Organized retail theft down, arrests up in Fresno. DA says it’s thanks to Prop. 36
Organized retail theft is down in Fresno, while arrests are up since Californians overwhelmingly approved a statewide tough-on-crime measure in 2024, according to police Chief Mindy Casto.
Proposition 36 allows prosecutors to charge people convicted of certain third-time drug and theft-related offenses with a “treatment-mandated felony.” Offenders can avoid jail time by completing rehabilitation treatment, but opting out could lead to a state prison sentence.
Casto on Friday touted 152 retail theft-related arrests this year, so far, at a conference with public safety and retail leaders from across Fresno County. The police department, which tallied 277 arrests in 2025, is on track to surpass its previous number of related arrests this year.
“We are very grateful for the passage of Prop. 36 not only for the tool that has given us to fight theft in our city, but also the message is sent that the large proportion of voters in the state, they support the enforcement law to help stay safer,” Casto said.
Known as the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act,” Prop. 36 amended Prop. 47, which reduced some drug possession and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors in 2014.
Since Prop 36 was implemented, the Fresno County jail has booked 1,422 individuals on charges that previously would not have resulted in jail time, according to Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni. Of those, 848 people were arrested in Fresno and 265 in Clovis.
Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp said Prop. 47 failed because the reduced charges for such crimes came without funding for rehabilitation treatment, continuing the cycle of drug abuse.
“There were no teeth in the law,” Smittcamp said. “It’s sad to say, but sometimes the wake-up call and that bottom for people who are addicted and stealing, it sometimes is jail if they don’t choose voluntarily to go into treatment.”
It is unclear how many individuals charged with the treatment-mandated felony in California have opted into and completed treatment since the measures’ implementation.
However, in the first six months since the law took effect, roughly 9,000 people had been charged with a treatment-mandated felony, according to data from the state’s Judicial Council. Of those, 1,290 people chose treatment, and of the 771 placed in treatment, 25 completed it.
Many local agencies, including Fresno, have reported a lack of state funding to assist in the implementation of Prop. 36.
“With our state individuals up there, we need to convince them that they need to fund this because where we’re at right now is it falls upon the backs of the 58 sheriffs in Fresno County to house these individuals within our jail facilities,” Zanoni said.
The Fresno Police Department received roughly $23 million through a state Organized Retail Theft Prevention Grant in 2023.
Casto said those funds have assisted the department in enforcing and prosecuting retail theft-related crimes, with 25 personnel assigned to work on organized retail theft as detectives.