Editors at the Washington Examiner tally the damage from progressive policies favoring criminals over public safety.
In New York, so-called “bail reform” is having tragic consequences. More accurately called the “get out of jail no matter what” law, it has helped some of the worst predators throughout the state commit violent crimes over and over again as they repeatedly pass through the jail’s revolving door. …
… In San Francisco, former District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced shortly after he took office that he would no longer seek to detain criminal suspects. He went even further in choosing not to prosecute “quality of life” offenses and turning a blind eye to shoplifting and related property crimes. The violent and property crime situation in his city quickly got so bad that he was overwhelmingly thrown out of office by the voters this summer. …
… When Justice Louis Brandeis described the 50 states as “laboratories of democracy,” he probably didn’t mean to say they were walled off from one another, such that none could learn any lessons from the others. But this seems to be the case on the crime issue today. Liberals and Democrats are getting smacked by voters at every opportunity for adopting extremely stupid pro-crime policies. But Democrats in other states aren’t catching on.
Another shoe is about to drop in Illinois, thanks to Democrats’ 2021 passage of the SAFE-T Act, many provisions of which go into effect this coming January. Unless this law is fixed, the bill will abolish cash bail for nearly all defendants, bar police from removing trespassers from homes and businesses, and give bail-jumpers a 48-hour head start before the police can even start trying to track them down.
Criminal-coddling policies are having serious political consequences for Democrats in other states. Much more importantly, they are having tragic, life-altering, and life-ending consequences for the innocent victims of the criminals whom these policies seem almost designed to enable.
