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Council Votes to Back Prop 36

 


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By Jorge Casuso

October 24, 2024 -- After a brief but spirited debate on crime and punishment, the City Council voted 4 to 3 Tuesday night to endorse a statewide measure that cracks down on repeat offenders.

The pro-law enforcement Council majority argued that Prop 36, which is leading in the polls by a large margin, would reverse polices that have for a decade created a revolving door for those who commit drug and retail related crimes.

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Opponents on the Council countered that the measure will increase incarcerations, especially of those from "disadvantaged and marginalized communities," without enhancing public safety.

The measure -- which makes changes to Prop 47 approved by California voters in 2014 -- imposes stronger penalties for trafficking hard drugs and for repeat offenders of drug possession and retail theft.

It also creates a treatment-focused court process for some drug possession crimes.

"There are no penalties for being repeat offenders," said Mayor Phil Brock, who is running for reelection on a slate focused on public safety. "We see this every day in Santa Monica."

"We need to have people understand there will be penalties for what they do," Brock said. "That will reduce the amount of people who believe it's okay to rob a store."

Proponents of the measure noted that repeat offenders in Santa Monica are often homeless and addicted to dangerous drugs that can induce acts of violence.

"We had homeless back in the eighties, but we didn't have the violence and all the unprovoked attacks we're seeing now," said Councilmember Oscar de la Torre, who is running with Brock on the Safer Santa Monica slate.

"It think it has a lot to do with all the substances that people are taking now on our streets," de la Torre said. "It's doing something horrible to people's minds.

"As a society we need to look at these problems, we need to hold the line, and we cannot allow people with addictions or other problems to impose their way of life on the rest of us."

Councilmember Lana Negrete, whose family owns the Santa Monica Music Center, focused on how businesses have been hurt by Prop 47, which reclassified most drug offenses and property thefts valued at under $950 from felonies to misdemeanors.

"Most of these things are tickets and if you're unhoused giving you a ticket and continuing to be on the street to commit crime or to be vulnerable yourself to crime is not helping," she said.

Negrete said she has seen first hand the increase in theft that has forced shop owners to protect even cheap products behind glass and even shut their businesses down altogether.

"We've been robbed numerous times," said Negrete, who placed the item on the agenda with Brock and de la Torre. "We can't literally afford to replace windows. It's impossible to keep up with the insurance rates going up."

Opponents of Prop 36, who are backed by Santa Monica's political establishment, countered that the measure's passage would lead to jail sentences for third-time offenders who commit a misdemeanor.

It also would increase the costs to the criminal justice system by billions of dollars a year and jeopardize funding, like the $8 million grant under Prop 47 that the City just received for a diversion program designed to focus on rehabilitation in place of incarceration.

"I think (Prop 36) is a step in the wrong direction," said Councilmember Caroline Torosis. "I think it wll lead to potential biased policing" and "this very harsh three strikes rule to apply to misdemeanors."

Torosis added that she is also "very concerned what's going to happen to the funding."

Zwick noted that stricter penalties imposed by other states had failed to stem crime.

Pointing to Texas' $1,500 threshold for theft, Zwick asked, "Why is the problem not double in Texas?" He also noted that states with harsher drug laws still had problems with drugs.

"I think we're looking for silver bullets here," he said. "I think this is a cheap fix and not a real solution."

Councilmember Gleam Davis also argued that Prop 36 would lead to more people put behind bars, which she said does not reduce crime.

"The people who studied the effects of this noted that it will increase incarceration," Davis said "We know incarceration doesn't make a community safer.

"If incarceration made the community safer, the United States would be the safest country in the world because we incarcerate more people per capita than anyone else.

"And sadly, the worst part about this is that the majority of people who will be incarcerated likely will be people from disadvantaged and marginalized communities, because sadly that's the way the criminal justice system works," Davis said.

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