.
She claims “More than half a billion dollars has been reallocated from state prisons to community-based public safety programs.” Where is the evidence that this funding reallocation has helped anyone?
She also served on the Executive Committee for California’s Proposition 57 to expand prison rehabilitation – which has only served the criminals, turning many violent offenses into “non-violent” offenses. Influence Watch reports “Founded in 2016, the Alliance for Safety and Justice was created as a project of the Tides Center, associated with the Tides Foundation, a major left-of-center grantmaking organization.” The Alliance has received $18 million from the Open Philanthropy Project Fund(OPPF), a left-of-center, Silicon Valley-based charity.
As the Globe has consistently and repeatedly reported, in addition to Prop. 47, there were two other big legal changes that fostered the anarchy, violence and chaos in California today.
Assembly Bill 109, in 2011, was then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature legislation he sold as “prison realignment.” However, AB 109 only served to overwhelm county jails by re-housing “nonviolent” state offenders from prison. AB 109 has been a failure. “Governor Brown had a choice. He could have built more prisons, but instead he reduced the population by releasing or pushing inmates to local county jails, which are not designed to house someone past a year and prevents law enforcement from taking low-level offenders in,” Ronald A. Lawrence, the Citrus Heights Chief of Police and President of the California Police Chiefs Association, told the Globe in 2020.
Proposition 47, as we describe above, decriminalized most theft. Notably, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) opposed Prop. 47, concerned that it would reclassify a wide range of crimes from a felony to a misdemeanor, and would result in the re-sentencing and release of thousands of individuals already convicted of these crimes. She was correct, as her concerns came to fruition.
Proposition 57, shamelessly titled “the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act,” now allows nonviolent felons to qualify for early release, and parole boards can now only consider an inmate’s most recent charge, and not their entire history because of this proposition.
Notably, both Prop. 47 and 57 were given their ballot titles by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Crimes now considered “nonviolent” under Proposition 57 in California include:
- human trafficking of a child
- rape of an unconscious person or by intoxication
- drive by shooting at inhabited dwelling or vehicle
- assault with a firearm or deadly weapon
- assault on a police officer
- serial arson
- exploding a bomb to injure people
- solicitation to commit murder
- assault from a caregiver to a child under eight years old that could result in a coma or death
- felony domestic violence.
No Democrat has of yet openly admitted that the crimes of human trafficking a child or a drive by shooting are indeed violent crimes, and need to be reclassified back.
In 2022, Democrats killed Assembly Bill 1599 by Assemblymen Kevin Kiley, James Gallagher, and Jim Patterson, to repeal Proposition 47, and “make crime illegal again,” despite overwhelming support at the hearing from elected District Attorneys, elected Sheriffs, police officers associations, chambers of commerce, businesses and shopping malls.
Despite overwhelming evidence of rampant crime throughout the state, Gov. Gavin Newsom has continually praised Proposition 47, Proposition 57 and AB 109, claiming they had helped reduce crime in the state, rather than doubling down on the source of these crimes. Of course they “reduced” crime in the state – the criminals can’t get arrested any longer for these supposed “non-violent” crimes.
The people of California want the crime to stop. Now.
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Propositions 47 and 57 have been destructively cataclysmic just as deep-state legislative Democrats intended? It’s part of their Cloward–Piven strategy of forcing societal collapse through orchestrated crises leading that eventually leads to an oppressive and authoritarian globalist dictatorship?
By their standards it has been a big success. Democrats not only want to destroy the state they want to destroy the country.
Dont forget who organized the raising of money for both propositions, Jerry Brown. The big contributors of cash were the usual union suspects, the ACLU, and whole bunch of Democratic Party dark money lobby front organized. Plus a million each from Zuckerberg, Reed Hastings (of Netflix), and Tom Steyer.
Thats who paid to fill the city streets with criminals and junkies.
Can we not use Prop 8 from 1982 to shut down this insanity? Prop 8 is in the state Constitution whereas both Props 47 and 57 were just Proposition statutes. Plus based on the state constitution and the case law “Home Rule” counties and cities might have another avenue to shut down this very dangerous Propositions at the local level. Using the powers given them in the state constitution to overrule the Proportion statutes within their jurisdiction.
There are a lot of very interesting features in the state constitution. I’m surprised the devolved powers are not used more to shut down the most insane parts of Sacramento and political cranks Proposition politics at the local level. The Oxford Commentary by Grodin et al is a fascinating read.
I don’t think that the Democrats are able/willing to admit that they are wrong. It’s actually standing by laws like this that will ultimately lead to their impending doom.
NEVER!!!
Enough Already. I’m not quite sure what perspective your comment comes from. Either way (liberal or conservative) you will see doom come to the liberal perspective. Momentum is on the side of life and freedom. The enemies of life and freedoms grip is starting to weaken.
What I mean is that the Democrats will NEVER admit that they were completely wrong with this bill.
Just the naming of both propositions such as Prop 47, “The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act” should show us it was always the intent to deceive the uniformed voter. It is doing exactly what it was intended to do, create chaos! Then they can bring more draconian change in order to bring change such as the CCW restrictions now on the books. The good guys get punished!
The democrats will go down with the sinking ship, their tribal ties are strong. Their followers think they have brought justice reform.
This only changes when they are out of office or they are personally faced with a true tragedy of their own making!
Truer words were never spoken, “The people of California want the crime to stop. Now.”
And we want this stuff REPEALED. Not “amended,” “fixed,” fiddled with in any way. Too complicated.
Keep it simple: REPEAL.
Politicians who dare to run on “repeal,” will find themselves with more backers than they can handle, I’m guessing. Take a simple and direct stand and I bet you will gain more than you lose. Even the rank-and-file Dems have had enough of the fear and chaos.
We want the crime to STOP.
Your Democratic legislators will never admit that Prop. 47 has been a major disaster. They championed that proposition. Democrat (George Gascon) co-authored that bill and another Democrat, Kamala Harris (our “esteemed” Border Czar), titled it “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act”. Of course, your Democratic legislators live behind gated mansions with armed security. You ordinary citizens, on the other hand, are left to the wolves.
To admit that prop. 47 is a failure would be to admit that Kamala Harris is a failure, which when judged by her achievements she is, but she’s our first woman of color VP so the Dems. have to cover for her. I’d just like to know how they feel when an innocent is murdered by a “nonviolent” criminal who would be in jail if not for Prop. 47.
Get out of California.
Try REPEALED…
If for no other reason than it was proposed by the Cackler-In-Chief…
Very well written article Katy Grimes, thank you! Across the state, people need to call their State Assembly representatives and tell them to repeal these propositions. The voters were lied to when these propositions were on the ballot. We must be careful when voting in the future.
What about the biggest criminals creating havoc throughout our economy by billionaires like Reed Hastings, Zuckerberg, Amazon, that don’t pay living wages to all its employees nor do they pay their share of taxes. Taxes used to support social and mental programs to pull people out of poverty andctrest mental illness. In the 1950s and 1960s rich elites were taxed heavily which incentivized them to reinvest in their businesses and their employees. This system of creating the Ultra rich and the ultra poor dates back to the failed policies of Ronald Reagan and his high interest rates and trickle down economics that became a continuous drought for California economic downturn for the masses.