SACRAMENTO, Calif.— California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bipartisan package of 10 bills to crack down on smash-and-grab robberies and property crimes. The bills would make pursuing repeat shoplifters and auto thieves easier and increase penalties for those running professional reselling schemes. The move comes as Democratic leadership works to prove they’re tough enough on crime while trying to convince voters to reject a ballot measure that would bring even harsher sentences for repeat offenders of shoplifting and drug charges.
While shoplifting has been a growing problem, large-scale, smash-and-grab thefts, in which groups brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight, have become a crisis in California and elsewhere in recent years. Often captured on video and posted on social media, such crimes have brought particular attention to the state’s retail theft problem.
The Democratic governor said the legislation includes the most significant changes to address retail theft in years. It allows law enforcement 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.
“This goes to the heart of the issue, and it does it thoughtfully and judiciously,” Newsom said of the package. “This is the real deal.”
The package received bipartisan support from the legislature, though some progressive Democrats did not vote for it, citing concerns that some measures are too punitive.
The legislation also cracks down on cargo thefts, closes a legal loophole to make it easier to prosecute auto thefts and requires marketplaces like eBay and Nextdoor to start collecting bank accounts and tax identification numbers from high-volume sellers. Under one of the bills, retailers can also obtain restraining orders against convicted shoplifters.
“We know that retail theft has consequences, big and small, physical and financial,” state Sen. Nancy Skinner, who authored one of the bills, said last Friday. “And we know we have to take the right steps to stop it without returning to the days of mass incarceration.”
Democratic lawmakers, led by Newsom, spent months earlier this year unsuccessfully fighting to keep a tougher-on-crime initiative off the November ballot. That ballot measure, Proposition 36, would make it a felony for repeat shoplifters and some drug charges, among other things. Democrats worried the measure would disproportionately criminalize low-income people and those with substance use issues rather than target ringleaders who hire large groups of people to steal goods for them to resell online. Lawmakers’ legislation instead would allow prosecutors to combine multiple thefts at different locations for a felony charge and stiffen penalties for smash-and-grabs and large-scale reselling operations.
In June, Newsom even proposed putting a competing measure on the ballot but dropped the plan a day later. Proposition 36 is backed by a coalition of district attorneys, businesses and some local elected officials, such as San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
Newsom, flanked by a bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers, business leaders and local officials in a Home Depot store in San Jose, said the ballot measure would be “a devastating setback” for California. Newsom said last month he will work to fight the measure.
“That initiative is about going back to the 1980s and the war on drugs,” he said. “It’s about mass incarceration.”
In recent years, tackling crimes in California has become increasingly difficult for state Democrats. Many have spent the last decade championing progressive policies to depopulate jails and prisons and invest in rehabilitation programs. Newsom’s administration has also spent $267 million to help dozens of local law enforcement agencies increase patrols, buy surveillance equipment and prosecute more criminals.
The issue hit a boiling point this year amid mounting criticism from Republicans and law enforcement, who point to viral videos of large-scale thefts where groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight. Voters across the state are also vexed over what they see as a lawless California where retail crimes and drug abuse run rampant as the state grapples with a homelessness crisis.
As the issue could affect Congress’s makeup and control, some Democrats broke with party leadership and said they supported Proposition 36, the tough-on-crime approach.
It’s hard to quantify the retail crime issue in California because of the need for more local data. However, many point to significant store closures and everyday products like toothpaste being locked behind plexiglass as evidence of a crisis. The California Retailers Association said it’s challenging to quantify the issue in California because many stores need to share their data.