If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.
The majority of these serious crimes are committed by people with extensive wrap sheets. We should go back to using the criminal justice system to incarcerate people who are a danger to society. In the large city I live, we have a county attorney who is more concerned with "social justice" than keeping the population safe. Even in the past year, he said his office would no longer prosecute felonies where the suspect was apprehended through minor traffic violations (with the exception of some major crimes). In my mind we have some institutional rot or mind virus, that has stopped part of our justice system from keeping people safe.
I consider myself fairly liberal but I have to say that the progressive movement has been far too focused on identity/social justice politics and not on things that will really impact and help the community. I'm left with no party that I think has it right. If anything I want a return to some moderate rational politics. Both sides just keep getting more and more extreme and shifting their policies to canceling each other and things they don't like without listening or trying to understand each other. I'm scared for where we are going.
I mean Seattle is "progressive" but we let all these homeless people live on the streets! If we are so progressive then why do we not provide and force them into housing (or mental wards or anything)? Why do we not have an income tax?! This state makes no sense but I am stuck here because my kids are in high school.
>we have a county attorney who is more concerned with "social justice" than keeping the population safe.
I'm not sure it's so cut and dry. This reasoning has always irked me because the question I have is why are social reform progressives so successful in piercing through the ranks of DAs and other attorneys, but no where else?
In California, at least, what it seems to me is that there is a reluctance to send people to prisons because they are at or over capacity (some at 200% capacity) and there is no appetite to build more. Ignoring all the social pushback you will get (why are building more prisons than schools/hospitals/homes), given California real estate, it's probably also very expensive. I'm not sure it's 100% a coincidence that all these cities with "catch & release" programs are also cities where the real estate prices are the highest.
The majority of these serious crimes are committed by people with extensive wrap sheets. We should go back to using the criminal justice system to incarcerate people who are a danger to society. In the large city I live, we have a county attorney who is more concerned with "social justice" than keeping the population safe. Even in the past year, he said his office would no longer prosecute felonies where the suspect was apprehended through minor traffic violations (with the exception of some major crimes). In my mind we have some institutional rot or mind virus, that has stopped part of our justice system from keeping people safe.