Tom McEnery, a former mayor of San Jose, recently wrote an article for the San Jose Inside blog about how:
Very, very soon, three federal judges will be deciding whether to free 52,000 of California’s 172,000 prison inmates because of overcrowding. And we have to ask the question: “Haven’t we tried this before—and with disastrous results?”
Yes.
And the answer of early parole, foolish paroles, and paroles that defy all logic by retuning violent offenders to ordinary and often poor neighborhoods, was a horrible and blood-curdling failure. Innocent families suffered badly. Tens of thousands had their lives ended or changed in ways too horrible to recount. It makes the fear of police seem absurd in comparison.
It is happening again.
[...]
Do these judges live in secure gated communities? I’d bet so. If they lived in poor neighborhoods or center cities they might know a bit more about the dangers of urban life, but with an out-of-touch group of jurists such as them, willing to worry about the health of convicted criminals, and caring little about the safety of innocent citizens, we can only expect a very bad result. Then we’ll certainly need a cop in blue to protect us. Rogues, indeed.
I absolutely agree with him that violent offenders should not be let out early to rampage again through our communities. If we're forced in the short-term to let people out early there are probably a lot of non-violent offenders and people guilty of "victimless" crimes who should be let out first.
It's imperative that folks don't forget, however, that the police have no duty to protect them. This is true even if you have a "special relationship" with the police, i.e. a protective court order. (See DeShaney v. Winnebago County for the precedent.) You are responsible for the safety of you and your loved ones, not the police or other aspects of the government.
This may make you really think hard about the implications of the judiciary having already retreated to gated communities and our elected officials already protected 24/7 by armed security details. There may be divisions in America, but they aren't rich vs. poor, or black vs. white—they're government elite vs. everyone else.
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