No on Prop 36: It is misleading and would take us back to mass incarceration

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As members of Showing Up for Racial Justice Santa Cruz County (SURJ SCC), we strongly oppose Proposition 36 on the November ballot. 

To call Prop 36 the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act” is not just misleading, it is a lie. Prop 36 doesn’t designate any funds for housing, shelter or treatment beds. 

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Instead, it would slash programs that currently address these issues to expand our failed mass incarceration system. 

In 2014, California voters passed Prop 47, saving the state billions in prison spending by reducing sentencing for some petty theft and drug charges. Those savings have been redirected to treatment services for mental health and substance use disorders, jail diversion programs and victim support services. Prop 36 would undo key parts of Prop 47, taking us backward.

Locally, Prop 47 funds started the Santa Cruz County Neighborhood Courts program, for which several SURJ members volunteer. The program, run through the district attorney’s office, offers a restorative justice alternative, centering accountability and repair instead of punishment and jail time. A mother who steals diapers in desperation or a young man plagued by addiction needs support, not longer mandatory time in cells. We must invest in real solutions.

Prop 36 would simply kick the can down the road. There is zero evidence that increasing jail or prison time reduces petty theft or drug use. 

When those incarcerated for these offenses are released two or three years later, the deck is firmly stacked against them. It’s almost impossible to get work or find housing with a felony record, and they likely still have whatever substance use or mental health challenges they were living with before arrest because these conditions don’t get treated in prison. 

With Prop 36, they’d be released into a community with fewer rehabilitation services because the savings from Prop 47 that had funded those services would be drastically reduced. It just doesn’t make sense.   

If passed, Prop 36 would cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars for prisons, court costs and local jails in the coming decade, and annually cut millions of dollars for anti-recidivism, school-based prevention programs and services for survivors of crime. This would be the biggest prison spending increase in California history, and an investment in a revolving door of locking people up and releasing them without rehabilitation.

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed 10 new laws that will strengthen accountability for retail theft and property crimes, and take effect at the start of 2025. California law also already requires felonies for fentanyl trafficking. Prop 36 would only cause harm by cutting funding for drug treatment centers.  

Despite claims by proponents of Prop 36 that we are in a “smash-and-grab” epidemic, the current rate of property crime in California is nearly the lowest it’s been in the past 50 years. Since it reached its peak in 1980, it has been on a near-constant downward trend. (What has increased significantly is gun-related homicides and aggravated assaults; those are not addressed by Prop 36.)  

Mass incarceration has not made our communities safer; instead, it has ripped apart families, unraveled community ties, drained billions from our state budget and stolen years of people’s lives, disproportionately impacting Black, Indigenous and people of color. Please stand with Gov. Newsom, the California Democratic Party, American Civil Liberties Union, Working Families Party, Alliance for Retired Americans, Environmental Justice Alliance and Human Rights Watch in opposing this harmful proposition and vote against Prop 36.

Angelee Dion, Julia Gratton and Pam Sexton are members of SURJ Santa Cruz County.