In summary
Governor Gavin Newsom signed bills to make shoplifting more punishable and is asking voters to reject a ballot bill that would impose even harsher penalties.
Governor Gavin Newsom, still reeling from his public defeat last month, today signed a package of legislation that he and lawmakers hope will address rising shoplifting.
The 10 bills are designed to make it easier to prosecute people suspected of shoplifting or car theft, while also reversing changes passed by voters a decade ago that shortened prison sentences for nonviolent crimes.
A separate ballot bill, Proposition 36, will go before voters in November that would go even further and increase penalties for property crimes and fentanyl-related offenses. Newsom and other Democrats oppose the ballot bill, which they say would return to policies they say have failed to improve public safety even as they filled prisons with nonviolent offenders.
The bills signed by Newsom would make repeat convictions for theft a felony, consolidate crimes from multiple counties in one court so they can be charged as felonies, and allow police to arrest someone on suspicion of shoplifting even if the officer does not witness the crime.
Shoplifting and retail theft are “the issue that is at the forefront of the minds of so many Californians,” Newsom said today at the signing at a Home Depot in San Jose, where he was accompanied by Democratic lawmakers and Attorney General Rob Bonta. “We are not new to this problem.”
“That’s the reality. Grocers and retailers understand that,” Newsom said.
Newsom’s signature comes 45 days after the failure of a crime-fighting bill he had hoped would fend off Republicans and some conservative Democrats who were demanding sweeping changes to a decade-long project to reduce California’s prison population. The bill would have put an additional measure on the November ballot to compete with Prop. 36.
A group of Democrats opposed or refused to vote for the bill because they said it would disproportionately affect communities of color while reinstating some of the sentencing policies that once required California’s prisons to house more than double their prison capacity.
Republican House Speaker James Gallagher of Chico said Newsom resisted tougher penalties for theft until public opinion and crime statistics forced him to do so.
“Gavin Newsom did nothing about shoplifting for five years,” Gallagher said. “He did not take a leadership role on this issue until it became politically expedient for him this year.”
“Then the guy has the audacity to stand there like he’s the master at fighting shoplifting, even though he’s not.”
A new poll suggests voters favor tougher penalties for some crimes. A Los Angeles Times poll of more than 3,000 likely voters found strong support for Prop. 36 and significant concerns about shoplifting. About 56% of respondents said they would vote yes.
Poll director Mark DiCamillo attributed support for tougher crime-fighting measures to the “high visibility” of retail crime.
Property crime statistics show that property crime rates in 2023 – particularly shoplifting and commercial burglary – skyrocketed following the COVID-19 pandemic higher than at any time since at least 2000, according to an analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California. The authors noted that shoplifting tends to be underreported, so the actual numbers are likely higher.
Democrats say they are hearing from voters about crime and that some of them are breaking with Newsom to support House Bill 36.
“While these bills are an important first step in addressing the shoplifting crisis, they are just that – a first step,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a Democrat who supports Proposition 36, in a written statement. “To fully address the rise in shoplifting, one must recognize one of the root causes of these thefts – drug and alcohol addiction. Like the governor, I never want to return to the era of mass incarceration. But now is the time to usher in the era of mass treatment.”
Voters in California could repeal Bill 47
In 2014, voters passed Proposition 47, which would relieve pressure on California’s overcrowded prisons by making some crimes a misdemeanor. Among those changes was raising the maximum fine for shoplifting to $950.
Proposition 47 elevated some low-level drug possession charges to misdemeanors, and people convicted of those charges before 2014 could now have them reclassified as misdemeanors.
This restructuring of the criminal justice system has had measurable effects: A report released in February by the Board of State and Community Corrections found that the state saved $93 million between 2019 and 2023 by keeping more than 21,000 people out of prison and offering them treatment for substance abuse and mental illness instead.
According to the study, the recidivism rate among these 21,000 people was 15.3%, well below the national rate of about 40%.
In the decade since, Prop. 47 has become a target of conservatives and has been blamed by some sheriffs and prosecutors for the spread of viral videos of department store shoplifters and the rise of certain property crimes.
This year, they proposed a rollback – Prop. 36 – that would allow prosecutors to charge people with drug possession or theft of less than $950 on a third offense. It would also allow for harsher penalties for people who traffic fentanyl and kill someone as a result.
Newsom said the proposal to repeal Prop. 47 would cost the state billions of dollars, primarily by increasing spending on prisons and the criminal justice system.
“These things are a direct cause and effect relationship,” Newsom said. “We went through that in the ’80s, we went through that in the ’90s with mass incarceration. Crime was higher, not lower. I don’t want to go back.”
The bill would create a “treatment-requiring felony” that would allow people convicted of multiple drug possession offenses to undergo drug and mental health treatment instead of going to prison.
In addition, it could cost the prison system hundreds of millions of dollars a year to house more people.
New laws against shoplifting
Newsom signed the following bills:
- Senate Bill 905, by Democratic Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco, closes the “locked door loophole” that required prosecutors to prove that someone broke into a locked vehicle in order to convict a suspect of auto burglary.
- House Bill 1779, by Rep. Jacqui Irwin, a Democrat from Thousand Oaks, would allow prosecutors to consolidate crimes from multiple counties into one court so they can be charged as capital crimes.
- Senate Bill 1144 by Senator Nancy Skinner, a Democrat from Berkeley, makes it easier to prosecute organized retail theft rings that sell stolen goods on online platforms.
- House Bill 2943, by Rep. Rick Chavez Zbur, a Democrat from Los Angeles, makes it easier for police to arrest people on suspicion of shoplifting when officers do not observe a crime. It allows prosecutors to collect thefts from a suspect to meet the $950 limit for grand larceny charges.
- House Bill 1802, by Representative Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat from Los Angeles, would make organized shoplifting a criminal offense and create permanent regional task forces to combat property crime, which had been slated for dissolution.
- House Bill 3209, by Rep. Marc Berman, a Democrat from Palo Alto, would allow businesses to seek injunctions against people who harass their employees, steal from their stores or vandalize them.
- The 1972 California Assembly bill by Representative Juan Alanis, a Republican from Modesto, directs the California Highway Patrol to work with the railroad police to specifically combat freight theft.
- Senate Bill 1242, by Democratic Senator Dave Min of Irvine, would impose harsher penalties on people convicted of arson in connection with a shoplifting incident.
- Senate Bill 1416, by Senator Josh Newman, a Democrat from Fullerton, would impose tougher penalties for the sale or attempted exchange of stolen goods.
- Senate Bill 982, by Senator Aisha Wahab, a Democrat from Fremont, would remove the statute of limitations for organized shoplifting.
