With Proposition 36 passing decisively, and Los Angeles County electing a new District Attorney, Long Beach’s local prosecutor says he sees a chance to push more people into mental health and drug treatment under the threat of tougher criminal penalties.
Long Beach City Prosecutor Doug Haubert said he’ll now have more leverage to compel the repeat drug and theft offenders that Proposition 36 targets into diversion programs. It’s a process he’ll likely have to work out in coordination with a new District Attorney, Nathan Hochman, who was well ahead of incumbent George Gascón in early returns.
“Now that Prop. 36 has passed, I think the real work needs to begin,” said Haubert, who hopes to have a strategy worked out over the next 60 days.
This year’s ballot initiative came as a response to Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot measure that reclassified possession of heroin, methamphetamine and other illegal drugs as misdemeanors in the state. The decade-old proposition also raised the threshold to prosecute felony theft from $400 in stolen merchandise to $950.
Proposition 36 raises some repeat offender’s misdemeanor theft or drug possession case to a felony, punishable by up to three years in county jail or state prison. Sentences would also be raised if three or more people committed the act together. It also creates a “treatment-mandated felony” for some drug crimes that require offenders to complete treatment or face up to three years in prison.
Local supporters of Prop. 36 include the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce. In September, the City Council declined to vote in favor of the proposition by a vote of 3-5.
Opponents of the proposition, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, argued it would worsen mass incarceration and cost the state up to $100 million annual to handle more people going through the prison and justice system.
Haubert, however, has positioned it as a tool to push mentally ill and drug-addicted offenders into treatment, not jail.
“I’m hopeful that Proposition 36, if we use it the right way, will not increase costs to taxpayers but it will effectively get people off the streets and into services,” Haubert said. “That should be the goal for everyone involved.”
Long Beach already has two programs in place designed to offer services rather than a jail sentence: the Priority Access Diversion program and the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program.
Haubert’s office recently won a $350,000 grant to improve and potentially expand its ‘Guides app,’ which Long Beach police use to connect qualifying offenders with treatment instead of jail or a citation.
Haubert said he believes the proposition passing will “make our diversion programs 10 times more effective.”