Proposition 36: A broken promise

When Proposition 36 passed in 2024, its proponents promised that it wouldn't mean an increase in incarceration. They billed Prop. 36 as a way to get people out of jail cells and into treatment. Today, we know the truth. Prop. 36 has increased arrests and overloaded prisons across the state, disproportionately impacting Black and Brown Californians. Instead of accessing treatment, people who use drugs are languishing in jail cells, exposed to abhorrent and traumatizing conditions without care or support. 

Criminal justice reform groups knew this would happen, and they warned both voters and politicians that Prop. 36’s unintended consequences would result in more incarceration and no improvements in care access. Below, we’ll dive into the structural issues that turned the language of public health into a Trojan horse for a tough-on-crime ballot measure that’s wreaking havoc on the lives of people experiencing homelessness, people of color, and people who use drugs across the state.

The promise

In 2014, the passage of Proposition 47 ushered in a new era of criminal legal reform in California. The ballot measure immediately reduced prison populations, easing the overcrowding that had led the U.S. Supreme Court to declare it a violation of the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Savings from Prop. 47 were reinvested in solutions that actually prevent crime, including treatment for mental illness and addiction.

In 2024, however, the backlash to Prop. 47 gained momentum. Bankrolled by corporations like Walmart, Home Depot, and Target and supported by shoddy and inflated crime data, Prop. 36 built a misleading narrative blaming lenient sentencing for purported higher crime rates and more homelessness. We know what actually caused California’s homelessness increase—runaway rent inflation coupled with the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic—and we know that crime has actually decreased year over year. (The record low crime rates reported in the 2025 crime data overview are the culmination of a decade of reductions.) Prop. 36’s powerful donors capitalized on fear and reactionary sentiment, not data. Yet even then, Prop. 36 couched its tough-on-crime message in the language of compassion. It claimed that charging people with “treatment-mandated felonies” for simply possessing a small amount of an illegal substance would encourage access to treatment and improve lives. 

Despite warnings, Prop. 36 passed. Now, we’re living with the consequences.

What’s happening

After Prop. 36 passed, many voters assumed that there would be immediate payoff. People would be charged with treatment-mandated felonies; they would get the treatment they ostensibly needed; and then they would return to society, in recovery and ready to engage productively. This naive vision was quickly disproven. 

For one thing, California doesn’t even have enough treatment beds to care for those who seek it voluntarily. Before Prop. 36 passed, California already had a massive shortage of treatment beds at all levels. Prop. 36 was an unfunded mandate and did not allocate any funds to building or expanding residential treatment facilities. What that means in practice is that the thousands of people charged with treatment-mandated felonies are waiting in a months-long line to access care—typically while incarcerated. Contrary to public opinion, many people in jails and prisons are still able to access substances, which are usually smuggled in by correctional officers and have a high likelihood of being adulterated and dangerous to use. Jail and prison stays are also traumatic, and this trauma can exacerbate or even initiate substance use disorders.

Now, we’re seeing skyrocketing rates of arrest for felony drug possession and no treatment to connect people to. This is the direct result of Prop. 36: now, a person who has been convicted for drug crimes twice can be charged with a felony just for simple possession. In 2025, the felony drug arrest rate increased by 44.7%, to 91.3 arrests per 100,000 population. By March 2025—just four months after Prop. 36 was passed—over 400 people in the Los Angeles County Jail were in custody for Prop. 36 offenses. Statewide, of the 9,000 people charged with treatment-mandated felonies during the first six months of Prop. 36, only 15% chose treatment, and just 25 people actually completed treatment. Fewer than 20% of people arrested on treatment-mandated felony charges are actually ordered to treatment. And in some cases, the “treatment” to which people are being ordered consists of attending support groups like Narcotics Anonymous. While support groups can provide important social connections, they are not treatment, and they lack the evidence base of treatment modalities like medication for addiction treatment (MAT) and co-occurring treatment for possible mental health disorders.

Prop. 36 has ushered in a new era of mass incarceration, this time specifically targeting people who use drugs. It’s estimated that Prop. 36 will cause California’s prison population to balloon by 35% by 2029, consuming massive financial resources that could have been used to expand low-barrier access to treatment and housing—the very things that actually treat substance use disorder. And, as many predicted, Prop. 36 is disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities, with Black Californians, in particular, vastly overrepresented, in some counties making up over 50% of Prop. 36 arrests.

What’s next

Prop. 36 has failed. No amount of funding can address the systemic issues that plague this measure. Built on the unstable foundation of racist dogwhistles, inaccurate data, and corporate meddling, it’s time to stop trying to treat Prop. 36 like a fixer-upper and bring out the wrecking ball—and then start building something new.

An important aspect of treating substance use disorder that Prop. 36 failed to acknowledge is that treatment itself is rarely effective without adequate support in other areas of a person’s life. In fact, recent discharge from an abstinence-based residential treatment facility is a major risk factor for fatal overdose. Moreover, there’s plenty of evidence that shows that people are just as likely to use substances because they are unhoused as they are to become homeless as the result of their substance use, and many people who use substances while unhoused believe they would reduce or stop their drug use if they had access to adequate housing. A person who is unhoused and who uses methamphetamine to avoid being assaulted while they sleep won’t benefit from a month in residential treatment because the factor causing their substance use—not having a safe place to sleep—hasn’t changed.

Programs that work see a person’s material needs as an integral part of their behavioral health. Alternatives to Arrest programs, also known as LEAD, allow law enforcement to refer a person to a case manager instead of making an arrest for a low-level crime. Case managers can connect people to housing, health care, and voluntary treatment for mental health and/or substance use disorders. These programs are effective, evidence-based, and meet people where they are. Unlike Prop. 36, where treatment is predicated on felony arrest, Alternatives to Arrest avoids adding an item to a person’s rap sheet and lets them find support while staying in their community. It’s programs like these, along with increased investments in low-barrier treatment and supportive care, that give us the tools to address substance use in good faith. 

Prop. 36 has already had a devastating impact on California, but we don’t have to let it get worse. Join us to promote #HealthNotHarm and ensure that Californians receive the care that works for them. Together, we can build a healthier, more compassionate California.