California tightens laws on retail theft, targeting repeat offenders

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a bipartisan package of 10 bills that aims to crack down on smash-and-grab robberies and property crimes, making it easier to go after repeat shoplifters and auto thieves and increase penalties for those running professional reselling schemes.

The move comes as Democratic leadership works to prove that they’re tough enough on crime while trying to convince voters to reject a ballot measure that would bring even harsher sentences for repeat offenders of shoplifting and drug charges.

While shoplifting has been a growing problem, large-scale, smash-and-grab thefts, in which groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight, have become a crisis in California and elsewhere in recent years. Such crimes, often captured on video and posted on social media, have brought particular attention to the state’s retail theft problem.

The legislation includes the most significant changes to address retail theft in years, the Democratic governor said. It allows law enforcement to combine the value of goods stolen from different victims to impose harsher penalties and arrest people for shoplifting using video footage or witness statements.

“This goes to the heart of the issue, and it does it in a thoughtful and judicious way,” Mr. Newsom said of the package. “This is the real deal.”

The package received bipartisan support from the Legislature, though some progressive Democrats did not vote for it, citing concerns that some measures are too punitive.

The legislation also cracks down on cargo thefts, closes a legal loophole to make it easier to prosecute auto thefts, and requires marketplaces like eBay and Nextdoor to start collecting bank accounts and tax identification numbers from high-volume sellers. Retailers also can obtain restraining orders against convicted shoplifters under one of the bills.

“We know that retail theft has consequences, big and small, physical and financial,” state Sen. Nancy Skinner, who authored one of the bills, said Friday. “And we know we have to take the right steps in order to stop it without returning to the days of mass incarceration.”

Democratic lawmakers, led by Newsom, spent months earlier this year unsuccessfully fighting to keep a tougher-on-crime initiative off the November ballot. That ballot measure, Proposition 36, would make it a felony for repeat shoplifters and some drug charges, among other things. Democrats worried the measure would disproportionately criminalize low-income people and those with substance use issues rather than target ringleaders who hire large groups of people to steal goods for them to resell online. Lawmakers’ legislation instead would allow prosecutors to combine multiple thefts at different locations for a felony charge and stiffen penalties for smash-and-grabs and large-scale reselling operations.

Mr. Newsom in June went as far as proposing putting a competing measure on the ballot but dropped the plan a day later. Proposition 36 is backed by a coalition of district attorneys, businesses, and some local elected officials such as San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.

Mr. Newsom, flanked by a bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers, business leaders, and local officials in a Home Depot store in San Jose, said the ballot measure would be “a devastating setback” for California. Mr. Newsom said last month he would work to fight the measure.

“That initiative is about going back to the 1980s and the war on drugs,” he said. “It’s about mass incarceration.”

How to tackle crimes in California has become increasingly difficult to navigate in recent years for state Democrats, many of whom have spent the last decade championing progressive policies to depopulate jails and prisons and invest in rehabilitation programs. Mr. Newsom’s administration has also spent $267 million to help dozens of local law enforcement agencies increase patrols, buy surveillance equipment, and prosecute more criminals.

The issue hit a boiling point this year amid mounting criticism from Republicans and law enforcement, who point to viral videos of large-scale thefts where groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight. Voters across the state are also vexed over what they see as a lawless California where retail crimes and drug abuse run rampant as the state grapples with a homelessness crisis.

As the issue could even affect the makeup – and control – of Congress, some Democrats broke with party leadership and said they supported Proposition 36, the tough-on-crime approach.

It’s hard to quantify the retail crime issue in California because of the lack of local data, but many point to major store closures and everyday products like toothpaste being locked behind plexiglass as evidence of a crisis. The California Retailers Association said it’s challenging to quantify the issue in California because many stores don’t share their data.

Crime data shows the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles saw a steady increase in shoplifting between 2021 and 2022, according to a study by the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California. The state attorney general and experts said crime rates in California remain low compared to the heights decades ago.

The California Highway Patrol has recovered $45 million in stolen goods and arrested nearly 3,000 people since 2019, officials said Friday.

This story was reported by The Associated Press.