The major promise behind proposed federal legislation to lower mandatory minimum sentences is that it will reduce prison costs while preserving the low crime rate we have achieved over the last 20 years.
That of course is an empirical question. Many in favor of these proposals, in particular ones like the Smarter Sentencing Act, point to the experience of such states as Ohio and Texas to show that the promise has been kept.
They seem to be much more quiet about the state that has more early releases than the rest of the states combined -- California. The second item in today's News Scan shows why: As the early release program in the Golden State has taken hold over the the last three years, prison costs are up by a whopping two billion dollars and the crime rate is, unlike the majority of the rest of the states, also up.
So what should Congress do with the Smarter Sentencing Act? I gave the answer in my testimony before the Over-Criminalization Task Force of the House Judiciary Committee last month.
I noted that:
With the evidence from California being as dismal as it is, Congress should, at the minimum, wait to assess what the evidence shows from the lighter federal sentencing and massive pardon initiative already underway. If it's anything like California's, the Smarter Sentencing Act should go where it currently seems headed, to wit, nowhere.
...a number of recent developments tell us that lighter sentencing at the federal level is, for good or ill, already the new norm. The prudent thing for Congress to do is to assess, over the next few years, whether those developments keep their promise of big cost savings with no increase in crime.The pro-defense side is forever telling us that we should turn to "evidence-based sentencing." Fine, I'm all for it; evidence is a great thing (except for the zillion times the defense is moving to suppress it, but don't get me started).
Last summer, for example, the Attorney General directed that, for roughly the set of drug defendants to whom [the SSA] would apply, federal prosecutors are no longer to seek mandatory minimum sentences. This new policy has effectively mooted a large body of mandatory minimums, and shifted discretion back to judges.
The Sentencing Commission has adopted a two-level reduction in Guidelines offense levels for almost all non-violent drug defendants -- producing notably shorter sentences -- and announced just recently that for the first time ever, more sentences are being given below the Guidelines range than within it.
Perhaps most stunning is the Administration's announcement of impending clemency for hundreds if not thousands of offenders serving what it views as excessive sentences. In an unprecedented move, the defense bar has been given a broad and proactive role in proposing clemency candidates.
With these proposals already in train, Congress has the opportunity to see for itself whether more discretion and lighter sentences keep their promise of frugality and low crime. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. It's only common sense for Congress to find out before weakening a system we know has helped keep us safe.
With the evidence from California being as dismal as it is, Congress should, at the minimum, wait to assess what the evidence shows from the lighter federal sentencing and massive pardon initiative already underway. If it's anything like California's, the Smarter Sentencing Act should go where it currently seems headed, to wit, nowhere.
Doesn't this evidence cut in FAVOR of proactive and measured sentencing reform by the legislature before problems become acute and require "fire sale" prison releases?
Unlike states like Texas and others that addressed prison growth with sound and proactive legislative reforms, California let political stalemates block needed legislative sentencing fixes for a decade and then had to do a rush job under federal court order. I agree the California evidence is important, but I read it as reasons for legislatures to do sensible stuff like the SSA before the constitution demands doing something more drastic.
California, in other words, shows what can happen when tough-on-crime political rhetoric impedes needed smart-on-crime reforms. For this reason, and others, I think this is an argument for Congress to move forward with the SSA now rather than wait for a prison over-population problem to grow even more acute and require drastic, rushed remedies.
Nonsense. Despite a handful of well-publicized Three Strikes cases, California sentencing overall wasn't harsh before. Drug users (as opposed to traffickers) had largely been cleared out of the prisons by a much earlier initiative. Even for traffickers, California sentences were much less than federal or New York's "Rockefeller laws."
California's prisons were not overcrowded by "tough on crime" sentencing but by the failure of the Legislature to build enough prison space.
Doug --
In addition to what Kent points out, I would note that giving the large and experienced prison administration in California THREE YEARS to figure out how to release those criminals with the proverbial "low risk" of re-offending cannot plausibly be painted as a "fire sale" or a "rush job."
The reason that California is experiencing more crime after leading the states in prison releases is the same reason that's always been there: When you put back on the streets the people who commit crime, you get more crime. One needn't be a Harvard (or Stanford) graduate to figure this out.
What your side wants is "evidence-based" sentencing right up to the point that the evidence contradicts your pre-determined outcome, at which point the evidence needs less to be taken to heart than explained away. The "explanation" here is that those dull, careless folks in California just couldn't -- over three years, no less -- figure out the difference between a high- and a low-risk offender.
Finally, there is other striking, corroborating evidence you ignore. Charles Lane of the Washington Post has noted that, as the prison population nationwide has leveled off or decreased slightly over the last three years, the national crime rate -- which had been on a generation-long significant decline -- ALSO and SIMULTANEOUSLY leveled off or INCREASED slightly.
Doug, the evidence is in, from 20 years of naivety, followed by 20 years of getting serious, followed by these last few years of temporizing and sliding sideways. The evidence speaks unambiguously: When we decrease prison, the crime rate increases. When we increase prison, the crime rate decreases. When we go sideways on prison, the crime rate goes sideways or has a slight uptick.
The fit of the crime rate with the extent of imprisonment is so precise, and has lasted so long, that it is simply blinking reality to maintain that, when we have less imprisonment, for the first time in half a century, the basics of human nature will be repealed and we'll have less crime.
If we're going to have evidence-based sentencing, we have to follow the evidence, even when it leads to conclusions the NACDL and FAMM and George Soros (and Right on Crime) don't like.
But Doug, I am shocked--wasn't California supposed to be safer as a result of the order? After all, reducing overcrowding reduces recidivism, according to the Plata majority.
And your sly reference to the Constitution is beyond weak.
There is blood on the hands of Obama, Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan and Ginsburg.
federalist,
Good catch to remember that the Plata majority was so complacent, if not utterly dismissive, of the additional crime that anyone connected to reality knew was coming.
It's very troubling that those who want more and earlier releases either pretend that no more crime will result or, even when they admit it, are so blase'. I guess the theory is that the additional crime is most likely to happen only to People Who Don't Count That Much.
We'll see if Doug has anything to say.
Kent is correct. Jerry Brown, the three judge panel, and their enablers in the "smart on crime" movement decided not to build more prison space because the wanted lighter sentences. Just look at the order stipulated to by the State in the Plata litigation, increases in credits and developing a parole system for those in prison who have prior serious or violent felonies and are serving time on a new felony. In the case of the Governor, and our Legislature, they liked the added bonus of freeing up state money in order to spend it elsewhere. Improved public safety was a talking point, not reality. It turns out saving money was also a talking point, not reality.
The simple fact is the persons who were being sent to state prison before Realignment were those who had already repeatedly failed community supervision (aka probation). That is why they used to go to prison, not to shift costs from the local level to the state level, but because probation failed. Governor Brown couches part of his pitch in terms of counties needing to take care of, and pay for, their own. I wish they would, in counties like San Francisco, their light touch on criminal justice just exports their criminals to neighboring counties.
While the politicians want to frame it in terms of money and local responsibility - and it is about money - what is driving the crime numbers is this reality. Placing people in community supervision, who had already failed community supervision, is not going to improve the crime rate. Realignment took away our ability to send to prison the very persons who used to go there, repeated failures on probation. And make no mistake, those who are serving sentences under Realignment are serving less time and getting less post release supervision than they were in the state prison system. They are, however, getting the same services that failed them the first, second, third . . . time around.
As for my experience to make these statements. I have been a prosecutor in a Bay Area County for 16 years and worked as a federal prosecutor before that. I have handled federal priority cases of immigration and drugs as well as the full spectrum of state cases from the so called "triple nons" (non-sex, non-serious, non-violent) to violent criminals of all types (career criminal, gangs, murder).
Lots of reasonable points here, but also lots of smoke and mirrors, too. Let's see if I can clear some brush:
1. I do not know enough about Cal's overall sentencing system, but I trust Kent enough to say Plata was not a result of over-incarceration, but a result of "the failure of the Legislature to build enough prison space." (I wonder if a sentencing commission that so many on the right opposed when there was still time to head off Plata might have actually pushed for more prison construction. I also wonder if the monies wasted on a new, not-yet- used Cal execution chamber also might have been better used for more prison space.) The true reality of legislative failings means, federalist, the "blood" is actually on the hands of the Cal legislature, not on the hands of Justices applying federal law and the Constitution. (Blaming the Plata authors for problems that flow from others poorly dealing with Eighth Amendment rights strikes me as comparable to blaming Heller's authors from problems that flow from others poorly dealing with Second Amendment rights.)
2. This point about legislative failings to manage crime and punishment in "smart" ways was the point I was seeking to emphasize, Bill. As you surely know, your claimed zero-sum relationship between prison and crime is not a fixed reality in all US jurisdictions no matter how much you wish it to be. More than a few jurisdictions that have been seriously committed to reinvesting prison $$ to other public safety ends have saved $$ AND reduced crime (Texas is the most oft noted example, but NY and GA and WV and a few other states also have made "smart" reforms in this vein).
3. What truly distinguished California is that it was unable to find the political will to do prison/sentencing reform proactively, and so was forced by court order to do it reactively. That seems to be the real lesson of the evidence from California and other states: proactive reform works better than reactive reform.
4. I am eager to acknowledge/highlight that evidence is mixed about what works and what doesn't as effective reform, and I am busy writing a book review stressing that every jurisdiction has its own unique issues/challenges. But saying prison always "works" and prison reform never does is neither accurate nor a fair accounting of what has transpired over the last decade in various states.
5. David's and Kent's perspectives from inside California confirms my sense that the state is as dysfunction with its non-capital punishment system as it is with its capital punishment system. But part of that dysfunction is a political divide that precluding the creation of a sentencing commission to collect data and make recommendations based on that data. States that have been committed to really looking at and responding to data have done better than states like California that let politics persistently get in the way of public safety problem solving.
6. On the subject of evidence, where do you all see the lead exposure realities fitting into all of this? I continue to believe/hope that this is where real science about crime and punishment will find some firm answers, but it seem few on the left or the right are really exploring this important facet of the story. And I would suspect California's historic lead exposure rates are (much?) higher than the national average.
7. Last but not least, at base this is a debate over liberty versus security. I surmise we are going to look at all these basic data differently because I always want to err on the side of liberty, while it seems others are more inclined to err on the side of security. Both are obviously important values, but trade-offs are inevitable. And I think it is useful to highlight when folks on either the left or the right try to sell everyone on the notion that no trade-offs of these competing values are ever at stake.
Doug,
You raise a number of points, but as an initial matter I'd like to get some clarity on just one.
You say: "Bill. As you surely know, your claimed zero-sum relationship between prison and crime is not a fixed reality in all US jurisdictions no matter how much you wish it to be."
Where did I ever claim that there is a "zero-sum relationship between prison and crime"? I said that when prison goes down, crime goes up, and, in fact, that this has been the case, over the country as a whole, for FIFTY YEARS.
And that's true, isn't it?
I have also said that prison is only one of a number of factors contributing to the drop in crime, right? Indeed, my estimate of its contribution (a quarter) is LESS than the one you posted about when you put up the article by Ken Cucinnelli and Deborah Daniels, who said that prison made a larger contribution (a third) to crime reduction.
I do not think there is a "zero-sum" relationship between crime and incarceration, which is why I have never used that term. I do think that prison significantly tamps down on crime, a proposition for which there is decades of statistical and anecdotal evidence.
I think we need to get this ironed out before I attempt a response to the remainder of your comment.
Bill: I read the comment "when prison goes down, crime goes up" as your assertion that there is a zero-sum facet to any and all efforts to reduce prison populations and costs. Isn't that accurate?
Doug,
I don't know what the term "zero-sum" means. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that it means that for each criminal released early, we get one more crime.
I don't know anything like that, and, instead of using terminology from mathematics I'm unfamiliar with, I'm just going to stay with the way I have put this point before: When incarceration goes down, crime goes up, and this has been the case, over the country as a whole, for fifty years.
I would also note that it's downright uncanny how direct this relationship has been. For the 20 years after 1960, when the prison population was (relatively) stable and a fraction of what it has become, crime skyrocketed. From about 1991 to 2011, as the prison population exploded, crime fell by 50%. Over the last three years, as that population has slightly decreased, crime has slightly increased. And it has increased most in the state with the most early releases.
A correlation that close over that long simply cannot be thought to be a coincidence.
Let me refine my use of the zero-sum term, Bill, with one simple question:
Do you think it is at all possible, right now circa 2014 with around 2.3 million persons incarcerated in the US, for that number to be reduced somewhat (say 10%) without a corresponding increase in crime?
If you do not think it is at all possible to reduce US the prison population without an increase in crime, I think it is fair to say you see a kind of "zero-sum" relationship between prison populations and crime. But if you think it is possible (though perhaps hard) to reduce prison populations without crime going up, then you think (as I do) that this is not necessarily a zero-sum enterprise.
This gets back to my main point about California: when prison releases are done poorly and only reactively without of good data (as in California), I do think there is likely to be more of a zero-sum relationship between prison/crime. In contrast, when done well and proactively with good data (as in Texas), I think we have avoid this zero-sum problem/challenge. Ergo, I think California's experience reinforces the need for the feds and other states to follow the Texas/Right on Crime model of proactive "smart" legislative-driven reform, rather than the California model of reactive long-overdue court-ordered reform.
Make sense?
"Do you think it is at all possible, right now circa 2014 with around 2.3 million persons incarcerated in the US, for that number to be reduced somewhat (say 10%) without a corresponding increase in crime?"
My problem here is with the word "corresponding." So try to let me be specific.
If, next week, we release 230,000 incarcerated criminals, it is very unlikely, in my view, that, the day afterward, we'll get 230,000 more crimes than we had the day before.
But three months later, yes, you're going to see an uptick. Six months later, the uptick is going to be bigger. Five years later, according to the DOJ study released two months ago, three-quarters of the releasees will have returned to crime. See http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/rprts05p0510pr.cfm
That report starts off with the headline: "3 IN 4 FORMER PRISONERS IN 30 STATES ARRESTED WITHIN 5 YEARS OF RELEASE"
This is not me talking. It's Eric Holder's BJS.
So, to try to use terminology similar to that you prefer: No, there will not be a 1-to-1 ratio of releasees to future crime. The most recent and broad-based study shows that there will be a 20-to-15 ratio of releasees to future crime.
That ratio -- again, based not on Fox News or Brietbart, but on Holder's own BJS -- is toxic to "reform" proposals, which is why those backing "reform" virtually never recite it. If the SSA's backers advertised that, "three-quarters of the inmates we would like to release near your neighborhood will return to crime, many quickly and others as the months go on," the SSA movement would not survive another day.
I'm all for freedom, and 99.25% of our population IS free in the sense that counts with most people: They're not in prison, and instead are out among the public. For the fraction of one percent who're incarcerated: When their lawful sentence ends, they too will be free, and I suggest that they use their freedom to make wiser, cleaner, healthier (for them and others) and more honest choices than they did before.
I repeat: We know what works. Prison works. It may well be that other things work as well, so let's keep doing those too. But I'm against starting to take apart one of the very few social initiatives in this country that has actually produced good results for the majority of our citizens. Still less am I for this taking apart when the people who wound up behind bars have their own greed-driven choices to blame.
As you know, Bill, roughly 700,000 prisoners nationwide are released each year because they completed their sentences each year, and these days roughly the same number go in. The question is not should we "take apart" prisons, the question is if we tried to have, say, 750,000 come out and only, say, 650,000 go in over the next few years, are we sure to get a spike in crime, or might we figure out ways to get 100,000 more people free from the cost/burdens of prison and use that money elsewhere to increase public safety (by, for example, equipping more cases with ignition locks or more drug treatment servicing).
What the SSA --- and the recent reduced guidelines which may be much more consequential --- is really about is trying to help work toward that rebalancing of in/out realities so that the ones likely to do more harm are in and the ones likely to do less harm are out. (The reentry bill, which also seems sadly stalled, moves to that same end.)
My sense is that Texas, acting proactively and based on good data, rebalanced the in/out dynamics in order to have fewer going in, more coming and and yet still crime not rising there. In contrast, California, acting reactively and based on little data, and you lament that crime is increasing there (although it seems just property crime, and not in those cities handling realignment more astutely). So, the issue is not, should people ever get out, but rather, can and should we pursue Texas-style proactive smart reforms or California-style reactive less-smart reforms.
You might say, now, "why bother to reform at all, especially since we now know how well prison works. Let's keep using prison more and more, especially because crime is still too high and we are a rich nation that can and should spend every possible dollar to keep the law-abiding public safe." The problem, as you know, is that this seems to be a good of diminishing returns, especially as offenders age when the costs of prisons go up and the likely public safety benefits go down. Moreover, as you know well, a large number of citizens say we are taxed enough already and we do not want to pay still more for the diminishing costs of prison ESPECIALLY WHEN WE HAVE GOOD DATA that a lot of other crime-fighting tools can/should be a lot more cost-effective circa 2014.
To a large extent, Bill, this debate replicates what may be your perspective on cell-phones: "Hey, my old land-line and my new internet machine helps me communicate plenty, why should I risk giving up a land-line to try out one of those new cell-phones when what I have right now is working just fine from my perspective." My answer is that this is fine for you, but lots of others think we as a society can do better. And then, with this post, you point to someone who bought a lousy cell-phone that keeps breaking (aka California) and you say "see, cell-phone stink." I then point to someone who is using the best new technology (aka Texas) and respond "cell phones can make the world a better place."
I think this is an important and legitimate debate, but to the extent you think other things can "work" AND that they can do so at less cost, why not join me in trying to get government to use the best new technologies rather than keep relying on old technologies that, though "working," have huge costs.
Finally, I wonder why you think it is that prisons turn out to be one of "the very few social initiatives in this country that has actually produced good results for the majority of our citizens." Do you think it is because those who run them are uniquely capable/effective public servants, or it is because it is hard to mess up prisons because they are effective no matter how they are run even if you have to stack hundreds of bodies in a gym.
Doug --
You say, "What the SSA --- and the recent reduced guidelines which may be much more consequential --- is really about is trying to help work toward that rebalancing of in/out realities so that the ones likely to do more harm are in and the ones likely to do less harm are out."
But "less" harm is still harm, right? And when these people get out earlier, the harm they do will get done earlier.
The questions:
-- How much more harm should we be willing to tolerate in order to promote early releases?
-- What kinds of harm (violent offenses? CP production? Meth and heroin trafficking? Car theft? Home invasion? Scams on old people? What)?
-- And how much sooner, in terms of months or years, would you like these crimes to be happening?
"California, acting reactively and based on little data, and you lament that crime is increasing there (although it seems just property crime, and not in those cities handling realignment more astutely). So, the issue is not, should people ever get out, but rather, [the issue is] can and should we pursue Texas-style proactive smart reforms or California-style reactive less-smart reforms."
No, that is not the issue. The issue is whether we preserve what have found out over an entire generation and from coast-to-coast works, or instead disregard that mass of evidence in favor of cherry-picked "evidence" from a few states over a few years.
P.S. It is not the fault of California that released criminals commit crime. It is the fault of the people committing it. This is one thing those of you on the Left seem never to understand; you just seem bolted to the false notion that what make the difference is how the Government Release Program works, rather than how the conscience of the people released works.
Why is government so important to you, and conscience so unimportant?
"Why bother to reform at all," you have me saying, "especially since we now know how well prison works."
Thank you!
Question: Will you finally admit that prison works to reduce crime, and that prison was the correct answer to the crime wave of the 60's, 70's and 80's despite the wail from those on your side that those of us proposing this solution were nothing but racists?
"The problem, as you know, is that this seems to be a good of diminishing returns, especially as offenders age when the costs of prisons go up and the likely public safety benefits go down."
Your sentence is self-contradictory. Diminishing returns is not the same thing as negative returns, i.e., as you put it, "safety benefits go down." They are NOT going down (except in California, the Capital of Early Release). Safety benefits have continued to go UP across the rest of the country. But, as the prison population levels off, they are increasing more slowly. But slowly increasing returns are NOT negative returns.
"Moreover, as you know well, a large number of citizens say we are taxed enough already and we do not want to pay still more for the diminishing costs of prison ESPECIALLY WHEN WE HAVE GOOD DATA that a lot of other crime-fighting tools can/should be a lot more cost-effective circa 2014."
How odd it is that you keep pushing early release in the name of frugality when (1) prison costs are an infinitesimal part of the federal budget, and you refuse to campaign for cutting even a dime from the real deficit-driver, entitlement spending; (2) on the state side, you keep pushing to ADD to Big Government spending by creating lavish Sentencing Commissions; and (3) you ignore the costs to private citizens that more crime will create.
More generally, you ignore the enormous fiscal benefits we've had over the last generation by having less crime and therefore less crime victimization. Perhaps a good research project for your class would be to study and publish a paper on exactly how many millions of billions the country has saved because of crime that was NOT committed because the people who would have done it were incarcerated.
Does that sound like a good project?
"To a large extent, Bill, this debate replicates what may be your perspective on cell-phones: "Hey, my old land-line and my new internet machine helps me communicate plenty, why should I risk giving up a land-line to try out one of those new cell-phones when what I have right now is working just fine from my perspective." My answer is that this is fine for you, but lots of others think we as a society can do better."
Those same "lots of others" were the people telling me in the 70's while I was in law school that rehabilitation and second chances, not prison, was the answer to the (then) growing national crime wave. But they were wrong. The fact that they continue to refuse to admit they were wrong and, instead, very much to the contrary, aggressively insist that they were right then and right now and right forever does not do a whole lot for my assessment of their credibility.
Doug, it's not that technology has changed. It's that ideologically deeply rooted beliefs that American is a bad, punitive, and essentially evil place have NOT changed.
I am fully aware that many want to go back to the failed policies of the past by putting the modern lipstick of technology on them and pretending it will all be better this time.
Sorry, I haven't been that naïve since I was 50.
As always, Bill, I appreciate the reply, though not the failure of this reply to recognize nuances in the modern reduce-reliance-on-incarceration position. It just plain wrong to say drug courts and programs like HOPE in Hawaii and GPS tracking and heavy use of data-driven solutions to punishment challenges are a return to failed policies of the past. Plus, of course, many other nations in the world have dealt with crime surges without mass incarceration and have reaped some corresponding benefits.
I will be the first to say increasing incarceration from low levels was a reasonable and sensible response to crime waves and disinstutionalization of the mentally ill in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. But will you say that some of the laws that may have served us well 30 years ago could use some updating in light of new developments and new priorities and new knowledge. That is how I see the FSA and also how I see the SSA. I hear very few people who advocate going back to a 1960s model of criminal justice, but I here you saying let's preserve a 1980s model and not even consider some modest reform because it has worked so well. In contrast, I think we can do better and should keep trying --- in part because states like Texas have shown it seems possible AND because I favor freedom and cost-effective, smaller government.
Notably, nearly all of your GOP pals who talk the talk on freedom and cost-effective, smaller government are starting to walk the walk here, too. This reality reinforces my long-held view that CJ reform is a small government conservative position, and that is why I call you a big government guy. That is fine, but I hope you realize how much your position emboldens the big government liberals who support government solutions to all problems. Like you, they stress how great government works even when lots of data undermines their claims. And, like you, they ask whether we want to go back to the bad old days before the New Deal and the Great Society had government ensuring a big safety net for all.
If the left really thought American govt is so evil, why do they keep wanting to make it bigger? Perhaps more importantly, why are you so eager to help provide justifications for doing so?
Doug,
As you saw from my very lengthy reply, I'm more than willing to engage and I don't duck. But before answering your most recent comment, I would like to hear your answer to three specific questions I asked but you passed by. They were:
-- If, contrary to your hope but consistent with many years of experience nationwide, less imprisonment contributes to more crime, how much more crime should the country be willing to tolerate in order to promote those early releases?
A hundred more crimes a year? A thousand? Ten thousand? What number?
-- What kinds of crimes (Violent offenses? CP production? Meth and heroin trafficking? Car theft? Home invasion? Scams on old people? What)?
-- And how much sooner, in terms of months or years, would you like these crimes to be happening?
Six months from now? A year? Two years?
Here are you answers, Bill:
1. More drug and regulatory crimes seem okay by me and I suspect lots of other Americans. Few seem eager to prosecute Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber for all the drug and regulatory crimes they commit. I suspect few will be deeply troubled if those are the kinds of crimes early releasees end up committing.
2. I also hope any extra crimes -- which is still an uncertainty -- end up costing taxpayers less than the costs of extra incarceration.
3. And, again, in Texas and other states that have been doing proactive reform, we have a better chance of less incarceration AND less crime, as opposed to following the California model. Ergo, unless you think this is a zero-sum game no matter who reform is done, the "evidence" you stress in this article should prompt you to join the chorus of voices urging Congress and other states to follow the Right on Crime model rather than the ignore-evidence-data-and-looming-problems that California's experience exemplifies.
4. Face it Bill, your arguments are premised on the notion that once a criminal is prosecuted and convicted of one crime, the safest course is for society to never let that person out of prison ever again. I will not dispute that such a policy could help keep outside (but not prison) society safer, but at what cost in a nation purported "conceived in liberty"? As I have said before, you clearly favor (like most big-government types) more security over more liberty, whereas I favor more liberty when push-come-to-shove. Sadly, the big-government types like you have dominated the political discourse for the last few decades (and also, of course, got an alcohol Prohibition amendment passed a century ago). But as more folks see and understand that liberty is a value worth living, the terms of the debate are slowly changing.