The Criminals’ Political Party

It may come as a surprise to some that in the American two-party political system, one of those parties is an aggressive advocate for people who commit crimes. The evidence of this is overwhelming and every day the news media provides us with more.  Some ongoing themes are so pervasive that specific proof is not needed. For example; the Democrat party has been the home of the anti-incarceration movement, which has been advocating against prison and jail sentences for criminals since the 1960s. They succeeded in reducing or eliminating punishment for most crimes in the 1970s but, when crime skyrocketed in the 80s and 90s, the public rebuked those policies and restored consequences.  This caused a dramatic decline in crime rates.  For at least the last two decades it would be difficult to imagine anyone who has not heard prominent Democrats proclaiming that police, prosecutors and the entire criminal justice system is racist. President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder repeatedly made this accusation 16 years ago and democrats across America serving as mayors, district attorneys, judges and supreme court justices parroted that narrative, which has repeatedly been proven false.

The Obama administration encouraged and helped finance a new wave of anti-incarceration policies which swept across America, especially in democrat-controlled states. The residents of New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland, Washington state and Washington DC, Oregon and California have suffered the most from the resulting spike in crime. The George Floyd riots in 2020, were the logical result of policies removing consequences for criminals, and enabled record-breaking increases in murder, assault, burglary, carjacking and drug trafficking. That year leaders in democrat strongholds passed an orgy of soft-on-crime legislation to address the alleged racial bias by law enforcement. These policies kept habitual criminals in communities and allowed them to commit crimes with virtual impunity.  The impact is still seen in Chicago, where dozens of people are killed each week, often by juvenile gang members. In Los Angeles several people have been attacked in broad daylight by repeat offenders wielding machetes, or run down by habitual criminals who are intoxicated, stealing cars or fleeing from police. Add to this the violence being committed by illegal aliens and pro-Palestinian terrorists enabled by democrat immigration and soft-on-crimes policies.

The law-abiding public, including many democrats, made a statement last November when they voted the Biden administration out of office.  Crime and law enforcement were major drivers of that election. Where opportunities to remove pro-criminal democrat officeholders arose voters in California, Oregon, Washington state, among others, did so, but in other places, including Chicago and Philadelphia, the pro-criminal democrats were re-elected.

California’s Legislature, Governor and Attorney General are still in denial about the failure of their pro-criminal policies. Earlier this week the democrat-controlled state Senate passed SB 672, “The Youth Rehabilitation and Opportunity Act.”  If signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, this bill will allow murderers, including multiple murderers who received a sentence of life-without-the-possibility-of-parole (LWOP) to seek release from prison if the murderers were under the age of 26 when they killed their victims. The democrat authors of the bill consider the rape and murder of a teenage girl by a 25-year-old gang member a youthful indiscretion. The democrat-controlled state Assembly has just passed AB 1231 “The Safer Communities Through Opportunities Act,”  (sound familiar?). If adopted, this bill would recommend diversion to a community-based rehabilitation program for criminals convicted of or arrested for felonies including auto theft, burglary, drug trafficking and assault. Criminals diverted under this law would avoid trial and any incarceration. Those who completed the program would have their charges dropped or their conviction expunged. This is a get-out-of-jail-free card for thousands of criminals.

Even in the face of last November’s voter revolt, the democrat majority in the California Legislature is working to reduce the consequences for criminals. No wonder democrats want to allow felons to vote. They seem to be their primary constituents.