Nate is an East Bay community papers editor for the Bay Area News Group and East Bay Times. He edits the Hills weekly Alameda Journal, Berkeley Voice, El Cerrito Journal, Montclarion and Piedmonter newspapers; Central Costa County's weekly Concord Transcript and Walnut Creek Journal papers; and East Contra Costa's weekly East County News.
Crime has been a see-saw issue in California for most of the last 40 years. Leniency was in vogue for a while recently, but now the balance is back to getting tougher, as polls this fall showed many voters believed property crimes have vastly increased since the 2014 passage of Proposition 47.The clearest manifestation of this was the strong performance of Prop. 36 on this month’s ballot, drawing a huge, nearly 70% majority.
Polly Klaas and two fellow 12-year-olds were enjoying a slumber party in Petaluma when Richard Allen Davis abducted and murdered her. Her body was discovered about two months later in 1993. Kimber Reynolds, 18, had been shot and killed in Fresno the previous year. This was a major step toward 2014’s Prop. 47, portrayed as the villain in this year’s campaign for the confusingly numbered most recent Prop. 36. Because of the wide belief that Prop. 47 increased crime rates, especially for property crimes, voters strongly favored the new Prop. 36 from the moment sponsoring prosecutors announced it.
So now comes the new Prop. 36, which allows aggregation of the value of thefts by repeat offenders. That figures to shoot up the prosecution rate for property crimes and raise prison populations, all part of California’s crime seesaw.
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