America has been known as a nation of laws. It has a system that catches criminals and those suspected of crimes, tries them, and when found guilty, metes out prescribed punishments. It is not a perfect system, as it has occasionally convicted innocent people, and sometimes meted out punishments more severe, or less severe than appropriate. But, it has worked pretty well.
For more than 20 years, the violent crime rate has been dropping. However, today, we find the justice system being undermined, crimes becoming more and more frequent, while proper consequences are applied less frequently.
A commentary from Real Clear Politics (RCP), written by Bernard Kerik, a former police commissioner and Department of Correction commissioner in New York City, commented on this. “Effective Jan. 1, Democratic legislators in New York eliminated pre-trial detention with cash bail for about 90 percent of arrestees, including those charged with serious offenses such as burglary.”
Kerik continued, saying that “this law means more potentially violent criminals will be back on the street shortly after their arrests, without even a bail bond over their heads to keep them honest.”
The danger in this foolish plan was pointed out by New York public safety and law enforcement officials, who advised that this idea should be reversed, or things would quickly get worse. They were right.
“On the very first day that ‘bail reform’ was in place, a judge was forced to release a drunk driver with three prior DWI convictions, six total felonies, six misdemeanor convictions, and five charges of failing to appear on his own recognizance,” Kerik wrote. The man was then charged with another drunk driving offense less than two weeks later, this one killing a college student. And guess what? When in front of the judge for this charge, the judge was again forced to release him on his own recognizance.
Some more data on this topic comes from Yolo County, California: “Individuals released in the county on $0 bail committed over 300 new crimes,” according to a statement from the Yolo County District Attorney, reported last October in the Woodland, CA Daily Democrat. “The DA’s data also shows that there is a 33 percent rearrest rate among inmates who were released on zero bail.”
California is not alone in this ridiculous process. The New York Daily News reported in March of 2020 that “Mayor de Blasio and the city’s top cop unveiled stats Thursday they say show many suspects freed under new bail reforms are going on to commit major crimes. During the first two months of the year, 482 people charged with a felony were released without bail only to [be] rearrested for new crimes 846 times, according to officials.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, there is the totally irrational “defund the police” movement. As budgets were cut, and restrictions put in place, many officers retired or merely left their job. Finding new recruits has become difficult, as there is much public sentiment against police officers, and violence against them has increased substantially.
While most other countries experienced a decrease in both violent crime and overall crime during the coronavirus pandemic, many U.S. cities saw the opposite occur. Large cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, and smaller cities such as Portland, Milwaukee, Louisville, and Minneapolis, have suffered large increases in crime.
Fortunately, officials are beginning to understand just how goofy this idea is, and refunding police — quietly, in some cases — has begun.
In addition to go-easy laws, and the defund the police movement, there are also prosecutors who have soft on crime attitudes. An article on the Heritage Foundation’s Website addresses this, saying, “One of the most disturbing features of rogue prosecutors is their utter disregard for real victims of crime and for victims’ rights under state law.”
Authors Zack Smith and Charles "Cully" Stimson say this “new breed of prosecutors” usurps the constitutional power of the legislative branch by refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes; abuse their offices; enable crime to explode under their watch; and harm the very people they pretend to care about the most, including low-income and minority individuals.
Smith and Stimson, as well as the National Police Association (NPA), reference billionaire George Soros’ efforts to support so-called “social justice” prosecutor candidates.
The NPA article stated, “Today, Soros supports candidates for public prosecutor’s offices who are anti-police. He funds them through massive donations to a collection of charities paradoxically called Open Society Foundations,” and it further said that Soros has reportedly spent more than $13.4 million supporting these candidates.
America suffers from significant weaknesses in several areas. They include, in addition to the damaged criminal justice system, an education system that is fast becoming a political indoctrination system; fair, balanced, and objective news journalism that is in many instances promoting leftist politics; continued devolution of strong, positive traditions, like the family and marriage; and large corporations that have gained far more control over our lives than they deserve or are supposed to have.
The radical left is tearing America apart, and resistance to it is not nearly strong enough.
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