Reversal of Crime Reforms

The Listening To presents Not the Headlines Extra. For months after the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, riots took place in cities around the country. There was an uproar for criminal justice reform, and defund the police initiatives were proposed by local, state, and federal politicians. Cities with so called progressive leaders took the ball and ran with it, enacting relaxed laws for those who commit crimes, not prosecuting the criminals when they were arrested, or simply ignoring laws in an effort to make a point. The point being that law enforcement was abusing its powers, and that those abuses hurt people of color more than anybody. It was therefore justified to strip police of their power and take a more sympathetic approach to civil order. Less than four years later, the results are in, and several cities have had a change of heart. A story in USA Today highlights a few of them. It says San Francisco, Washington, DC, as well as the states of Oregon and Louisiana have all taken steps recently to roll back the soft on crime initiatives that took hold since the summer of twenty twenty. Practically all of the places that went soft on crime are now having buyer's remorse? That's because they bought a load of malarkey as a knee jerk reaction to mob culture. After years of paying for it, progressive lawmakers are finally pulling their heads out of the sand. What did they expect by increasing the severity of crime required to be held responsible? When you let people steal up to nine hundred fifty dollars worth of stuff before they get into trouble for it, criminals are going to steal that much. Not everybody will do it, but those who do will do it over and over again. When you decriminalize carjacking, you're going to get more carjackings. Instead, governments made laws requiring prison populations be reduced. America does put a lot of people in jail. As much, if not more than any other country. But that's another byproduct of laws that don't deter crime. The American Civil Liberties Union is against rolling back soft on crime policies, calling the rollbacks in Louisiana costly and not likely to reduce crime anytime soon. In Oregon, the story says recriminalizing drug crimes will disproportionately affect black and Latino people. Why the Statesman Journal said that could be considered insensitive toward people of color, assuming they'll be committing more crimes than white people. But as long as it looks like they're sticking up for black and brown people, nobody will point that out. Except me, I guess. The sad part is not all of the progressive cities have learned the lesson yet, or they refuse to acknowledge the devastating effect taking away police authority has had. Some progressive leaders simply don't care, as the liberal district attorneys were put in place to create the lawlessness currently being experienced by law abiding citizens. It may be because it's part of a bigger plan. One of the progressive cities still holding on to the soft on crime policies is Los Angeles. Because of crime, there are businesses in Los Angeles that don't accept cash as payment for goods or services. It's too risky to keep cash on the premises. The likelihood of getting robbed at gunpoint is so high that it's not worth having any to steal. That means all transactions must take place by debit or credit card. That means all transactions can be traced and tracked. That's one of the few ways banks can cash in on low income neighborhoods. That's how crime is helping the extreme left achieve its goal of digital and universal currency. Some cities have discovered it's too high of a price to pay, no matter how liberal you wish your policies could be.