California bill would add penalties for robberies – NBC 7 San Diego

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill Thursday that would impose tough penalties for grand theft and robbery crimes that have frustrated voters across the state.

The new law requires prosecutors to impose tougher penalties for those who damage or destroy property worth more than $50,000 while committing a crime. A similar law expired in 2018. The new law is set to expire in 2030.

“California already has some of the toughest retail and property crime laws in the country — and we made them even stronger with our recent legislation,” Newsom said in a statement. “We can be tough on crime, but we can also be smart about crime — we don’t have to go back to the broken policies of the last century.”

The decision to impose tougher penalties comes as Democratic leaders continue to prove they are tough on crime, while trying to convince voters to reject a bill that would impose even tougher penalties on repeat offenders of shoplifting and drug possession.

While shoplifting is a growing problem, large-scale thefts, in which groups of individuals brazenly storm stores and take merchandise in plain sight, have become a crisis in California and elsewhere in recent years. Such crimes, often captured on video and posted on social media, have drawn particular attention to the problem of shoplifting in the state.

The new law is part of a bipartisan legislative package of about a dozen bills aimed at cracking down on theft, making it easier to catch repeat shoplifters and car thieves, and increasing penalties for those who run professional resale schemes.

“Violent sledgehammer crimes and flash mob attacks by organized gangs must stop now,” House Speaker Robert Rivas, who authored the bill, said in a statement. “Our business owners and workers should not have to live in fear that these crimes will come to their doorstep.”

The measure also has the support of the California Retailers Association, which said the new penalties would serve as “a deterrent to smash and grabs and retail crime.”

But opponents, including criminal justice advocates and public defenders, said the new law would put more people behind bars for non-shoplifting. The measure would increase prison sentences for a wide range of offenses, they said. That means someone could face harsher sentences for offenses such as damaging vehicles while driving under the influence under the new law.

They also criticized the new law because it was based on a plan proposed in a tougher-sentencing initiative that Newsom and Democratic lawmakers criticized for months and fought unsuccessfully to keep off the November ballot. The new law expires in five years, while the ballot proposes a plan to make the tougher penalties permanent.

“If we’re against it being permanent, why aren’t we against it being temporary?” Taina Vargas, executive director of Initiate Justice Action, said of the new law. “It makes it clear that certain individuals in the Legislature and the governor just want to appear as if they’re doing something.”

In recent years, it has become increasingly difficult for Democrats in California to tackle crime. Many of them have spent the past decade pushing for progressive policies to depopulate prisons and invest in rehabilitation programs.

Because the issue could even affect the composition of Congress and its control, some Democrats broke with party leadership and said they supported Proposition 36, the tough-on-crime bill.

Newsom’s administration has spent $267 million to help dozens of local law enforcement agencies increase patrols, buy surveillance equipment and prosecute more criminals. Law enforcement in the state has arrested 6,900 people for shoplifting in the first six months of operation, Newsom’s office said Thursday.

It’s difficult to quantify California’s retail crime problem due to a lack of local data, but many point to mass store closures and everyday items like toothpaste being kept behind plexiglass as evidence of a crisis. The California Retailers Association said it’s difficult to quantify the problem in California because many stores don’t share their data.