Crime California Advances Legislation Cracking Down on Stolen Goods Resellers and Auto Theft

[LeonardoBjj]

California lawmakers have advanced more than a dozen bills aiming to address the retail theft crisis

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The California Senate approved a bipartisan package of 15 bills Wednesday that would increase penalties for organized crime rings, expand drug court programs and close a legal loophole to make it easier to prosecute auto thefts.

One proposal would require large online marketplaces — like eBay and Amazon — to verify the identities of sellers who make at least $5,000 profit in a year, an attempt to shut down an easy way to sell stolen goods.

“This is not a game,” said Senate President Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents the North Coast, adding that he hopes to get the bills to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk within weeks. “We are working together for safer California, putting aside politics and making sure we do right for our communities.”

It normally takes months for lawmakers to deliver bills to the governor in California, but the commitment to quick actions is driven by a new get-tough-on-crime strategy in an election year that seeks to address the growing fears of voters while preserving progressive policies designed to keep people out of prison.

Large-scale thefts, in which groups of people brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight, have reached a crisis level in the state, though the California Retailers Association said it’s challenging to quantify the issue because many stores don’t share their data.

The Bay Area and Los Angeles saw a steady increase in shoplifting between 2021 and 2022, according to a study of the latest crime data by the Public Policy Institute of California. Across the state, shoplifting rates rose during the same period but were still lower than the pre-pandemic levels in 2019, while commercial burglaries and robberies have become more prevalent in urban counties, according to the study.

Assembly lawmakers also advanced several other retail theft measures Wednesday, including a bill authored by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas taking aim at professional theft rings. It would expand law enforcement's authority to combine the value of goods stolen from different victims to impose harsher penalties and arrest people for shoplifting using video footage or witness statements. The measure also would create a new crime for those who sell or return stolen goods and mandate online sellers to maintain records proving the merchandise wasn’t stolen and require some retail businesses to report stolen goods data.

Lawmakers also passed proposals that would crack down on cargo thefts, restore the district attorney's authority to go after thieves and resellers who operate beyond their jurisdictions and allow retailers to obtain restraining orders against convicted shoplifters.

All the bills now head to the second chamber before they could reach Newsom's desk in June.

The advancement of a slew of measures further cements Democratic lawmakers' rejection to growing calls to roll back progressive policies like Proposition 47, a ballot measure approved by 60% of state voters in 2014 that reduced penalties for certain crimes, including thefts of items valued at under $950 and drug possession offenses, from felonies to misdemeanors.

Money saved from having fewer people in prison, which totals to $113 million this fiscal year, has gone to local programs to fight recidivism with much success, state officials and advocates said. But the proposition has made it harder to prosecute shoplifters and enabled brazen crime rings, law enforcement officials said. An effort to reform the measure failed in 2020.
As major national stores and local businesses in California say they continue to face rampant theft, a growing number of law enforcement officials and district attorneys, along with Republican and moderate Democratic lawmakers, say California needs to consider all options, including rolling back the measure. The coalition backing the initiative last month submitted more than 900,000 signatures to put it on the November ballot. The signatures are being verified.
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https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...down-on-stolen-goods-resellers-and-auto-theft

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Why progressive DAs are losing their grip on the West Coast​

From Portland to Los Angeles, top prosecutors in deep-blue regions are being challenged over their criminal justice policies.

By DUSTIN GARDINER and JEREMY B. WHITE
05/23/2024 09:05 AM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO — Progressive prosecutors are under siege all along the West Coast, as voters in deep-blue metro areas express their frustration with more lenient approaches to crime.

The trend started with the 2022 recall ouster of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, which criminal justice reformers once labeled a pandemic-induced anomaly unlikely to repeat in other liberal-leaning bastions.

California cops, standing to protect puni woketards!

But this week’s district attorney election in the ultra-liberal Portland area made it clear the sentiment isn’t a one-off. Progressive District Attorney Mike Schmidt was defeated by tough-on-crime challenger Nathan Vasquez, a prosecutor in Schmidt’s own office and an independent who was previously a Republican.

Similar voter frustration has emerged in California, with Alameda’s DA Pamela Price facing a recall, and Los Angeles’ George Gascón fighting for reelection.

Altogether, the hurdles facing progressive prosecutors on the “left coast” illustrate a backswing in public sentiment and perceptions of crime since the 2020 killing of George Floyd prompted a national reckoning on racism and conversation around the costs of tough-on-crime politics.

Voters in urban centers like San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and Oakland now appear to have grown impatient with aspects of the progressive mantra about restorative justice. And California progressives are taking note of Oregon’s vote.

“Multnomah County and LA County are 600 miles apart and worlds different,” said political strategist Jim Ross, who worked on Boudin’s anti-recall campaign, adding though that the Portland outcome “is an indication, I think that Gascón is going to have a really tough race.”

You're going to prison for the crime of spoting bad tattos @nhbbear

The shift comes as major cities have, to varying degrees, struggled with similar issues: sprawling homeless tent encampments, surging fentanyl overdose deaths and concerns about brazen theft.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, moderate advocacy groups heavily funded by wealthy tech investors have spent millions criticizing the progressive approach to criminal justice reform — and to oust Boudin.

Kanishka Cheng, co-founder of TogetherSF Action, part of that centrist network that has reshaped San Francisco politics, said the challenges to multiple prosecutors in liberal cities show that even progressive voters have had enough.

“No matter how progressive people are and how many ideals they have, at the end of the day, people need to have their basic needs met,” she said. “You want to feel safe.”

But reformers like Cristine Soto DeBerry accuse critics of seizing on post-pandemic challenges nationwide to “scapegoat” progressives on public safety.

“Unfortunately, these efforts are taking advantages of the destabilizing effect of the pandemic and the reality of the economy and inflation and challenges well outside of any local prosecutor’s control,” said Soto DeBerry, director of the progressive Prosecutors Alliance of California, who previously was chief of staff to Boudin and Gascón (during his earlier stint as San Francisco DA).

-The swolen arms of law.
There are also limits to what Portland voters can reveal about those in Oakland or Los Angeles. The electorate in Oregon’s lower-turnout May primary was likely less Democratic than the one that will decide Price and Gascón’s fates in November. Schmidt’s Multnomah County is also smaller and less diverse than Los Angeles.

Party loyalty could be key for Gascón, who is running against Nathan Hochman, a former Republican — and Gascón is working to make sure voters know it. He has retained endorsements from Democratic mainstays like the county party and labor federation.

“It’ll be a much stronger Democratic turnout and more polarized” than in Multnomah, said Jeff Millman, who worked for Gascón’s Democratic primary challenger Jeff Chemerinsky. “Gascón is obviously hoping for that.”

Still, Millman argued that relying on Democratic allegiance will only go so far in a race shaped by concerns about public safety and quality of life.

“A lot of people will vote along the lines of their party,” Millman said, “but when you vote for a district attorney, it’s different from voting for a member of Congress, where you just vote for your team.”



https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/23/progressive-da-west-coast-00159559

 

[Flower2dPeople]

California lawmakers have advanced more than a dozen bills aiming to address the retail theft crisis

Must be election year.

 

[Misfit23]

Must be election year.

Yeah it's kind of pathetic. Schmidt started to show up for work in the past year but too little to late. He got da boot.

 

[nhbbear]

Good posts. You know I have my list with gascon, krasner, bragg, garcia, fox, and formerly schmidy on there for those destroying their cities. krasner is the worst imo