Deodorant, shampoo and underwear are under lock and key in many stores in California. Retail clerks are often told to ignore shoplifters after a handful of store employees who confronted thieves were assaulted or killed. Video clips of smash-and-grab crews snatching armloads of merchandise have gone viral. Californians of all political stripes have become fed up with the problems plaguing supermarkets and retail stores, not to mention car break-ins and open-air drug use. Some top Democrats, including Mayor London Breed of San Francisco, have joined conservatives in denouncing a cascade of smaller crimes that have contributed to a sense of lawlessness in major cities. Now the state’s lawmakers and voters are weighing what to do, reports the New York Times. With public sentiment in the state shifting toward stiffer punishment, California finds itself debating whether to roll back decade-old changes that sharply reduced the state’s inmate count and made it a leader in reducing mass incarceration.
A coalition of law enforcement figures, business owners and relatives of fentanyl addicts want to reverse the 2014 ballot measure known as Proposition 47, which reduced penalties for shoplifting and drug possession. With financial help from the giant retailers Target, Home Depot and Walmart, the coalition has qualified a ballot measure for the November election that would impose harsher punishments for crimes that result in lighter charges or no prosecution today. Gov. Gavin Newsom has acknowledged the state’s crime problems. Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders say that changing Proposition 47 is the wrong way to go. They argue that the new ballot measure would result in thousands more incarcerations, at a cost to the state of hundreds of millions of dollars, at a time when Democratic leaders want to close prisons. They want to leave Proposition 47 intact, and pass legislation in August that would tighten laws on retail theft and repeat offenders. The fate of Proposition 47 will be decided by California’s nearly 27 million eligible voters in November. Nearly a million people signed a petition to amend Proposition 47 by imposing tougher sentences for shoplifting and drug possession.
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