Monthly Archive: July 2021

With the unprecedented surge in shootings and homicides in California over the past two years, you would think that even the state’s woke, progressive political class would take action to crack down on criminal firearm use.  Nope.

Michele Hanisee, veteran prosecutor and President of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys in Los Angeles has this piece explaining how  progressive LA Country District Attorney George Gascón and the politicians in Sacramento want to decriminalize the use of firearms by criminals at the same time the “LA County Sheriff has reported a stunning 111 percent increase in homicides from January 1, 2021, to May 21, 2021.”  Most of the murder victims were shot.  Hanisee notes that policies reducing penalties for crimes enacted in Sacramento and ordered by Gascón, not the increase in legal firearm sales that liberal politicians decry, is causing the skyrocketing increase in shootings and homicides in California.

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It has become apparent over the past several years that many of those devoted to the progressive movement taking over the Democrat party are divorced from reality and ignorant of history.  This is particularly true when it comes to criminal justice policy.  In 1994, more than twice as many Californians were victims of violent crime than in 2011.  Murders in the Golden State dropped by 60% during that period.  There were comparable reductions in New York, Texas, Illinois, Florida and most other states.  There have been mountains of research devoted to finding out why this occurred.  Perhaps the best compilation of data on this phenomenon is Professor Barry Latzer’s 2016 book, The Rise and Fall of Violent Crime in America.  Latzer concluded that while differences in culture between different racial and ethic groups have historically influenced crime rates, societies’ response to crime plays a major roll in the level of violent crime.  In the mid-1990s Americans of every racial and ethnic group demanded a stronger law enforcement response to the criminals dominating its cities during the crime wave of the 1970s and 1980s.  That stronger response, including major improvements in policing, delivered two decades of vastly safer cities and neighborhoods, disproportionately benefiting to those living in high-crime urban neighborhoods.  None of the thousands of young adults who joined the Black Lives Matter protests last summer know anything about this.

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Fatal drug overdoses set an all time record in 2020, with over 93,000 Americans dying.  Just shy of a 30% increase compared to 2019.  Maggie Fox of The Philadelphia Tribune quotes Dr. Nora Volkow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “This is the highest number of overdose deaths ever reported in a 12-month period.  These data are chilling.   The COVID-19 pandemic created a devastating  collision of health crises in America.”  The Dean of Public Health Practices at Johns Hopkins agreed; “The pandemic had a lot to do with it….but as the pandemic recedes, we are still dealing wit this overdose crisis.”  The story went on to discuss the need for treatment programs and controls on over-prescribing doctors.  Earlier this year a Washington Post story by Devlin Barrett reported that last year America saw the largest one-year increase in homicides since records have been kept.  The story notes that the increase in murders was not limited to large cities.  Small towns also saw increases of up to 30%.  Experts suggested that the collapse of public confidence in police contributed to the increase, but that the pandemic also played a significant role.  The head of the National Fraternal Order of Police suggested that changes in criminal justice policy which left more criminals on the street  contributed, but that suggestion was discounted by a data analyst who explained that increased murders occurred in places where such reforms had not been implemented.

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A City Journal piece by former District Attorney and defense lawyer Tom Hogan, explains why veteran prosecutors have recently been leaving DA’s Offices in large numbers.  “Prosecutors are leaving the profession for several reasons, the first and most obvious being the new wave of progressives sweeping into office.”  Hogan notes that in St. Louis where Soros-bankrolled progressive Kim Gardner was elected in 2017,  turnover in her office exceeded 100% as her de-prosecution, no bail and short sentencing policies, along with her claims that the entire criminal justice system is racist, destroyed morale.  He also notes that pro-criminal laws passed by liberal state legislatures, which prevent prosecutors from taking criminals off the streets and bury them in new procedures, and the current political climate which presumes that prosecutors are racists, are also contributing to the exodus of experienced prosecutors.  “With violent crime surging in cities across the country,  there couldn’t be a worse time to lose them.”