Billed because the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act” on the November 2024 poll, Proposition 36 received simply with the help of greater than two-thirds of California voters.
The initiative — backed by massive retailers and regulation enforcement — turned sure drug and theft crimes from misdemeanors to felonies, which means steeper penalties for repeat offenders, but in addition the choice of remedy for folks with long-term drug addictions. However it got here with no devoted funding supply, leaving the state and counties to soak up the prices.
RELATED: Bay Space prosecutors charged 1,200 theft felonies below Proposition 36. Will it assist curb crime?
Jails — the primary cease for anybody arrested below the brand new regulation — had been neglected, regardless of lobbying from sheriffs, together with San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez.
Whereas the state isn’t obligated to cowl prices created by poll initiatives, voter help amounted to a mandate, Blakespear stated.
“Every single county passed it,” she stated. “Once we saw how much the voters supported it, we needed to be responsive to that.”
The Sheriff’s Workplace says it’s spent almost $32 million to accommodate folks booked below Proposition 36 drug and theft expenses for the reason that regulation took impact on Dec. 18, forcing the division to shift cash away from infrastructure tasks and a plan to buy a $16 million helicopter, Martinez stated.
“We’re sustaining right now,” she stated, “but I don’t know how long that will last.”
Underneath 2014’s Proposition 47, which diminished penalties for many drug and theft offenses, folks arrested for possession of exhausting medicine or for shoplifting lower than $950 in items had been usually cited and launched. Underneath Proposition 36, they’re booked into jail and held till they see a decide, except they will afford bail.
As of Thursday, there have been 2,742 jail bookings below Proposition 36. Roughly half of the folks have been launched inside seven days — on bail, on their very own recognizance or below probation supervision. One-third have spent 30 days or extra in custody, awaiting trial or a remedy mattress.
A web based dashboard maintained by the Sheriff’s Workplace exhibits almost 4 bookings on drug expenses for each one reserving on theft, up from a roughly 3-to-1 ratio earlier this yr.
Sheriff’s officers say they’re reserving extra folks with continual diseases, untreated psychological sickness and lengthy histories of substance use. Individuals booked on drug expenses are usually older, in response to sheriff’s information: almost two-thirds are over 40, in comparison with fewer than half of these booked on theft expenses.
“Some of these people haven’t seen a medical doctor in 10 to 15 years,” Martinez stated. “They haven’t seen a dentist in 20 years. The condition that they come into our custody is not the greatest.”
Since 2023, the Sheriff’s Workplace has supplied medication-assisted remedy, or MAT, to its jails. Extensively thought-about the usual of take care of opioid habit, MAT makes use of medicines equivalent to Suboxone and methadone to cut back withdrawal signs and curb cravings.
This system’s rollout was rocky, forcing the Sheriff’s Workplace to concern a corrective motion discover to its contracted medical supplier, NaphCare. However a follow-up overview in October discovered the issues had been resolved.
In September 2024, there have been 280 folks enrolled in MAT inside San Diego jails. This month, there have been 349 — a 25% enhance. Whereas jail officers don’t but monitor MAT enrollment by reserving cost, they consider Proposition 36 is driving a lot of the expansion.
“I really see an opportunity that if we have the funding to properly staff up these MAT programs, when people get released, they’re in a better position to be successful,” stated Assistant Sheriff Dustin Lopez, who has led the sheriff’s Detention Companies Bureau since March 2024.
San Diego County jails have additionally seen a decline in overdose deaths and deaths from drug withdrawal since implementing MAT.
Lopez and Martinez stated they’re making an attempt to carve out extra remedy area, together with a module on the Vista Detention Facility that homes solely folks enrolled in MAT. However growing old jails designed with out remedy in thoughts pose a problem.
Lopez likened the trouble to “playing Tetris with the system.”
“This is the highest level of care and acuteness that we’ve ever had to provide,” he stated.
On the East Mesa Reentry Facility in Otay Mesa, which gives vocational applications and may very well be splendid for Proposition 36 defendants, Martinez stated there’s area to develop, “but we need the resources.”
“If I had my dream, I’d expand East Mesa for this population,” she stated.
Presently, there’s no funding obtainable on the county degree. Earlier this month, county supervisors voted to make obtainable tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} held in reserve to offset looming federal cuts to social providers applications.
As a self-insured entity, the county has additionally borne the complete monetary burden of lawsuit settlements and jury awards over jail deaths and accidents, which have totaled tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} lately.
The California Legislative Analyst’s Workplace, which assesses the potential prices of poll measures, estimated that Proposition 36 might increase state legal justice prices “ranging from several tens of millions of dollars to the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually.”
Critics of Proposition 36 warned it might additionally lower into funding made obtainable below Proposition 47, which required the state to redirect financial savings from reductions to the state’s jail inhabitants towards psychological well being and drug remedy applications.
These financial savings amounted to $95 million final yr. The governor’s workplace tasks a drop to only $24.7 million by 2026, although the Legislative Analyst famous that’s possible an overestimation.
“Any Proposition 36 estimate is subject to major uncertainty,” the February report says.
A sheriff’s spokesperson stated Martinez “has been transparent about the impacts to the jail system,” each earlier than the measure handed and now.
“The law is doing what it promised,” Lt. David Collins stated. “It is holding offenders accountable, business owners are telling us they now feel empowered to report crime, and law enforcement officers and deputies can solve problems in the community by addressing issues when they start.”
The Board of State and Group Corrections, which administers Proposition 47 grants, has proposed permitting these funds to help court-mandated remedy below Proposition 36, however that funding have to be used for remedy locally, not in a custodial setting, stated spokesperson Jana Sanford-Miller.
Will Matthews of Californians for Security and Justice, which opposed Proposition 36, urged lawmakers to take a more in-depth take a look at one of many state’s largest finances objects: jail spending, which tops $14 billion yearly. The Legislative Analyst’s report on Proposition 36 described the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation as “over-budgeted.” In a separate report, it beneficial the state shut 5 of its prisons, a value financial savings of not less than $1 billion.
“I think there’s almost uniform agreement that we need to commit to creating treatment and prevention infrastructure that literally millions of Californians have needed for generations,” Matthews stated.
“Unfortunately, what Prop. 36 has laid bare is that it’s very difficult to do that — arguably impossible — unless we’re reducing the amount of money we’re spending every single year on the state prison system,” he stated. “I don’t know that there’s a better strategy.”
Martinez stated she is going to proceed to push for state funding for in-custody remedy for folks scuffling with habit.
“If we have the funding to properly staff up these MAT programs, then when they do get released, they’re in a better position to be successful,” she stated. “If they’re already going to be in our custody, we really want to do the best we can.”
Employees author Teri Figueroa contributed to this report.
