-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
- Proposition 36 was approved in 2024 with nearly 70% of the vote statewide. The measure promised to combine addiction treatment with punishment.
- Two years later, the measure has put California on the path of dealing with chronic homelessness through stints of incarceration.
A few years ago, when viral videos of marauding packs of smash-and-grab thieves and open drug markets in San Francisco seemed to be everywhere, a group of tough-on-crime conservatives mashed the two issues together and created Proposition 36 — a set of new laws that supposedly would combine addiction treatment with punishment for those who refused or failed to kick their miscreant ways.
Voters, fed up with perceived lawlessness, were supportive, passing the measure statewide by nearly 70% in 2024 — buying into the idea that it would bring more access to recovery in lieu of incarceration.
Flash forward to 2026 and the realities of Proposition 36 are far from what most voters likely thought they were approving. It would not be too much of a stretch to call the implementation of Proposition 36 a steaming hot mess — one that has put California on the path of dealing with chronic homelessness through stints of incarceration.
“The big promise of Proposition 36 was that folks struggling with addiction could have access to treatment, complete that treatment, and then it wouldn’t impact their record,” said Maureen Washburn, senior policy manager with the nonprofit Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. “But what we’re seeing is like less than 1% of people have realized that benefit. Instead, many, many more are getting arrested.”
Proposition 36 created a new kind of serious crime — the “treatment-mandated felony.” So far, that has translated to about 40,000 new felony arrests statewide on drug or theft charges, many of them petty theft from repeat offenders, or repeat drug possession charges.
Though the data are incomplete and flawed, of 10,937 felony drug cases tracked by 29 courts that reported to the state, 1,305 defendants elected to receive treatment. Of these, 36 successfully completed treatment and had their charges dismissed.
Not great numbers.
Meanwhile, thousands more are waiting in county jails for cases that are winding through a new, convoluted and confusing system where geography controls the rules. Every county is doing its own thing, with varying results.
Prop. 36 is way ahead in the polls, in part because it’s billed as providing treatment for substance abuse. But the reality is its more likely to create felons than cure addictions.
And more than 1,000 people have been sent to state prison under the new laws — a punishment that seems to be falling most heavily on older, Black defendants, some of whom have likely struggled with addiction and homelessness for years.
So whose fault is this fiasco?
That requires a quick bit of history.
Before putting Proposition 36 on the ballot, law enforcement types including sheriffs and district attorneys tried to persuade the Legislature to do something similar. However, the Legislature had just spent a decade trying to undo California’s over-incarceration of Black and brown people, and wasn’t interested in new laws that would potentially target those very folks.
So despite months of negotiations and the strong disapproval of Gov. Gavin Newsom, the pro-Proposition 36 crowd eventually went straight to voters with an idea that sounded good on the surface but lacked the most important element: money. Proposition 36, without the backing of the Legislature or the governor, included no way to pay for any of its promises.
The idea at the time was to pass it, thereby putting pressure on the Democratic Legislature to fund it, as the will of the people. But without a built-in funding mechanism, that realistically means that funding, if any, is year-by-year and unpredictable at best.
Newsom and the Legislature approved $100 million split between county behavioral health services and courts after it passed. This year’s budget cuts that to $50 million.
Republican legislators wanted $400 million. Without that kind of money, Proposition 36 backers argue that the governor and the Legislature are unfairly crippling the new laws.
“Without adequate resources for probation and sheriffs, the only treatment provided is a revolving door of suggestions. Treatment doesn’t work without support, and second chances are not real without consequences,” the Chief Probation Officers of California, California State Sheriffs’ Assn., and the California District Attorneys Assn. said in a statement.
Adequate resources for probation and sheriffs. Now we’re at the heart of it. Virtually everyone on either side of this issue agrees that California does not have enough addiction services. Simply put, Proposition 36 promises a way out of incarceration that does not currently exist.
The law enforcement types behind it would like the state to provide them with enough cash to build a treatment system. But here’s my problem with that — we already are funding and building a treatment system (albeit too slowly) with hundreds of millions of dollars going into housing, supportive housing and behavioral health.
The passing of Proposition 36 and ousting of two progressive D.A.s suggest Californians may be reverting on criminal justice reform.
The state’s Project Homekey has allocated nearly a billion dollars toward supportive housing, creating 2,749 affordable homes for folks with behavioral health challenges at risk of homelessness — issues often tied up in a ball with addiction.
Meanwhile, money saved from Proposition 47 — which Proposition 36 sought to undo — has given tens of billions to community-based organizations that specialize in addiction, trauma, homelessness and, again, the places where issues like this come together.
I’m not here to argue we are doing a great job on the recovery front, that we’re spending enough or that we’re spending well.
But Proposition 36 backers are asking for money to largely create an alternative to existing systems — one that ends in punishment for those who fail. In some counties, courts have set up departments dedicated to Proposition 36 cases, hiring staff and creating rules as they go.
Law enforcement agencies are “now trying to reinvent themselves as social workers, as drug counselors, as this and that,” said George Galvis, executive director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice. “But they’re also the jailers, and so it just does not work.”
Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Assn., said the confusion has led to a system that is rife with “punitive and vague consequences.”
What defines success at treatment? Ten days clean? Three years? Who pays for it? Who decides what success is — a sheriff’s deputy? A judge? A social worker?
Along with not having money, Proposition 36 didn’t come with rules. Some in law enforcement love it because they can arrest folks on serious charges that, before the new laws, would have been misdemeanors that many felt weren’t worth the paperwork.
But Chatfield said its hard to even advise clients to accept a Proposition 36 route because there is so little clarity on what it will mean.
To Chatfield and others working in the system, giving more money to Proposition 36 makes little sense.
Just because it exists “doesn’t mean that we have to fund a failing program,” she said.
And that’s where we are at: a hot mess. Funding Proposition 36 probably means “we’re going to go back to this antiquated mass incarceration dynamic that nearly bankrupted the state of California back in the day, right?” Galvis said.
Not funding it means the governor and the Legislature will continue to face attacks that they are ignoring the will of the people.
Meanwhile, those with chronic addictions who are poor (because rich people with addictions are rarely as visible) will continue to be swept up, and left with a system riddled with false promises and real penalties.
Insights
L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.
Viewpoint
Perspectives
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
The article argues that Proposition 36’s central innovation — the “treatment-mandated felony” for repeat drug possession and theft — has in practice produced more felony charges and incarceration than meaningful access to treatment, echoing early statewide data showing thousands of such cases filed, very low uptake of treatment, and only a handful of completions.[6][14][12]
Building on this, the piece contends that voters were sold a promise of rehabilitation in lieu of jail or prison but have instead received a system where the punitive elements took effect immediately while the promised treatment infrastructure remains largely nonexistent, a dynamic also described in independent analysis from legal scholars and policy groups.[10][14][5]
The column emphasizes that a key design flaw is the absence of a dedicated funding stream in Proposition 36, leaving counties to finance new treatment mandates with already stretched local resources and forcing the Legislature to decide each year whether to allocate discretionary funds, a problem flagged in fiscal and policy assessments at the time of the ballot measure.[2][14][16]
It further argues that the resulting patchwork implementation — with each county developing its own procedures, court departments, and standards for success or failure in treatment — has created a confusing system with “punitive and vague consequences,” in line with early reports that practices and outcomes vary widely across counties.[6][14][7]
The article highlights concerns that the new laws are disproportionately funneling older Black defendants and people experiencing long-term homelessness and addiction into state prison, reflecting broader critiques that Proposition 36 rolls back reforms aimed at reducing racial disparities and mass incarceration in California.[5][13][15]
The piece suggests that law enforcement agencies and courts are now attempting to reinvent themselves as de facto social workers and drug counselors while still serving as “the jailers,” arguing that this dual role is fundamentally incompatible with effective treatment and is producing a system that relies on punishment rather than care.[7][14][5]
The column also questions the wisdom of pouring more money into Proposition 36’s framework when California is already investing heavily in separate housing and behavioral health systems, including programs funded with savings from Proposition 47, and argues that Prop. 36 effectively seeks to build a parallel, punishment-linked treatment track that competes with these existing efforts.[3][13][14]
Finally, the article warns that fully funding Proposition 36 as written risks a return to an “antiquated mass incarceration dynamic” similar to the era before recent criminal justice reforms, while refusing to fund it exposes the governor and Legislature to political attacks for allegedly ignoring the will of the voters — leaving people with chronic addictions trapped in a system of false promises and real penalties.[5][13][15]
Different views on the topic
Supportive commentary and endorsements describe Proposition 36 as a necessary recalibration of California’s criminal justice approach after Proposition 47, arguing that tougher penalties for repeat theft and drug offenses are needed to address perceived spikes in retail crime, open-air drug markets, and public disorder while still preserving a path to treatment.[3][8][14]
Proponents contend that the “treatment-mandated felony” is a constructive innovation: it allows prosecutors to charge repeat hard-drug possession as a felony but offers defendants the option to choose court-approved drug and mental health treatment instead of incarceration, with successful completion resulting in dismissal of charges and no conviction.[1][4][11][9]
In this view, the initiative represents a balanced strategy that couples accountability with rehabilitation; supporters argue that requiring guilty pleas and tying relief to completion of treatment can motivate participation and provide leverage to keep individuals with serious substance use disorders engaged in services they might otherwise avoid.[4][7][11]
Business groups, law enforcement organizations, and some commentators maintain that California’s earlier reforms went too far in reducing penalties, eroding deterrence for shoplifting and low-level drug offenses, and leaving retailers, residents, and cities to absorb repeated losses and safety concerns; they present Proposition 36 as a voter-driven response to those frustrations.[3][8][13]
Supporters also frame the measure as a tool to confront the fentanyl crisis, noting provisions that strengthen sentences for trafficking certain hard drugs and require judges to warn drug dealers that they could face murder charges if their drugs cause a fatal overdose, which they argue will enhance public safety and save lives.[2][3][8]
Some law enforcement leaders and backers of Proposition 36 argue that early implementation challenges stem less from the design of the law than from insufficient follow-through by state policymakers; they contend that without robust funding for probation, sheriffs, courts, and treatment providers, the initiative’s promise of expanded access to care cannot be realized.[14][16][4]
Additionally, proponents point out that the measure was approved by a wide margin statewide, and they argue that honoring the electorate’s decision requires building out the treatment and supervision capacity envisioned by the law rather than allowing budget constraints or philosophical opposition to undermine its goals.[2][3][8]
Finally, some analysts sympathetic to Proposition 36 suggest that, over time, properly resourced court-mandated treatment programs could help reduce homelessness and chronic offending among people with serious addictions, asserting that structured interventions backed by meaningful consequences are more likely to interrupt cycles of drug use and petty theft than the status quo of brief jail stays or citation-only responses.[7][9][14]
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
Senator Allen has put his money on fire mitigation and bringing stakeholders together in communities up and down the state to reduce their risk and stay insured. In this episode, Host Kate Cagle speaks with Allen about his plans.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito run the Latino vibe check — inspired by a newsletter from their colleague Carlos De Loera asking a simple but loaded question: Is there any advantage to being Latino in the United States?
