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Retired New York Police Department (NYPD) inspector Paul Mauro on Fox News Thursday evening questioned whether judges and prosecutors in California are willing to charge criminals even though voters resoundingly reversed the state’s soft-on-crime policies.

In November, California voters passed Prop 36, which increased penalties for retail theft and drug possession, reversing Proposition 47 from 2014 that had allowed criminals to receive softer punishments. On “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Mauro was asked about the shift in the voters’ stance and whether it could actually make a difference in the state.

“Well, the people of California certainly voted for that. But the question is going to be what the prosecutors are going to do. You now have this law as leverage on the books in all of California,” Mauro said. “Very clearly, it’s the will of the people overturning a wrongheaded proposition from a number of years ago, Proposition 47, which instituted all of these soft on crime policies. A proposition, by the way, that Kamala Harris’s office reportedly wrote the language for inclusion on the ballot.”

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“You’re still a dependent, but the cops will make the arrests. They’re going to go out there,” Mauro added. “They’re going to do it. The stores want it. But what comes down to are the prosecutors going to make the cases and then are they going to be kept in or are the judges just going to let them out? Because you have the levers in New York and in many we did for a long time. But you’re at the behest of the judges and the prosecutors. As you all know, Alvin Bragg just won’t make this kind of case.”

In 2023, data from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) showed a 3.8% increase in robberies and a nearly 40% rise in shoplifting. Additionally, violent crime was found to have jumped 15.4% in 2023 compared to 2019, according to PPIC data.

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Ahead of Election Day, voters in the Democratic state showed strong support for the bill, with an October poll from the Institute of Governmental Studies showing that 60% of likely voters favored the measure.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Fox News/”Jesse Watters Primetime”)

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