Step Aside Prop. 47, Proposition 36 Has Arrived

Proposition 36, one of six state ballot measures passed during the Nov. 5 election, went into effect Dec. 18 and local officials have divergent views on what Humboldt County residents can expect.

The proposition, which passed with 68.4 percent in favor statewide (and 56.52 percent in Humboldt County), repeals much of Proposition 47, a 2014 measure aimed at lowering prison overcrowding by reducing specific low-level theft and drug-related crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Money saved from fewer incarcerations under Proposition 47 was to be deposited into the Safe Neighborhood and Schools Funds and used to fund K-12 schools, victim services and mental health and substance-use treatment and diversion programs. But law enforcement officials and business owners throughout the state, including in Humboldt, came to blame Proposition 47 for reported increases in shoplifting and petty thefts.

Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal and District Attorney Stacey Eads were among those who supported Proposition 36, believing it will help address the problem of retail theft and drug crimes within the county. Both heavily emphasized the need for “accountability” for offenders. Others, meanwhile, worry the new law is a step backward that will result in more incarcerations.

Eads, for her part, says she is hopeful the new law will reduce retail theft and help keep drugs off the streets of Humboldt County.

“I really hope our local retailers recognize that there is now some mechanism in place to help support their efforts when they are dealing with incidences of retail theft,” she says “Ideally, that will be fewer instances of theft within the community and, hopefully, holding those repeat offenders accountable.”

Prior to Proposition 36, California Health Safety Code 11370.1 made it a felony for someone to simultaneously possess “hard” drugs and a firearm, but it did not include fentanyl under that “hard” drug designation. Proposition 36 added fentanyl to that list. And while Proposition 47 made thefts of $950 or less in value a misdemeanor, the new law allows prosecutors to charge those with two or more prior misdemeanor theft convictions with a felony punishable by up to three years in state prison.

Eads says many local business owners had become frustrated with what they perceived to be a lack of repercussions for retail theft after the passage of Proposition 47.

“A lot of local businesses had essentially kind of thrown up their hands and weren’t necessarily making reports to law enforcement following a minor petty theft that might occur within their establishment,” she says. “Part of that in terms of what was expressed to us, was sort of this discontent [that] nothing really happened, and they might see the same offenders.”

Eads says she has seen multiple cases in which someone caught shoplifting had a previous history of retail theft but could only be charged with a misdemeanor, which often led to them being released only to quickly reoffend. She says her office charged 384 cases of retail theft in Humboldt County from January of 2024 through mid-December involving 266 defendants.

In the five years prior to Proposition 47’s passage in 2014, there were an average of 434 reports of shoplifting combined in Eureka, Arcata and Fortuna annually, according to the California Department of Justice. In the four years after Proposition 47 passed, there were an average of 451 reports of shoplifting, but the numbers declined sharply to an average of 280 reports annually from 2019 to 2023.

Honsal says he believes businesses stopped reporting minor thefts under Proposition 47 due to the perceived lack of consequences and the belief nothing would happen.

“Small businesses have suffered throughout the state and throughout our county because people that have committed the lawlessness and theft from these small businesses just go in, they take anything less than $950, and they’re taking the risk that if they get caught, it’s essentially a citation,” Honsal says. “They may or may not get prosecuted in the court and if they do, it’s a misdemeanor offense. They’re probably not going to do jail time. And so, when we do risk versus reward, a lot of people are willing to take the risk and to go in and steal from someone else.”

Nancy Olsen, president of the Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce, says a big part of her support for Proposition 36 was hope it would deter repeat offenders with increased penalties for thefts, while also getting people who struggle with addiction treatment.

“I have talked with a number of small business owners, especially those that offer goods like smalls stores, and some have recounted to me — at some larger stores too — of people saying, ‘I watched this person walk into Target and grab armfuls of stuff and just walk out,” Olsen says. “And people could do nothing about it, essentially, because there was no real punishment for somebody who comes in and steals a [below] certain dollar amount.”

Honsal says he has already noticed an increase in theft reports since Proposition 36 went into effect.

“We’re already seeing businesses and people wanting to call law enforcement when they are a victim of theft or to pursue the shoplifter and to hold them for us,” Honsal says. “Now there’s the incentive that these people are going to be held accountable and now we hope that they’re going to start detaining these people for us, so we can send a strong message that we’re not going to tolerate this.”

Honsal says he is excited about reducing drug crimes through Proposition 36’s “treatment-mandated felony,” a new charging option that allows people with two or more past convictions of drug crimes to enter treatment, with the new charges dismissed upon successful completion of a program. (Failure to complete treatment, meanwhile, leaves the defendant facing the new charges and potential imposition of a three-year prison term.)

Eads says there is currently no specific treatment program in place for individuals charged with the “treatment-mandated felony,” as it is currently running on a “case-by-case” basis.

“The new laws provide a great deal of discretion to the court, with room for creativity and utilization of available resources in terms of adopting an appropriate treatment plan, which will likely vary depending upon the individual offender’s treatment needs based upon an assessment by qualified professionals,” Eads says.

Honsal says the jail has substance-use treatment programs for those in local custody. He adds that the jail staff can also work with treatment providers like Waterfront Recovery Services, a detox program certified by the California Department of Health Care Services, and Redwood Teen Challenge, a faith-based residential recovery program, to release people into programs.

“We have what we call a medication-assisted treatment program inside the facility,” he says. “That is when someone comes into our facility that is addicted to drugs, and we can give them medicine, like Suboxone, and hopefully in the future, a 30-day shot like Vivitrol that will curb their addiction. That will make them not want to seek those kinds of drugs.”

While Proposition 36 was heavily supported by the county sheriff and district attorney (and many of their counterparts statewide), Humboldt County Public Defender Luke Brownfield says the proposition will be costly and threaten local programs previously funded under Proposition 47.

“It definitely will not fix the problem,” he says. “In my experience, people don’t tend to think about whether or not the crime they’re committing is a misdemeanor or a felony, especially those who have mental health issues or addiction issues. They commit those crimes without thinking about the consequences.”

Christine Messinger, a spokesperson for the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), says the department is expecting more referrals into local programs under Proposition 36, but points out the new law did not include any new funding for mental health or substance-use disorder treatments.

“We are anticipating more referrals into programs such as Community Corrections Resource Center, behavioral health services in the Humboldt County Correctional Facility, substance use treatment programs, Healthy Moms, Humboldt County programs for recovery and dual recovery program, as well as our diversion program at a minimum,” Messinger says. “We are also still assessing the impacts to the implementation of CARE Court in our county. All of our justice-involved programs and processes have been dealing with significant changes as a result from the many changes in the laws over the past couple of years.”

Deanna Bay, a substance-use disorder administrator for the county, says that whether these programs will be able to handle the increased referrals is unclear.

“With the passage of Prop. 36, Humboldt County Programs for Recovery (HCPR) is expected to receive a significant number of referrals,” Bay says. “At this time, HCPR has some capacity available to serve new clients. However, the full impact of Prop. 36 remains to be seen. We will continue to monitor referrals and assess program capacity as we gain a clearer understanding of the increased treatment needs.”

Brownfield says successful local school programs funded through Proposition 47 in Eureka City Schools, the Northern Humboldt Union High School District, Peninsula Union School and the Humboldt County Office of Education will be threatened.

Humboldt County has also been part of two cohorts receiving Proposition 47 grant funds through the Learning Communities for School Success Program (LCSSP) to help local students. Humboldt County Office of Education Deputy Superintendent Colby Smart says the county is currently in its second year of a three-year grant providing a total of $700,000.

“The intention of those dollars was to support efforts to improve student outcomes, especially those related to truancy,” Smart says.

Smart says the county currently has a chronic absenteeism rate of 27 percent, which is an improvement from the previous year but still higher than California’s rate of 24 percent. He says funding from the LCSSP grant has helped create holistic approaches to combat chronic absenteeism in the county.

Specifically, he says the funding received through LCSSP is being used to support the School Attendance Review Board (SARB) process, which seeks to engage children and parents around the reasons for truancy and how to remedy it. This process is usually the final opportunity for families and children to work together to improve attendance, according to Smart.

“Our focus around improving SARB is to make it less of a sort of punishment for the family, and more about finding ways to support the family through education … as to the importance of school, and then also hold them accountable, because public education is compulsory in the United States and in California,” Smart says.

He says the funding is also used on preventative strategies to create supportive learning environments, emphasizing the importance of social and emotional support for children who have trauma or other issues that may be impacting their attendance.

Smart says the department is always prepared for the potential loss of grant funding and says losing the LCSSP grant will not directly impact continued efforts to combat chronic absenteeism.

Smart says he is currently investigating whether the county will receive the final year of funding under the three-year grant.

“I’m hoping [it] won’t suddenly go away, but I’m currently investigating that,” Smart says.

Proposition 47 has created approximately $800 million in funding statewide since it went into effect and the state awarded $167 million to 27 government and community-based organizations on Oct. 4, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.

In addition to taking away a funding stream, Brownfield says he’s also concerned Proposition 36 will prove expensive for taxpayers. He points to data from Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ), a program that seeks to replace prison systems with alternative solutions, projecting Proposition 36 will result in $13.9 million dollars in annual costs related to incarcerating people from Humboldt County in jail and prisons or enrolling them in unfunded treatment.

CSJ estimates there will be 128 more residents of Humboldt County in prisons within three years, with another 516 pretrial admissions and 200 additional jail sentences each year. The average annual cost to incarcerate a person in a California state is $133,000, according to the Legislative’s Analyst’s Office. Honsal, meanwhile, estimates the annual cost of incarcerating someone in the county jail to be $101,000.

Despite the costs, Honsal says he believes Proposition 36 is “going to be a good thing.”

“A lot of times it takes someone to become sober in the jail for them to make some decent decisions about how they’re going to change in the future,” he says. “Some people won’t. They’ll choose to do their time and go back to the same lifestyle. But for those that will, that want to make a choice to make a change, we’re going to have those opportunities for those people to do so.”

Brownfield doesn’t believe that’s the case, saying the county does not have the resources or treatment centers to handle the number of people expected to come through the “treatment-mandated felony” charge under Proposition 36.

“We just don’t have them in Humboldt County so all it’s gonna’ do is just put people in jail for longer,” Brownfield says, adding that he anticipates offenders will be held in jail as they wait for treatment beds to open up. “We don’t have the treatment facilities here to handle higher caseloads. We have lots of people now that have suspended sentences to get them drug treatment, but no beds come available, so all they do is just sit in jail until their jail time is up and get released to the streets with no treatment whatsoever.”

Brownfield says a way to tackle drug-related crimes without Proposition 36 would be to improve mental health treatment and drug treatment without “the mass incarceration of people.”

“We have too many people that need these programs and not enough programs to go around,” he says. “We have a lot of people who are trying, but just not the resources to do it, and now we’re just going to spend resources we could have used for those kinds of programs and instead just house people in the Humboldt County Correctional Facility at a much higher cost to the community.”

If that proves to be the case, voters can always push forward another initiative to change the law, as propositions 47 and 36 have shown.

Anne To (she/her) is a California Local News Fellow placed with North Coast Journal, Inc. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 312, or anne@northcoastjournal.com. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.

This article appears in Step Aside Prop. 47, Proposition 36 Has Arrived.