Prop. 36 supporters include parents who have lost children to fentanyl, small business owners and law enforcement officials.
“It’s a world upside down,” said Hypein Im, President & CEO, Faith and Community Empowerment. She was one of 10 speakers at a downtown event, this summer asking people to vote for Prop. 36.
Representing many of the people in Koreatown she said, “Business owners are held hostage. They [criminals] take items and then come back again. There are broken windows and broken doors.”
She pointed out that many of the businesses are mom-and-pop, and don’t have the same resources or even insurance as a corporate or a chain store. They cannot weather the ongoing “smash and grab” thefts.
“It’s brazen,” Im said. “Audacity has become the normal.”
Prop. 47 was called the Safe Neighborhoods and School Act, passing in 2014. It reduced the sentencing of some property crimes, such as shoplifting and “smash and grab,” from felonies to misdemeanors.
If Prop. 36 passes, a person who commits repeated $950 thefts and has two prior convictions, could now be charged with a felony.
Prop. 47 was a criminal justice reform that reduced simple drug possession, including heroin and opiates, from felonies to misdemeanors. (When Prop.47 passed, Fentanyl had not yet become a problem in the U.S. The flow across the border heightened starting in 2019.)
Prop. 36 toughens penalties for fentanyl and drug traffickers. It would provide stiffer penalties for knowingly selling or providing drugs mixed with fentanyl without informing the buyer. Drug dealers who are warned and who repeatedly sell deadly amounts of fentanyl can be charged with murder if a death occurs.
People who possess illegal drugs would have a choice of rehab or jail. Currently, those arrested multiple times for hard drug use have no incentive to choose treatment because there are no consequences.
The L.A. Times Editorial Board and three of the L.A. County Supervisors, Holly Mitchell, Hilda Solis and Lindsey Horvath, are telling people to vote “no” on this important proposition. Kathryn Barger voted against it. Janice Hahn recused herself.
Why? The supervisors said that Prop. 36 would cost L.A. County taxpayers millions each year and strip funding from critical crime prevention programs that keep communities safe and healthy.
If those crime prevention programs are working, there must be data to support it. Below is the data available.
CRIME PREVENTION PROGRAMS:
The crime prevention programs mentioned by Supervisors were Reentry Intensive Case Management Services (RICMS), Skills and Experience for the Careers of Tomorrow (SECTOR), Los Angele Diversion, Outreach and programs in the city of Los Angeles.
RICMS notes “In the absence of a randomized control trial or data on a valid comparison group, it is not possible to estimate the effect of RICMS on client outcomes. Instead, this report presents summary statistics to describe RICMS enrollment numbers, client demographic characteristics, county healthcare utilization, and one- and two-year reconviction rates.”
In 2019, the California Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) awarded Los Angeles County’s Justice, Care, and Opportunities Department, referred to as the Reentry Division, a grant from the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act (Proposition 47) grant program to launch the Skills and Experience for the Careers of Tomorrow (SECTOR) program.
About 591 people participated and it seemed successful, but there was no data. The report noted, “this study cannot establish causality between participation in SECTOR and the outcome findings. Future research may benefit from a study design with a comparison group to rigorously measure the impact of SECTOR against participant outcomes for those who did not participate in the program.”
The Los Angeles Division Outreach is through L.A. County Health Services, and one can see the 2022 and 2023 registration tallies (https://dhs.lacounty.gov/office-of-diversion-and-reentry/our-services/office-of-diversion-and-reentry/dsh-diversion-program-data/).
During that time 552 people were enrolled in the program. For example, in July to September 2022 there were 89 people enrolled, nine disappeared from the program, three transitioned to non ODR permanent supportive housing, eight transitioned to ODF permanent housing, one was reincarcerated and one died. But there was no data to reflect the cost or the effectiveness of the program or what happened to other enrollees.
Smash and grab robberies plagued Los Angeles, despite crime prevention programs that three of the supervisors heralded.
FOLLOW THE MONEY FOR AND AGAINST 36:
The biggest supporter of Prop. 36 is Walmart, followed by Home Depot, Target and 7-Eleven.
Those giving money to try to defeat Prop. 36 include Stacy H. Schusterman ($1 million), Patty Quillin ($500,000), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Quinn Delaney ($225,000), The California Federation of Teachers Cope Prop/Ballot Committee and the ACLU of Northern California Issues Committee.
Who are the individuals?
Stacy H. Schusterman served as an executive officer in her father’s oil and gas company. During her tenure, she switched the company investments from clean gas to oil, shale gas and tight gas. She sold the company for $7.2 billion in 2011. Then she founded Samson Energy, a deep-water drilling company. From 2019 to 2020, Samson Energy contributed $2.5 million to liberal groups. She lives in Oklahoma.
Patty Quillin is married to Reed Hastings, the Netflix founder. They disposed of Netflix shares worth an estimated $1.1 billion, but still own 2.99 million shares, worth about $1.72 billion, through the Hastings-Quillin family trust. The couple gave $1.5 million to a Political Action Committee supporting George Gascon for Los Angeles District Attorney. Quillin also paid for an ad for Eunisses Hernandez, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. The couple lives in Santa Cruz.
Quinn Delaney has raised and donated millions of dollars to Democratic PACs and candidates. Starting in 2018, Delaney was part of a four-person Democratic mega donor group in California that supported prosecutor candidates who committed to increasing leniency in prosecutions, including Chesa Boudin in San Fransisco and George Gascon in Los Angeles. In 2019-2020, Delaney and the three other mega donors spent $22 million on criminal justice ballot measures, including to elect George Gascon (D-Los Angeles) as district attorney of Los Angeles. She lives in Piedmont, Ca.
So hard to understand why left leaning liberals do not choose to support measures that can benefit victims of drug abuse or provide for greater safety and security in our communities. All the funding that flows through the system in the name of liberal causes seldom includes accountability for results or how the funds are being spend. I doubt if that would be acceptable in the companies they run which have made than all billionaires. Vote YES on 36!