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LA Times Goes to Damage Control Red Alert on Prop 47

October 28, 2015 7:33 AM | Posted by Bill Otis | 0 Comments
The LA Times was one of the biggest cheerleaders for Prop 47  --  an initiative which, with the Times' and other media support  --  won a decisive victory.  Prop 47 was the Golden State's version of what is known inside the Beltway as "sentencing reform."

Probably the central pivot in getting to victory was the promise that Prop 47 would not only save money but would make Californians safer.  The old idea that incarcerating criminals keeps them from committing crime was just Puritanical hogwash  --  either that or quasi-racist propaganda.

Enough time has passed, and enough results are in, to show that the promise was a lie.  I  strongly suspect the people making it knew it was a lie at the time, but wanted less incarceration anyway because they view criminals as victims, society as callous, and hoped either (a) that the fallout of increasing crime could be covered up, or (b) that someone else could be found to take the blame. 

The LAT seems to have settled on (b), having found itself unable to bring off a cover-up as big as has turned out to be needed.  Hence its new promise of a week-long explanation about how the crime-ridden outcroppings of its deceit are really the fault of (ready now?) the people who warned us about it.  

Do you get it yet?  Crime is never the fault of the people who do it.  It's the fault of those who, having been handicapped by our favorite Proposition, are now less able to clean up the mess.
The LAT's op-ed has at least a good title:  "California's Prop 47 revolution: Were the voters duped?"

I'll give them credit for using exactly the right word  --  duped.


As befits an advocate whose purpose is to blame its deceit on the people who were telling the truth (and have continued insolently to tell it), the LAT starts off:


Police and prosecutors have lately attempted to link increases in crime to last year's Proposition 47. Based on their overwrought statements, it would be understandable for Californians to start wondering whether they had been duped into completely decriminalizing drug possession and petty theft. 


Notice how quickly and shamelessly the Times lets us know what a con job this is going to be  --  as opposed, say, to an honest look at any over-promising it might have done.  Hence, the cops have "attempted" to link with "overwrought" statements about "completely" decriminalizing drug possession.


They could be forgiven for asking whether it's really the case that their law enforcement officers can no longer arrest thieves for stealing guns or breaking into cars, or have no option but to write tickets while watching all manner of mayhem unfold before them. They might hear that addicts have lost any incentive to choose drug treatment or to show up for court hearings.


This is a clever, if remarkably sleazy, attempt to walk past the fact that, while the police can indeed still do all these things, there is next to no point in doing them because of the way that, after Prop 47, the system has been re-rigged essentially to ignore them.


None of those things are true, although officials in many communities throughout California appear to sincerely, although mistakenly, believe them. 


Does the Times have any condescension left in its box, or did it all get used up in that one sentence?  And this is not to mention that, if its straw-man formulations are set up to be not (exactly) true, that would be because they're straw man formulations. How stupid do these guys think we are?


As is the case with all large bureaucracies, it is difficult for courts and for city and county agencies -- police departments, sheriff's departments, district attorneys, probation officers, county supervisors -- to understand and constructively respond to changed circumstances. And Proposition 47 no doubt brought change, by converting six felonies to misdemeanors and allowing many people serving sentences for those crimes, and those who served their time long ago, to be resentenced and have their rap sheets adjusted.


Quick translation:  The problem isn't that we lied.  The problem is that some people in some "bureaucracies" were dumb enough to believe us, and therefore did not expect the problem of increased crime to be as big as it was as fast as it was  -- albeit that this glitch is understandable, given that we'd been telling them there wasn't going to be increased crime at all, indeed that we were going to be safer, and that they'd save money to boot.


But this has to be the kicker:


We'd probably be better off if the various links in the public safety chain had opted to temporarily stick with their old practices following last November's vote.


How's that?  The "old practices" were better?  Like treating crime as if it were actually crime?  And what does "temporarily" mean?  Two years?  Ten years?  Fifty years?  


Sorry, fellas.  The problem of the increased crime brought about under Prop 47 is not that the Proposition took effect too quickly (and it had been known for months before that it would pass).  The problem is that it took effect at all.  And that problem came about because you and your allies lied about what it would do.


Time to tell the truth.  And to repeal Prop 47 before it does any more damage.







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