“Right now, society in California says we’re willing to accept a person going into a retail store every single day of the year and stealing $949 worth of merchandise and being largely held harmless for that.”

That is the prevailing attitude toward criminal activity at the moment, said former Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness, who dropped by the NFIB California Podcast studios for a discussion with NFIB California State Director John Kabateck.

How did we get in this state? How do we get out of it?

“I think it was a slow evolution, but I will attribute a significant negative factor for all of this in the form of Proposition 47 passed by voters back in 2014,” said McGinness. “You literally now have rings of thieves going out to retail stores and actually calculate what they can steal … with very little consequences for their conduct. So, it literally, truly has destroyed, I think, a significant part of commerce and business and employment opportunities.”

Voters foolishly followed up Prop. 47 by passing Proposition 57 four years later, removing such things as rape of an unconscious person, elder abuse, assault on a police officer from the list of violent crimes. McGinness doesn’t spare the people ultimately responsible for Props. 47 and 57 from some stern advice.

“I implore people, don’t vote on the summary and title [of a ballot initiative], that is established by a partisan office holder—one person in the state of California. It’s not a legitimate way to describe something. So, please do your own research and vote accordingly.”

In his interview with Kabateck, McGinness also discusses:

• The fentanyl crisis
• Homelessness
• The Assembly and Senate Public Safety Committees, “where good bills go to die, and bad bills slide right through
• Defunding the police
• Former Gov. Gray Davis
• And what spurred him to start his 31-year career in law enforcement.

Click the arrow below to listen to the podcast with Sheriff McGinness and click here to listen to all past podcasts.