Astral Codex Ten

Prop 36

3 min read

Prop 36

Article

Prop 36 is a recurring event in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 22, 2024 and October 29, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “The strongest disagreement was over Prop 36”; “Prop 36 will certainly imprison many people”. It most often appears alongside Boston, Los Angeles, Oakland.

Metadata

  • Category: Events
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: October 22, 2024
  • Last seen: October 29, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

ACX Local Voting Guides
October 22, 2024 · Original source
The strongest disagreement was over Prop 36, which increases penalties for various crimes. I’m hoping to publish a guest post on this one later this week. Kudos to ACX Oakland for including district maps and recommendations for various transit and utility positions.
The Case Against California Proposition 36
October 29, 2024 · Original source
The campaign for Prop 36 is based on the premise that Prop 47 failed, leading to increased drug use and retail theft (but don’t trust me – it says so in the text of the measure). 36 would repeal some parts of 47, add some additional sentencing increases, and leave some elements in place (the LA Times has a good breakdown of the changes here).
Inline links: text, here
It’s easy to round this off to a simple tradeoff: are we willing to put tens of thousands of people in jail if it would decrease the crime rate? But this would be the wrong way to think about the measure: there is no tradeoff. Prop 36 will certainly imprison many people, but it won’t help fight crime.
Prop 36 raises the penalty for certain drug crimes from a misdemeanor (months in jail) to a felony (years in jail) - with a few complications that we’ll return to in the next section.