Newsom’s Budget Puts California Crime Victims Last

Governor Gavin Newsom spoke recently at Cal State Stanislaus to highlight his workforce initiatives, and he used the opportunity to introduce his 2025–2026 budget. At over $322 billion, it represents the largest budget in state history. In fact, it is the largest budget of any state — ever — and has been so throughout Newsom’s six years as governor. According to KFF.org (the former Kaiser Family Foundation), per capita state-government spending in California is $10,556, putting California in the top tier of spending per resident. Alaska is the highest at $21,485, and Texas is the lowest at $4,462.

State budgets are exceptionally complex documents full of granular data, but a bird’s-eye view of spending places our tax dollars in a number of buckets of broad spending categories. On top are health and human services and education. Near the bottom is public safety, and at the very bottom are California’s crime victims.

The Newsom budget earmarks $370 million targeting organized retail theft, $213 million targeting gun violence, $88 million targeting illegal drugs, $523 million on something called community public safety, and $308 million on victim services. Taken on their face, these numbers look impressive, but placed in context with the size and scope of the crime and drug abuse problem in California, a different picture appears.

In 2023, Californians reported over 1 million crimes, and we know based on survey research that the actual number of crimes is far higher. Those crimes resulted in 199,838 victims of violent crime, including 1,892 victims of murder, 13,723 of rape, 49,177 of robbery, and 135,046 of aggravated assault.

Those victims, and in limited cases their immediate family members, are entitled to compensation from California’s Victim Compensation Board. The board’s enabling legislation attempts to place a value on the deep psychological, physical, and economic loss to crime. The law limits victim compensation to $35,000 each and an additional $35,000 “if federal funds are available.” This is called the “pecuniary” cost of victimization. A look at actual spending per victim calls to mind a different adjective: parsimonious.

In 2023, crime victims in these categories, among others, shared the following “compensation”: murder, $17.1 million; assaults, $14.1 million; rape, $1.7 million; robbery $1.2 million; and child abuse, $2.9 million.

Put another way, the 3,082 rape victims who made a claim shared $1.7 million in compensation, or just $551 each.

Total spending per victim approved by the CalVCB in 2023 was a scant $1,549. The 2025/26 budget raises the total outlay to CalVCB which, despite increasing budgets over the last three years, has dispersed an average of just $40 million each year. For example, in 2023 the victims’ compensation budget was $201 million, yet outlays were a scant $39 million. The balance is spent on administration or returned to the general fund.

Some of the Los Angeles County wildfires are alleged to have been started by human act or negligence, making them cases of arson. Those victims should know that, in 2023, the 6,736 reported arsons yielded just 83 claimants, who shared a total payout from the compensation board of just $69,042.68, or $831 each.

The most generously compensated recipients of CalVCB relief funds are incarcerated felons who have been exonerated of their crimes and are factually and legally innocent. There were nine approved claimants in 2023 who shared $7.7 million: $140 a day for every day incarcerated, or $855,000 each.

California’s 888,841 reported property-crime victims are not entitled to CalVCB compensation, and with the exception of the possibility of an honored insurance claim or restitution, they must endure their losses as best they can. It should be noted that the clearance rate for property crimes in 2023 was just 7.4 percent, and the number of those suspects who will actually pay restitution is far smaller.

For those victims and the tens of thousands of victims of unreported thefts, Prop 36, passed by the voters and over the opposition of Governor Newsom and the legislative leadership last November, was a response to the crime wave of thefts and drug overdose fatalities that crested then crashed onto their cities, homes, and businesses after the failed implementation of Prop 47, which raised the felony theft threshold from $400 to $950 and reduced drug possession crimes to misdemeanors. Drug-sales cases became wobblers — crimes that could be charged as felonies or misdemeanors. Prop 36 now allows prosecutors to charge repeat drug and theft offenders as felons.

For retail theft enforcement, Newsom has earmarked $370 million above what local agencies provide in law enforcement and crime prevention services. Just $370 million to protect an industry that supports nearly 150,000 retailers who employ over 2 million workers and generates billions in earnings as well as sales tax revenue to the state needs a little further analysis.

Last are California’s drug addicts who, for a myriad of reasons, have found themselves in the grip of an often-fatal addiction. They are dying in the tens of thousands. For them, Newsom has earmarked just $88 million to “target illicit drugs.” Despite a drop in deaths due mostly to 300,000 successful administrations of Narcan to treat opioid overdoses, $88 million to stem the availability of fentanyl seems almost ridiculous.

The consequences of six years of budget decisions that deprioritized public safety are real.