“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” Albert Einstein
California experienced an unprecedented violent crime wave in the early 1990’s. Criminals were cycling through a turnstile system of ever escalating violence. A calculated combination of good-time credits and rehabilitation programs provided even the most violent felons with a ‘get out of jail free card’, spitting them back into society after serving but a fraction of their sentence.
The result was ever-increasing, ever more violent crime. In 1993, there were 4,096 murders and 11,766 rapes in California. By 2014, those numbers had been reduced to 1,699 murders and 8,398 rapes. The reasons for the precipitous drop in crime have been long debated. However, one cannot overlook the series of ‘tough on crime’ measures that were legislated to curb the swelling crime rates:
- “Truth in Sentencing” guaranteed that violent, serious felons would serve at least 85% of the sentence imposed by the judge
- “Three Strikes & You’re Out” held violent and serious felons accountable for their criminal histories through sentence enhancements
- “Megan’s Law” required sex offenders to register with local authorities, and that the public has access to that information
- President Clinton’s 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act put 100,000 more police on our streets.
By 1999, violent and property crime had been cut in half in California. Those numbers held steady until 2014. However, the price paid for safer streets was an increased prison population. In 2006, California’s prison population peaked at 163,000. In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the state to reduce the prison population to 114,000. The court said that conditions in California’s overcrowded prisons were so bad that they violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
In response, Governor Brown signed Assembly Bill (AB) 109 in 2011. The goal of AB 109 was to transfer responsibility for incarceration and supervision of certain non-violent, low-risk offenders from the State to its 58 counties, meaning that convicts were transferred from state prisons to county jails. By June 2014, the prison population stood at 135,484. In November 2014, California voters passed Proposition 47, reducing the classification of most “non-serious and non-violent property and drug crimes” from felonies to misdemeanors.
The rationale for AB 109 and Prop. 47 was to reduce prison overcrowding, and they achieved that goal. On January 29, 2015 California’s inmate population dipped below the maximum level set by the court for the first time.
Case closed? Not on your life! Governor Brown has since qualified Proposition 57 for the 2016 ballot. The so called “Public Safety & Rehabilitation Act” will provide early release to tens of thousands of violent, dangerous and career criminals by using a calculated combination of good-time credits and rehabilitation programs. It will further overturn key provisions of Marsy’s Law, Three Strikes & You’re Out, the Victim’s Bill of Rights, Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act, and the Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act – measures enacted by the public that have protected victims and made communities safer.
In 2015, the F.B.I. and the California Attorney General, issued reports confirming that crime is on the rise for the first time in more than two decades. Given that California has already achieved the federally mandated prison population threshold, as crime rates continue to rise, does it make sense to give early prison release to even more dangerous felons?
The evidence is as clear as the trend is disturbing. In 1993, Richard Allen Davis was but one of thousands of vicious, violent criminals given the rehab/good time credit ‘get out of jail free’ card. Within 3-months my daughter Polly was dead because Davis wanted to avoid A.I.D.S. by “getting a young one”. She was just one of 4,096 Californians murdered that year. Violent crime is on the rise yet Governor Brown wants to give early release to thousands of violent felons.
If Proposition 57 passes on November 8, we will enter a sinkhole of mayhem and murder that will target our daughters, sisters, mothers and other innocent citizens. To knowingly move down that path is insanity!