California Governor Jerry Brown delivered his last State of State address yesterday, and not surprisingly it includes some curious statements about crime.
"Yet"? What's with the "yet"? Getting tough on crime had the purpose of bringing down crime rates, and it was a major factor in that reduction. Would you say "we built a number of dams for flood control, yet we now have fewer destructive floods than we did before"?
Where does he get the "number of reported felonies" figure? That number is not tallied in the official Crime in California publication of the Criminal Justice Statistics Center. The number of California index crimes is down somewhat, but that is not the same as felonies. The number of violent index crimes in 2016 was close to double what it was in 1970.
One reason that reported felonies may be down is that Proposition 47 redefined a great many felonies to be misdemeanors. Yes, that is one sure way to reduce the number of felonies without making any reduction in the number of crimes, and probably increasing them.
Then there is this humdinger:
To give you a sense of the magnitude of the problem, here are some of the facts:
- In 1970, California imprisoned 125 persons per 100,000. That number now stands at 331.
- The corrections budget then was about 3 percent of the General Fund. Now it's 8.9 percent -- about $12 billion.
- Yet, last year, the number of reported felonies was actually lower than it was in 1970.
Where does he get the "number of reported felonies" figure? That number is not tallied in the official Crime in California publication of the Criminal Justice Statistics Center. The number of California index crimes is down somewhat, but that is not the same as felonies. The number of violent index crimes in 2016 was close to double what it was in 1970.
One reason that reported felonies may be down is that Proposition 47 redefined a great many felonies to be misdemeanors. Yes, that is one sure way to reduce the number of felonies without making any reduction in the number of crimes, and probably increasing them.
Then there is this humdinger:
My plea is relatively straightforward: Take time to understand how our system of crime and punishment has evolved, how other states and countries have devised their prison systems and what changes might we now make. I urge that instead of enacting new laws because of horrible crimes and lurid headlines, you consider the overall system and what it might need and what truly protects public safety.This is the insufferable conceit of the political left that we hear all the time. The implication is that the tough-on-crime movement was not thought out and not based on understanding but just an emotional reaction. In fact, a lot of thoughtful people put a lot of thought into the failure of our approach to crime in the 1960s and 1970s and the need for a better, tougher, more effective approach.
Horrible crimes, to be sure, sometimes provide the political momentum to push legislation through that the friends of criminals had previously blocked. The atrocious manslaughter verdict for Dan White's fully premeditated murder of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk provided the political boost to fix California's deeply flawed mental defense law, but the fix had previously been thought out and proposed. The Oklahoma City Bombing provided the boost to get federal habeas corpus reform through Congress, but the reforms had been on the table for years.
So, Governor, we have taken the time. We do understand. You are the one who is clueless if you think your "throw open the doors" approach to criminal justice is not going to cause grave harm to innocent people. Proposition 57 reads like it was written on a cocktail napkin at Frank Fat's (a Sacramento political hangout). Did you put more than five minutes of thought into it?
An initiative is now circulating that will mitigate some of the consequences of the ill-considered criminal legislation of the last seven years. The death penalty votes of 2016 demonstrate that common sense has not completely left the state. A majority still votes with sense when the issues are clear. Let's hope sense prevails in 2018.
Interesting post, Kent, and I would like to hear where on the "thoughtfulness" metric you would place the 3-strikes initiatives of 1994 and 2012.