Governor Gavin Newsom signed one more crime bill on Thursday, which his office said completes this year’s package to address property crime and theft.
The bill raises penalties when someone is convicted of stealing or damaging property while committing a felony. That includes damage done to stores during theft.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas sponsored the bill. It’s the last in a series that the governor has signed this year targeting retail and property theft.
That package includes bills that prohibit entering and stealing from an unlocked vehicle and make it easier to combine similar theft-related crimes in charges.
Like with many of the crime bills this year, advocates for criminal justice reform, like the ACLU California Action, spoke out against the bill. The California Narcotic Officers Association and Californians United for a Responsible Budget also joined them. The California Chamber of Commerce and many city governments around the state supported it.
California also has a measure on the November ballot to increase penalties for theft. Proposition 36 would roll back aspects of the decade-old Proposition 47, which lowered penalties in order to reduce the state’s prison population.
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