The People's Voice 2018 poll, sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and conducted by PSB Research, had a couple of questions on crime.
Fixing Proposition 57 so that its early release provisions actually apply only to nonviolent offenders, as the proponents falsely promised, gets close to unanimous support. 93% agreed with this statement: "The California State Legislature should expand the list of violent crime for which early release is not an option to include rape of an unconscious person, trafficking a child for sex, and felony domestic violence." Over 2/3 agreed strongly.
People seem to be waking up to the consequences of the ill-advised AB 109 and Proposition 47, which watered down punishment for property felonies or reduced them to misdemeanors. "Street crime, shoplifting, car theft, and homelessness have become rampant throughout California" was endorsed by 85%. It's not clear whether the people have made the connection to the measures, though.
Unfortunately, I cannot link to the full results. I can't find them online anywhere. The numbers above come from a presentation that has been circulated by email. The Chamber has this report on the poll, but it doesn't mention the crime questions.
Since I'm certain to get comments that the people's perception on the second point is wrong, I will make a couple of points about the official statistics. We know that California auto theft jumped sharply relative to the country as a whole in the five years after AB 109. See this post from last year.
For property crime generally, California has not shared in the overall decline as much as the nation as a whole, as documented in this post. Overall official numbers are down, but they are not down as far as they would be if California had simply shared in the national decline.
Perhaps even more importantly, the official "crimes known to police" numbers are not the same as the real crime rate. Crimes that the victims do not bother to report are not counted. A major reason for not reporting is a feeling that the police won't do anything. Reducing a crime from a felony to a misdemeanor makes it more likely police will do nothing and therefore less likely that victims will report. For shoplifting, in particular, anecdotal evidence abounds that store owner feel helpless and have reduced reported. Thus it is quite possible for official theft numbers to be down but for people to be correct in their perception that shoplifting is up.
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