A pocketful of merchandise, a shopping cart full of lacquer, a few handfuls of lottery tickets and several bottles of liquor — all stolen.
Ordinarily, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t have bothered to announce arrests for these petty crimes. But to the man whose name is printed at the bottom of the news releases, Sheriff Shannon Dicus, these are not ordinary times.
Dicus said he wants merchants who are fed up with thieves’ carefree shoplifting sprees and repeat offenders who know they face brief or nonexistent jail stays if caught to recognize that there are once again repercussions after the passage last year of Proposition 36.
“I believe the state has been moving forward without consequences for a while, and as sheriff, I needed to put consequences into people’s actions,” Dicus said in an interview.
The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act received 68.4% of the vote statewide in November and went into effect on Dec. 18 as what proponents called the “fix” for Prop. 47, which in 2014 reclassified some nonviolent felonies as misdemeanors and reduced the prison population.
Under the new law, an offender would be offered a choice of drug and mental health treatment or jail upon a third conviction for possession of the most dangerous drugs. And anyone convicted of a third theft can be charged with a felony and sentenced to county jail for up to three years, no matter the value of the stolen property. Previously, an unlimited number of thefts valued under $950 were classified as misdemeanors. A fourth conviction can send a criminal to state prison.
“And so I support Prop. 36 because it brings back things that we used to have in the past like … being able to put teeth into theft (sentences). You can’t just steal,” Dicus said.
Critics of Prop. 36 say the law makes simple drug possession a felony, dramatically increasing costs to taxpayers for incarceration without reducing crime, and that it will cause confusion in the courts because judges will have discretion on what penalties to impose.
The ACLU, which opposed Prop. 36, called Prop. 47 “a resounding success” and said the state needs “investment in the resources that keep communities safe.”
Not every county has room for the anticipated increase in inmates — Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said he needs to hire more correctional deputies to fully staff his jail in Indio — but San Bernardino County’s jails are about 1,700 inmates below capacity.
Dicus said he wrote letters to state lawmakers in support of Prop. 36, but at the time they were focused on organized retail crime and not individual shoplifters. Some lawmakers said California didn’t need Prop. 36, the sheriff said. So even after the proposition passed, Dicus wants the public to know that it is necessary.
“If I look at my local employers, one of the largest is Stater Bros.,” Dicus said. “They weren’t getting hit as badly as the organized retail theft, but the shoplifter who comes in, it’s one shoplifter, but they may hit the store seven times in a day over and over times 20 people, or whatever it was. That’s what I’m hearing from the local community.”
One of the crimes Dicus highlighted happened in January, when the news release said two San Bernardino residents, one age 43 and one 54, entered the Home Depot on Foothill Boulevard in Rancho Cucamonga in January, placed the lacquer into the cart and rolled it out of the store without paying. Deputies arrested both women in the parking lot.
The release noted that because both had several theft convictions, they were booked into jail instead of being cited on the spot and sent on their way with promises to appear in court.
Drug abuse, homelessness and theft are inextricably tied, so a judge giving a defendant a choice between drug rehab and jail is in a position to solve all three issues. Dicus said it is “more humane” for a homeless person to be incarcerated, where he can receive treatment, than to live in a camp.
“Between Prop. 47 and its inception, we’re talking about 2014 until now, we have a whole decade of people that we have to catch up with in terms of trying to help them whether it’s mental health issues or whether it’s substance abuse because they’ve been allowed to do drugs with impunity,” Dicus said.
“In my opinion, that’s why we are seeing the amount of homelessness we’re seeing. I think Prop. 36 in very short order, we’ll be able to bring these people before the courts and the courts will send them to seek help, if that is what they are willing to do or at least have consequences and get them off the streets for the public’s sake. .. . Because if we are all being honest, we are all looking over our shoulders. Every single one of us. You shouldn’t have to.”
