It’s Been One Year Since Prop 36 Passed. Is Mass Treatment Working?
By Josh Pynoos
You might have forgotten about Proposition 36, last year’s CA ballot measure that increased penalties for retail theft and certain drug offenses. After all, the wave of news stories about “spikes” in retail theft has largely disappeared from local coverage. Supporters of the initiative claimed it would usher in “mass treatment” and help people struggling with addiction enter recovery programs. But the early data tell a different story.
In the year since voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 36, court records show that only 25 people statewide have completed the mandated drug treatment programs.
In the first six months of Proposition 36’s rollout, over 9,000 people were charged with a felony for third-time drug offenses. Only 15% of those eligible have opted for treatment instead of a felony conviction, and just 25 total people statewide have completed the program. As a result, more people are being pulled into the criminal justice system, with less than 3% completing treatment.
Proposition 36 passed without funding streams for treatment programs. Even Governor Gavin Newsom called it an “unfunded mandate.” Counties lack the resources, staff, and treatment infrastructure to meet the law’s requirements. Local governments were left to implement a sweeping policy change without the necessary behavioral health funding and treatment beds.
By contrast, Proposition 47 reduced penalties for low-level crimes and reinvested state savings into treatment, mental health, victim services, and education. Proposition 36 reverses that progress, cutting into the very programs that worked to address substance abuse.
We know that you can’t force rehabilitation on anyone. Personal change is more complex. It requires individual agency and different public health approaches. Forcing someone to choose between a felony conviction and mandatory treatment undermines the nature of rehabilitation. Maybe that’s why most people so far have rejected mandated treatment.
Seeing more people jailed for drug use is troubling to us in the justice reform space because we’ve lived through the failed war on drugs. We know California can do better, and we warned that Proposition 36 would not solve the problem on its own.
Clearly, Prop 36 isn’t working as promised. “Mass treatment”? Hardly. Until California commits to forward-thinking solutions to crime and drug addiction, more people will end up in jail and continue to slip through the cracks instead of getting the help they need.
