California prosecutors have filed nearly 20,000 drug possession felony cases under a tough-on-crime measure passed in 2024. But despite promises to get people into services, the vast majority of those arrested have not received drug treatment, state data reveals. > > Proposition 36, a state ballot measure, enacted harsher penalties for minor theft and drug offenses, with proponents pledging the crackdown would lead to “mass treatment to keep people alive, out of jail, and off our streets”. > > Case records, however, suggest the state is largely failing to meet the central goal of getting people help and instead conducting mass arrests and incarcerating more people with addiction. In Prop 36’s first year, less than 1% of drug felony charges resulted in defendants completing treatment programs, data shows. > > Prop 36 was overwhelmingly passed by voters amid concerns about public drug use, shoplifting and other non-violent crimes tied to California’s homelessness crisis. The initiative turned certain misdemeanors into felonies that carry prison time, rolling back parts of a landmark 2014 reform that had kept low-level offenses out of prison and reduced dangerous overcrowding behind bars.