A California Democratic lawmaker is expressing regret for supporting a law that ultimately made it more difficult to prosecute theft and drug crimes.
San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa supported Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot referendum that downgraded several nonviolent felony crimes.
The referendum — which passed with nearly 60% approval — made shoplifting, grand theft, receiving stolen property, forgery, fraud, and writing a bad check a misdemeanor crime if the value of the stolen or fraudulent amount is less than $950.
On Tuesday, Canepa declared his support for Prop 47 a “mistake.”
“I thought it was a good idea at the time because I thought [that] we need to give people an opportunity, we need to give people a chance,” Canepa said, according to KPIX-TV.
“I made a mistake, it was a big mistake, and you have to acknowledge your mistake,” he admitted. “By doing this, what we’ve done is we’re letting people take thousands and thousands of dollars. And why should people be subjugated?”
At this month’s board of supervisors meeting, Canepa will propose creating a law enforcement task force to help tackle organized retail theft, which is a growing problem nationwide.
San Francisco and Los Angeles, though, have been hit particularly hard with incidents of retail theft.
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