Prop 36 proponents promised safety, accountability, and mass treatment. California’s getting more mass incarceration instead.
It has been one year since Proposition 36 went into effect in California. Marketed as the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act,” the measure was backed by major retailers—including Target, Walmart, and Home Depot—as well as the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and the California District Attorneys Association. Proponents promised accountability, public safety, and widespread access to treatment.
One year later, the results tell a different story. A new report from the Vera Institute of Justice on the implementation of Prop 36 in Los Angeles, and the attached preliminary data analysis from the Center on Criminal Justice, Californians for Safety and Justice, and researchers at UC Berkeley, both reveal Prop 36 is failing its promises across the state.
Instead of delivering mass treatment, implementation data show increased arrests, longer sentences, deep racial disparities, and growing jail and prison populations across the state.
In Los Angeles County, key findings from the first year of implementation include:
- Prop 36 is projected to cost L.A. nearly $80 million this year – and hundreds of millions of dollars next year.
- Most people charged with Prop 36 felonies are not getting treatment. During the first six months of the legislation being in effect, 331 people faced felony drug charges – only 40 people were ordered into treatment, and only one person completed it.
- Nearly 5,000 people went to jail on Prop 36 charges in the first ten months of implementation. In 64 percent of those bookings, the Prop 36 charge was their only felony – meaning that, were it not for Prop 36, those people likely would not have been in jail during one of the deadliest years on record.
- Prop 36 disproportionately impacts Black people and older people in L.A. Black Angelenos make up just 8 percent of L.A.’s population, but account for 23 percent of Prop 36 bookings. Bookings are also disproportionately of people over 50.
To speak further with any of the experts quoted below on Prop 36, or a public defenders office in your county, contact Alyssa Kress at [email protected] or 215-360-3479.
“In L.A. County alone, more than 3,000 charges have been filed under Prop 36 — yet so many of the people we serve are still waiting for the treatment they were promised. The failure isn’t theirs; it’s ours as a system,” said Ricardo D. Garcia, L.A. County Public Defender. “Prop 36 held out hope for care and recovery but delivered little more than words. There are no guaranteed beds, no stable funding, no consistent coordination with providers. What people do find instead are new arrests, more jail time, and punishment for relapse. That isn’t reform. It’s abandonment dressed up as progress.”
“Prop 36 was an artificial solution fueled by fear and sold to voters as “tough love.” In reality, it’s a repackaged war-on-drugs approach to substance use, mental illness, and poverty that will continue to criminalize and devastate communities,” said Summer Lacey, director of Criminal Justice and Police Practices at the ACLU of Southern California. “One year in and the data confirms what community advocates predicted: more arrests of Black and Brown people, minimal access to treatment, and critical funding stripped from programs that actually help people stay on their feet. Instead of making our communities safer, Prop 36 punishes poverty and addiction while pretending to offer help. Real safety comes from proven solutions like investing in housing, mental health care, community-based drug treatment, and other services that help people get the support they need, not harsher punishment dressed up as care.”
“Prop 36 is straining our community and state budgets in a time of unprecedented financial uncertainty, without improving community safety or public health,” said Claire Simonich, associate director of Vera California, a local initiative of the Vera Institute of Justice. “Prop 36 is exacerbating the very public health and safety problems it purported to address, removing funding from proven, effective programs and services like substance use and behavioral treatment and supportive housing. As California faces tough financial choices, it must invest in solutions that work — healthcare, services, and treatment — not just more punishment and mass incarceration.”
“Prop 36 is taking us backwards — cycling people through jails instead of getting them into treatment,” said Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of the Prosecutors Alliance. “It’s yet another reminder that real safety comes from policies that actually invest in our communities, address root causes, and create meaningful second chances.”
“Prop 36 is eroding safety and justice in California,” said Maureen Washburn, senior policy manager for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. “Over the past year, it has siphoned tens of millions from effective Prop 47 treatment programs, created stark differences across county justice systems, deepened racial disparities, and failed to make good on its central promise — getting people into treatment.”
“California has a large, proud immigrant population — it is home to more immigrants than any other state. Prop 36 is harming our communities and fueling the jail-to-ICE detention and deportation pipeline,” said Merle Kahn, senior contract attorney for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. “All Prop 36 adjudications, even those that are not supposed to be convictions, are convictions under federal immigration law. Green card holders and other noncitizens who are charged with Prop 36 crimes are being placed in deportation proceedings, often subject to mandatory detention and mandatory deportation. This is true regardless of the person’s ties to the U.S., how long they have been living here, or the harm to their families. Individual circumstances often cannot even be considered by the immigration authorities if they are charged with a Prop 36 crime. Families are being torn apart, employers are losing valued employees, and entire communities are being destroyed by Prop 36.”
Trip Eggert is the Senior Communications Strategist for the Vera Institute of Justice
