Texans need only look at California and New York to understand why criminal justice reform just furthers crime
Criminal justice reform is largely race based because people of color constitute a disproportionate number of inmates in America’s prisons. Civil rights groups contend that the criminal justice system is racist because about 40 percent of those imprisoned are black while blacks constitute only 13 percent of this country’s population. Disregarded is the fact that blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime.
The reformers also complain about the number of nonviolent offenders that are doing time just for the possession of drugs, most of them being black. They are deliberately misleading the public, including our lawmakers. Those doing time for possession are, with only a few exceptions, drug dealers who plea bargained the charges against them from dealing to possession in order to receive a lighter sentence.
Criminal justice reform is largely an effort by the liberal hug-a-criminal crowd, but conservatives also favor reforms because of the money that is saved by reduced prison populations.
In December 2018, Congress passed the First Step Act, a bipartisan bill that reduced some harsh sentences and gave more federal inmates a way to earn an early release. The act also funded programs to help released inmates succeed in the free world. Thousands of inmates, mostly drug offenders, got shorter sentences from the First Step Act, but the act applies only to federal inmates. To show his support for act, President Trump commuted the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a black woman who was convicted in 1996 on eight criminal counts for her involvement in a Memphis cocaine trafficking ring. At the behest of Kim Kardashian, Trump then pardoned her.
In Texas, the leading criminal justice reform activist is Scott Henson whose blog ‘Grits for Breakfast’ wold be more correctly named if it read “Grits for Cop Haters.” Besides bashing the police, Henson has called for criminal justice reforms, especially for abolishing cash bail.
While it is unfortunate that many people remain jailed for weeks, even months, simply because they are too poor to come up with their bail money, abolishing cash bail altogether is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A better way is for judges to take a careful look at the offender when setting bail An offender with no serious criminal record who has a job and is supporting a family should be released on his own recognizance.
Texans need only look at California and New York to understand why criminal justice reform just furthers crime. The reforms passed in those two states have been disastrous, resulting in a spike of the crime rate, particular in homicides.
California has reduced many former felonies to misdemeanors with the result that San Francisco has become the auto theft capital of the US. And law enforcement authorities insist that a significant statewide rise in crime is the result of the state’s criminal justice reforms.
If you ask a NYC resident how he feels about Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s criminal justice reforms, you will get an earful, if not a mouthful of fist. In NY even violent criminals are now released without bail. Offenders have been rearrested the day after their release only to be released again until arrested again shortly afterward for yet another crime. In several cases the new crime was murder.
DAs have also instituted their own criminal justice reforms. Recently elected LA DA George Gascón ha eliminated the death penalty and life in prison without the possibility of parole for cop killers. Uber-liberal billionaire George Soreass (sic), who contributed $500,000 to Houston’s Kim Ogg for her first DA campaign, gave George Gascón $2,250,000 for his LA campaign
In San Francisco, DA Chesa Boudin’s idea of criminal justice reform is to go after police officers accused of wrongdoing. Boudin also promised to eliminate cash bail and not to prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc. As a result San Francisco has become a camping ground for the homeless, who fill the city’s streets and sidewalks with their feces.
If criminal justice reformers had their way, no nonviolent offender would be imprisoned. That is a very dangerous idea. Many years ago, a Houston narcotics officer parked his car across the street from a bar. He went inside the bar to arrest a drug dealer whom he had arrested a number of times before without any trouble. They had even gotten on a first name calling basis. This time as before, the officer did not handcuff or search the arrestee. As they started to cross the street, the nonviolent offender pulled out a gun and shot the HPD officer dead.
In another case years ago, a hot check passer went into a Houston grocery store and tried to pay for his purchases with a bad check. You cannot be any more nonviolent than by writing bad checks. When the cashier was alerted by Telecheck that he was passing a hot check, she started to call the police. That’s when this nonviolent criminal pulled out a gun and shot her dead. So today’s nonviolent criminal can be tomorrow’s violent criminal, even a murderer.
A few years ago the Texas legislature passed some criminal justice reforms that resulted in the closure of several prisons. Texas has been doing fine since and doesn’t need the reforms Scott Henson keeps advocating. Texans sure as hell do not want their state to enact the disastrous reforms of California and New York that just further crime.
OTOH, I have met many people who have been “railroaded” by the justice system.
Juries are only for the wealthy, most people are compelled into a plea bargain
by defense attorneys who just get rid of cases.
When I moved here i was told that “If you have’nt been screwed* by the system you have’nt lived here long enough.”
They court/legal system does not police itself, so something else will be done.
This is an issue we need to work with individuals who share the sentiment that the high and increasing crime rate is intolerable. High crime is a bipartisan issue; it’s a matter of finding those impacted or in fear of crime to work with to offset the groups who make a living off of criminal sob stories.
Of course Texas needs prison reforms. We especially need to end the school-to-prison pipeline. We need to ensure that once someone has paid their debt per our laws and are released, they are not hampered in finding jobs, places to live, and access to education and licenses because they were once incarcerated.
People may complain about California but it just made it easier for the people they trained as fire fighters to be able to become professional fire fighters. Makes sense, California needs fire fighters and the prison firefighters need jobs, why should they be blocked?
Unreasonably harsh sentencing is the major cause of the mass incarceration that negatively impacts every U.S. citizen. Alternatives to incarceration should be used when possible.
The second and third causes are drug incarceration and for-profit prison corporations.
Regarding marijuana nationwide, regulate, legalize, research, tax, and release those who have been unfairly incarcerated sometimes for decades.
I have never tried marijuana, but if we ever need it as medicine don’t we want it to be legal?.
Please think for yourselves. This article uses phrases such as “the hug-a-criminal crowd”, and wrongly suggest that people who want to improve Texas and its criminal justice and incarceration system are “Cop haters”. It cherry picks examples and makes outlandish claims such as, “If criminal justice reformers had their way, no nonviolent offender would be imprisoned”. The author may be clinging to ideas he formed over sixty years ago when he founded a law enforcement narcotics organization.
The U.S. has the highest recidivism rate in the world showing our criminal justice and incarceration systems are failing, and they have become too costly. Let use common sense and good research for reforming criminal justice.
I beg your pardon Mr. Pray4Peace, I did not “suggest that people who want to improve Texas and its criminal justice and incarceration system are ‘Cop haters’.” I was referring specifically to Scott Henson’s blog which consistently bashes the police and is a favorite of cop haters. And “If criminal justice reformers had their way, no nonviolent offender would be imprisoned” is not a misstatement.
I do agree with you when you say “Let use common sense and good research for reforming criminal justice.” But that’s not what is happening in California, New York and other states where the left-wing hug-a-criminal reformers have enacted laws that have furthered crimes and endangered the public.
Texas needs bail reform, judges have shown they can’t or won’t do the right thing.
We also need to clip the arrest powers of cops. If you can’t be sentenced to jail for the crime you shouldn’t be arrested.