Governor Newsom’s Fake Crackdown on Retail Theft

While his Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation is accelerating the early release of serious and violent criminals in prison, Governor Gavin Newsom is pretending to get tough on thieves. Evan Simon of the California Globe reports that last Thursday Newsom signed a bill that would increase the sentences of some thieves. The bill, AB 1960 by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) would add a one-year enhancement to the jail sentence of someone convicted of stealing or damaging property worth $50,000.  Stealing $200,000 would add two years to the jail sentence. The same enhancements would be added to the punishment of someone who receives or resells $50,000 or $200,000 worth of stolen property. With the possible exception of jewelry stores, this law will have zero impact on the hundreds of smash-and-grab thieves terrorizing markets, drug and department stores.   It does nothing to deter a thief who steals under $950 worth of goods from six different stores in one week. Under Proposition 47, a misleading initiative adopted in 2014, those thefts are misdemeanors and the habitual thief gets no punishment.

Since 2011 no thief in California, even one who steals $200,000 can be sentenced to prison. Under AB 109, signed into law by Governor Brown, all thieves, including car and jewelry thieves, can only be sentenced to one of California’s overcrowded county jails. Because most county jails have been filled to capacity since AB 109 became law, when a car thief is locked up, the sheriff has to let another criminal who was locked up last month out on probation. Under these circumstances, almost no thief serves even half of their full jail sentence before getting released. This is happening while Governor Newsom is closing down state prisons that AB 109 and Proposition 47 have emptied out.

When signing AB 1960 last week, Newsom proclaimed, “California already has some of the strictest retail and property crime laws in the nation—and we have made them even stronger with our recent legislation. We can be tough on crime while also being smart on crime—we don’t need to go back to broken policies of the last century.  Mass incarceration has been proven ineffective and is not the answer–we need true accountability and strategies that enhance our nation-leading efforts to address crime . . .”  I count three lies in that statement. California laws for theft and property crime are among the weakest in the nation.  Mass incarceration is a myth pushed by pro-criminal progressives. The tough-on-crime policies adopted at the end of the last century made American cities and neighborhoods the safest they have been in decades.

Since the 1990s anyone involved with law enforcement has known that being “smart on crime” is code for alternatives to punishment for criminals.

The only reason AB 1960 even made it to Newsom’s desk is because this is an election year, and the public has become fed up with politicians lying about their concern for law and order while they continue to reduce consequences for criminals. To keep her job, even liberal democrat San Francisco Mayor London Breed has endorsed Proposition 36, which if adopted by voters in November, would allow repeat thieves to be charged with a felony.

It is important for the public to look past the tough-on-crime rhetoric that liberal politicians adopt during election years and judge them on their votes for pro-criminal anti-law enforcement policies in non-election years.