I first became acutely aware of the limitations placed on crime victims in the aftermath of my daughter Polly’s 1993 kidnap, rape and murder.
Since then I have worked with legislators, victim’s rights organizations, police and prosecutors toward a day when victims achieve equity with violent felons in the criminal justice system.
California has a proud victim’s rights history. We have created a body of work that protects crime victims, allows them to retain dignity and respect as they seek justice, and feel safe after justice has been achieved. We have further ensured that criminals are held accountable for their crimes.
If Governor Brown’s so-called ‘Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016’ is passed into law, the blood, sweat, and tears of generations of crime victim advocates will be ground underfoot like an immigrant at a Trump rally as violent criminals are released onto our streets and into our neighborhoods.
The Governor has said that any felony not included in the paltry list of 23 “violent felonies” defined in the criminal code would be a “non-violent felony” for purposes of his initiative, because the term “non-violent felony offense” is not defined in the initiative, or elsewhere in California law.
In 1982, the voters enacted Proposition 8, the Victim’s Bill of Rights, which defined and listed ‘serious felonies’. While many are not on the ‘violent felony’ list, perhaps they should be. A partial list of crimes that are not technically considered “violent,” so therefore, qualify as “non-serious, non-violent offenses” eligible for early release in the Governor’s initiative include:
- Human Trafficking Involving Forced Labor or Services (Pen. Code 222)
- Human Trafficking Involving Sex Acts, Obscene Matter, or Extortion (Pen. Code 236.1(b))
- Human Trafficking Involving a Minor and Commercial Sex Acts (Pen. Code 236.1(c))
- Pimping (Pen. Code 266h)
- Pandering (Pen. Code 266i)
- Transporting or Providing a Child Under Age 16 For the Purpose of a Lewd Act (Pen. Code 266j)
- Abduction of a Minor For the Purpose of Prostitution (Pen. Code 267)
This partial list also obliterates Proposition 35, a victim’s rights bill which had the support of 81% of voters when it passed into law in 2012, and determined that human trafficking is a ‘crime against human dignity and grievous violation of basic human and civil rights.
I’m very proud to be a small part of a movement that has helped to cut California’s violent crime rate in half since my daughter was kidnapped, raped and murdered in 1993. However, according to the FBI Preliminary Uniform Crime Report for 2015, in California violent crime was up 12.9% during the first 6-months of 2015 as compared to the first 6-months of 2014. This represents the first significant rise in violent crime in more than two decades.
The lessons of the past should steer us towards ensuring lasting legacies for generations yet to be born. Instead, they are being ignored as future generations become guinea pigs for a social experiment that doomed to failure.
I want to be sure that we all understand what kind of people we are talking about here. There has been a lot of talk this morning about the power of rehabilitation, so I would like to remind you that the individual who stole, raped, and murdered my Polly had successfully completed rehabilitation and job training programs before being released from prison for serving one half of a sixteen-year-sentence for his second kidnapping. Yet three-months later my daughter was dead. Prior to being released from prison he told cellmates that when he got out he would avoid AIDS by getting a young one. You see, this sadistic psychopath’s definition of safe sex was to steal, rape and murder a twelve-year-old girl.
This may sound harsh, but ask yourself how you would feel if your child, sister, or mother became the next victim of a remorseless psychopath in a world that releases dangerous criminals onto the streets as violence again spirals out of control.