Ten years ago, California voters passed Prop 47 to downgrade the possession of hard drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor, then continued to pass soft-on-crime proposals aimed at reinventing the state’s criminal justice system. Since then, crime, drug use and homelessness have skyrocketed, driving businesses and upstanding citizens from the state, a trend that should serve as a stark warning to other states who have followed California’s lead. Now, Proposition 36, or The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act, is on the California ballot to address these crises. As this proposition is poised to be passed into law, we can’t help but wonder, “So what?”
For the last decade, endless political promises, countless policy changes and billions of taxpayer dollars have been thrown at California’s homelessness, drug and crime crises, and they’ve only gotten worse. The Hoover institution reports, “Since 2019, California has spent about $24 billion on homelessness, but in this five-year period, homelessness increased by about 30,000, to more than 181,000.” Consistent with a terrifying national habit, there was little to no accountability for this spending…