San Diego County mayors, DA collect signatures to change California's criticized Prop 47

San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan on Sunday announced a joint effort with the leaders of 14 local cities to collect signatures from community members to make changes to Proposition 47.

Proposition 47 was passed by California voters in November 2014. It changed certain low-level crimes from potential felonies to misdemeanors and also allowed for people previously convicted of felonies to be reclassified, in some cases, as misdemeanors. In addition, money from having fewer people incarcerated went toward treatment programs and victim services.

“We’re here to inform the public and encourage the community to sign petitions to place the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act on the November ballot,” Stephan said.

San Diego County mayors join forces

Stephan was joined by the mayors of Coronado, Santee, La Mesa, National City, Oceanside and Vista, among other cities. They stood together to announce their plans to help collect more than 500,000 signatures to be able to reform the existing law statewide.

“Proposition 47 had some good intentions, which is to not treat a first time offender as a felon, and we all support that, however it did not put any limit,” Stephan explained that under Prop 47, any retail theft up to $950 is a misdemeanor and that doesn’t change no matter how many times the person reoffends. “Like the person that we had who had 27 cases recently, [the crime] will always be treated as a misdemeanor.”

An author of Prop 47 speaks out

Will Matthews is a spokesperson for Californians for Safety and Justice, one of the organizations that helped author the proposition. He said it is working as it should and that any attempt to make changes is a political move. 

“We know from recent history that simply responding to some of these challenges by locking people up and providing no treatment, no rehabilitative services to help them improve their lives, the safety outcomes that we are going to get from that really are going to pale in comparison to what we can achieve from a public safety perspective when we actually invest resources in trying to prevent crime and harm from occurring in the first place,” Matthews said.

San Diego Mayor Gloria missing from conference, despite critical eye on Prop 47

There was a noticeable absence at the press conference. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria was not there. He mentioned Proposition 47 in his State of the City address when he said, in part, “that law may have made sense at the time. However, since it was implemented we’ve seen criminals exploit these reforms, leading to organized networks of career thieves ransacking stores with little to no consequence.” NBC 7 reached out to the mayor’s office for a response on why he is seemingly not a part of the effort, but did not hear back. 

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“There’s nothing that has resulted, in reforms of the past decade including Prop 47, that prevent law enforcement from being able to make arrests, hold people accountable, enforce felonious behavior by charging folks with felonies,” Matthews said. “So, this idea that somehow Prop 47 or any reform from the past decade has somehow undermined our public safety, really, is just a misnomer.”

What the Homelessness, Drug Addiction & Theft Reduction Act would do

Some of the proposed changes to the law under the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act would allow for stronger penalties for those trafficking hard drugs, like fentanyl, or for repeat retail-theft offenders. Stephan added there would be a two-strike grace period, where the first two offenses are misdemeanors. The third time would come with mandatory treatment for drug-related crime, then the fourth conviction would be considered a felony crime.

• A two-strike grace period. First two offenses are misdemeanors
• Third time would come with mandatory treatment for drug-related crime
• Fourth conviction would be considered a felony crime

Stephan shared that they have until April to collect the number of signatures needed to get the act on the November ballot for voters.