Gov. Gavin Newsom, still stinging from a public defeat last month, signed a package of bills today that he and lawmakers pledged will combat rising retail theft.
The 10 bills are intended to make it easier to prosecute people suspected of retail and vehicle theft without undoing changes voters approved a decade ago that reduced prison sentences for nonviolent crimes.
Voters in November will see a separate ballot measure, Proposition 36, that would go further by increasing sentences for property crimes and offenses related to fentanyl. Newsom and other Democrats oppose the ballot measure, which they say would restore policies that they contend failed to improve public safety even as they packed prisons with nonviolent offenders.
What Newsom signed
The bills Newsom signed would make repeated theft convictions a felony, collect crimes across multiple counties into one court so they can be charged as a felony and allow police to arrest someone on suspicion of retail theft even if the officer does not witness the crime.
Shoplifting and retail theft are “the issue that is front and center of the consciousness of so many Californians,” Newsom said at the signing today at a Home Depot in San Jose where he was joined by Democratic lawmakers and Attorney General Rob Bonta. “We didn’t just wake up to this issue.”
“This is the real deal. Grocers and retailers understand that,” Newsom said.
Newsom’s signature comes 45 days after the collapse of a crime bill that he had hoped would fend off Republicans and some conservative Democrats who demanded major changes to a decade-long project aimed at reducing California’s prison population….
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