California Crime Laws Causes More Crime, While Gun Laws Reduce Defensibility

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By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert French was murdered on August 30th of this year, and two other officers were wounded during a shootout with convicted felon Thomas Littlecloud – a criminal who had three prior sentences and failed to show up to court in 2016 for violating the conditions of his release.  Littlecloud was on the streets as a direct result of AB 109′s parole changes, according to the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALADS).

“Prior to AB 109, a no bail warrant for a violation of parole would have been issued for Littlecloud and served upon him. He would have remained in custody while awaiting both resolution of his new criminal cases and a parole revocation hearing. Most importantly, he would not have been on the streets in August, 2017 and able to murder Deputy French,” ALADS said in a statement. “The attempt by the state legislator to game recidivism statistics doesn’t change the reality of parolee behavior and law violations after release from prison.”

AB 109′s prison realignment was signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2011 with the promise that it would ease California’s overcrowded prisons problem, seeking to move the responsibility of administering certain offenders from the state to counties. The Supreme Court mandate meant that some prisoners who would have been sent to state prison were sent instead to already over-capacity county jails. Others were placed under Post-Release Community Supervision (PRCS) in which they were given help to reintegrate into society through services such as jobs and skills training, mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment.

“Deputy French was gunned down by a cowardly fugitive with a decades-long criminal history that should have been behind bars. California’s nonsensical experiment of releasing hardcore criminals back on the streets has created a revolving door criminal justice system with deadly consequences,” Craig Lally, President of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, told Fox News. “The Los Angeles Police Department is understaffed and it makes little sense to keep releasing convicted criminals to wreak more havoc on our streets. These failed policies need to be rescinded.”

And according to Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach, many of the state’s Democratic leaders subsequently have blood on their hands.

“A cop-killing felon was on the streets due to Jerry Brown’s AB 109 early release law, instead of behind bars where he belonged,” he lamented. “It is not enough for Democrat politicians to send their condolences after the fact when it is their soft-on-crime policies that have put our law enforcement and communities in harm’s way. Deputy French’s death was unnecessary and a direct result of the laws that Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Democrats have promoted.”

While, since the enactment of the law, California’s state prison population has fallen by more than 25 percent, AB 109, along with other idiotic “let’s be easy on criminals” laws in California, have also led to a dramatic increase in crime in the State of California.

 

Combined with Proposition 47, laws like AB 109 have helped in, beginning in 2015, a serious California crime wave.  Violent crime has increased in every one of California’s 10 largest cities, while property crime increased in 9 of the 10.  Of 66 California cities whose crime trends were analyzed in depth, 49 saw their violent crime rates increase—usually by at least 10 percent.  Forty-eight of those same 66 California cities saw their property crime rates rise—and in half of those cases, the increase was 10 percent or greater. A typical case was San Francisco, where theft of merchandise from automobiles increased by 47 percent, auto theft rose by 17 percent, and robberies were up 23 percent.

AB 109′s effect of putting more criminals on the streets has been blamed before for an officer’s death on duty, as well. Many attributed the February death of Whittier police officer Keith Boyer to AB 109, as court records showed the shooting suspect and alleged gang member Michael Mejia cycled in and out of incarceration and violated his probation several times. Yet he received a 10-day “flash incarceration” in county jail under the bill before allegedly killing Boyer and his own cousin, and wounding another officer.

And last week, a lauded El Dorado Hills middle school counselor, Myrna Harp, was lucky to have survived a head-on collision after a car theft suspect, who critics say would have been behind bars for previous convictions if it weren’t for AB 109, crossed into her lane amid a police chase.

Such stories have become commonplace, AB 109 opponents claim.

Thanks to AB 109 and Prop. 47, violent crime rose 7.4 percent between 2011 and 2016, with “aggravated assault” experiencing the biggest uptick.

To add insult to injury, the Democrats in California endorsed Prop 57 which undid many sentencing laws. It branded those convicted of offenses including rape of an unconscious person, human trafficking involving sex acts with minors, lewd acts against a child 14 or 15 years old, failing to register as a sex offender and attempting to explode a bomb at a hospital or school as “nonviolent” criminals.

Scores of law enforcement leaders are now saying enough is enough.

“These bills have brought about a horrible state of affairs. There is no dispute violent crime has increased and the common denominator is early release from prison,” added John McGinness, a former Sacramento County Sheriff who now serves as a consultant for the California Police Association. “Maybe this wasn’t reckless policy, maybe it was well-intended, but it needs to be acknowledged that it has failed.”

 

With the passage of SB 54, the Sanctuary State bill, once it is put into law, crime by illegal aliens will rise dramatically, as well.  However, the message from Sacramento is also against citizens protecting themselves from the rising chaos, as anti-gun laws are reaching a deafening crescendo, and beginning in January 2018, Californian’s price of ammunition will rise dramatically, and the purchase of ammunition will accompany a whole litany of hurdles and obstacles.

Starting July 2019, anyone buying ammunition from a vendor will be required to undergo background screening via a state system.

– Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary