Maps of support for L.A. County Dist. Atty. Hochman and Proposition 36 show shifts in opinion on criminal justice

California and Los Angeles County are getting tougher on crime.

The stiffer penalties on some drug and theft crimes that voters recently approved with Proposition 36 took effect this month. Weeks earlier, in L.A. County, former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman was sworn in as the new district attorney and kicked off his administration by reversing several policies his progressive predecessor George Gascón put in place.

The 2024 general election saw California voters reverse course against criminal justice reform policies and candidates. Prop. 36 overhauls key parts of Proposition 47 that passed handily in 2014. A closer look at L.A. neighborhoods reveals where Prop. 36 and Hochman made headway and how opinions shifted compared to 10 years ago.

In 2014, Prop. 47 was overwhelmingly approved by 90% of neighborhoods in L.A. County. It turned some nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors. Ten years later, 87% of neighborhoods that supported the ballot initiative voted to overhaul it.

All of the few neighborhoods that voted against reduced crime penalties in 2014 voted for harsher penalties with Prop. 36. Those include Santa Clarita, Glendora and La Mirada.

Longtime California pollster Mark DiCamillo, who directed polls for both Prop. 36 and Prop. 47, said both state measures were decided by the same swing groups: voters with “no party preference” and voters who consider their political ideology “middle of the road.”

“Those same swing voter blocks, which showed you there was support for Prop. 47 10 years ago, definitely changed their opinion and are now much more inclined to be supportive of Prop. 36,” DiCamillo said.

Former Rep. Jackie Speier, who had previously supported Prop. 47, said in a public statement that Prop. 36 is a “common-sense” adjustment to the previous law.

Comparing the polls for each ballot initiative reveals differences within age groups and political parties, adds DiCamillo.

Among voters with party preferences, Republicans were mixed on Prop. 47, with Democrats almost 4-to-1 in favor of turning nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors. In 2024, Republicans were 9-to-1 in favor of overhauling Prop. 47. Democrats were more mixed.

“So opinions switched, obviously, but the same age differences were there; the same party differences were there,” DiCamillo said. “You had the same kind of subgroup variations that we saw 10 years ago, but a very different view of the initiative.”

Executive Director Rev. Zachary Hoover of LA Voice, an interfaith community organization who helped pass Prop. 47 and organized against Prop. 36, said the team campaigned in L.A., Long Beach, Inglewood and the San Gabriel Valley.

In L.A. County, both ballot measures passed with 64% of votes, though the 2014 midterm saw a record low turnout for a general election.

LA Voice’s campaign against Prop. 36 reminded people of what Prop. 47 has accomplished, especially in places where people benefited from the initiative. But that was not the main message.

“We focused more on the deceptive nature of how 36 is being sold to us, and what it would really do and what we really need, which is strong investments in mental health and addiction support,” Hoover said.

“When we worked on Prop. 47, that was two years after the ‘three strikes’ [law],” Hoover said. “That was the period when a lot of people were starting to wake up to the ways in which the justice system has been racist and persists in having racialized outcomes to this day. People haven’t backed away from that.”

Voters also haven’t changed their opinion on the importance of treatment. The September Berkeley IGS poll found that nearly half of those surveyed said they support rehabilitation or other alternatives for first-time offenders.

However, imposing harsher penalties for repeat offenders was what drove support for Prop. 36.

“Across the country, regardless of your D.A., crime went up in certain ways during the pandemic in the entire country,” Hoover said. “We were disconnected from each other for a long time. To a certain extent, the world is more complicated now than it was 10 years ago.”

Who would be the next D.A., and how they would handle increased crime rates was a high profile issue in L.A. County this fall. Support for Prop. 36 went hand in hand with support for former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman for district attorney. A large majority (75%) of precincts backed both the increased crime penalties of Prop. 36 and Hochman’s promises of law and order. Hochman beat incumbent Gascón by almost 20 points.

A pre-election Berkeley IGS Poll analysis of likely L.A. County voters for Prop. 36 and district attorney found that the largest combination were voters who planned to vote for both Prop. 36 and Hochman (40%). The next largest pairing — those voting against the state measure and for Gascón — represented only 14% of voters.

In analyzing the two voter blocs, DiCamillo found that the biggest demographic differences were the political dimensions. L.A. voters who supported Prop. 36 and Hochman were a mix of those who considered themselves moderate or conservative. By contrast, 82% of those who voted for Gascón and “No” on Prop. 36 identified themselves as liberals.

An even mix of registered Democrats, Republicans and those who registered as “no party preference” or with a third party supported Prop. 36 and Hochman. Among voters who were against the ballot initiative and for Gascón, 74% were Democrats while the remaining were independents or registered with a minor party.

“Gascón had a base of the Democrats, but it wasn’t enough,” DiCamillo said. “If they were voting ‘No’ on 36 and they were Democratic, they were very likely to be for Gascón, but that was a relatively narrow segment.” Forty-seven percent of Democrats supported Prop. 36.

Ninety-two percent of the precincts that went for Trump also voted “Yes” on 36 and for Hochman for district attorney.

Gascón did not win any new neighborhoods in the general election. Hochman won all 33 neighborhoods that other candidates won in the March primary.

LA Voice Action, a political affiliate of LA Voice, worked to get Gascón elected in 2020. Hoover, who is also LA Voice Action’s executive director, said the group’s campaign to reelect him focused on promises that Gascón followed through with while he was in office, including not charging children as adults.

“He’s really been who he said he would be in a lot of ways,” Hoover said. “And those were things that people wanted then, and I think most of it hasn’t changed.”

Hochman ran as a centrist with a campaign that offered a “hard middle” approach to fighting crime. On election night, he credited his victory to a bipartisan coalition of people who considered public safety a “crossover issue” during polarizing political times.

With Proposition 36 now in effect, several other California officials have vowed to use the power of new legislation to hold people accountable, and criminal justice reform advocates show no signs of backing down.

Hoover noted that Hochman’s platform does include messages of moderation from the justice reform movement. During his inauguration speech, Hochman repeated his campaign promises to balance criminal justice reform and public safety and called California’s overpopulation in prisons a systemic failure. “I think he understood that to win, it couldn’t just be about ‘Gascon is bad’ and ‘crime is up,’” Hoover said. “We see, even in the campaign that was against the progressive reformer, signs of progressive reform messaging.”