(Bloomberg) -- California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a series of anti-crime bills into law, signaling a tougher approach on retail theft and car break-ins three weeks after calling for a crackdown on homeless encampments.
The measures enacted include new penalties for smash-and-grab robberies, auto burglaries and possession of stolen goods. They also enable retailers to file restraining orders against repeat offenders and allow prosecutors to combine the dollar value of items stolen over time and across jurisdictions to meet the threshold for felony grand theft.
“These bills will strengthen existing laws, they’ll enhance other laws and they will address the challenges that are well outside the purview of previous initiatives,” Newsom said Friday at a signing ceremony outside a Home Depot Inc. store in San Jose, where he appeared with retail industry leaders and fellow Democrats.
High-profile store robberies, many of them by organized crime rings, have stunned Californians in recent years, infuriated retailers and fueled perceptions of social decay in the most populous US state. Newsom’s push to spotlight a crackdown on property crime echoes his effort to quell the number of homeless encampments last month, when he ordered state agencies to begin forced removals and encouraged tougher enforcement by local governments.
At the signing ceremony for the criminal-justice legislation, Newsom called organized retail theft an “issue that is front and center in the consciousness of so many Californians.” Also in the package of bills he approved is a measure that would require online marketplaces to obtain more information from sellers to prevent illegal resales.
Newsom shocked the California political establishment last month by abandoning a ballot measure to tackle property crime and the fentanyl crisis. He scrapped the effort after careful negotiations with Democratic factions in the state legislature, saying the attempt was “unable to meet the ballot deadline.”
That decision ceded the field to a tougher initiative known as Proposition 36, which is opposed by the governor but backed by Walmart Inc., Target Corp. and the California District Attorneys Association.
That measure would require mandated treatment for some drug-related crimes, stiffen penalties for certain offenses and increase punitive measures and sentencing requirements.
The fight over criminal justice stems from Proposition 47, a voter-approved law from 2014 that reduced penalties for some low level drug and property crimes.
Proponents argue that the law has helped reduce incarceration rates and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Critics blame it for spurring drug abuse and retail theft.
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