I’m very glad to learn that some “progressive” California proposals regarding prisoners are being quashed in the Legislature, despite super-majorities of Democrats in both the Assembly and the Senate. All three bills are by Democrats.
One proposal, SB94, would allow murderers who have been sentenced to life without parole to be released from prison “if the offense occurred before June 5, 1990, and the individual has served at least 25 years in custody,” because such “individuals are capable of redemption.”
A second bill, AB280, would place limits on “segregated [solitary] confinement” for prisoners “under 26 years of age or over 59 years of age.” It would “offer out-of-cell programming to individuals in segregated confinement for at least 4 hours per day,” and compel prisons “to maximize the amount of time that an incarcerated person held in segregated confinement spends outside of their cell by providing outdoor and indoor recreation, education, clinically appropriate treatment therapies, and skill-building activities.”
A third proposal, ACA4, would restore the right to vote for all prisoners because, according to the ACLU which co-sponsored it, “Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor people are disproportionately harmed by these laws.”
I have problems with all three of these proposals.
As for AB280, it seems to me that there’s no point in sentencing a murderer to life without parole, if the State can retroactively change the sentence. Not many murderers are sentenced to life without parole; these are the worst of the worst, vicious sociopaths whom the Court determined should punished in the most severe manner society can impose, short of death. Why show them mercy, when they never showed mercy to their victims? I also object to the concept that such individuals are “capable of redemption.” Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but these guys are notorious con artists who can fake “redemption” and then turn around and kill again. At the very least, the family or survivors of the murder victims must have a say in this process.
Then there’s AB280. Solitary confinement is limited to prisoners who misbehave in jail on a regular basis: attacking security guards and other prisoners, for instance. If AB280 were to pass, it would negate the very purpose of solitary confinement, which is punishment. There’s nothing wrong with punishment. Sometimes it takes punishment to drive into someone’s head that they can’t continue their aberrant behavior. If prisons were to allow prisoners out of solitary confinement for “recreation, education and skill-building,” there would be no difference between solitary confinement and the general prison population.
Finally, there’s ACA4, the bill to allow prisoners to vote. Some 120,000 prisoners in California at this time are not permitted to vote. In addition to the ACLU, other co-sponsors include a plethora of ultra-progressive nonprofits, such as the Ella Baker Center here in Oakland, which continues to demand police defunding. I have no problem with allowing prisoners convicted of minor offenses to vote. But when it comes to violent predators, I say No! I don’t think these people have the knowledge or understanding of current events to be able to cast a meaningful vote.
Look, all three of these measures purport to be “compassionate” interventions to make life easier for prisoners. But it is this very feeling of sympathy for ne’er-do-wells that has gotten us into such trouble. Radicals such as Pamela Price are constantly harping about how mean we’ve been toward prisoners; she wants to excuse prisoners, let them out of jail and confer special treatment on them. But when it comes to victims of crime, progressives don’t care. Their hearts are with the robbers and killers, not those who suffer at their hands.
For all these reasons, I’m glad that Legislative Democrats seem to have realized that “progressivism” is tearing our society apart and harming the Democratic Party. Should these three bills ever pass the Legislature and end up on Gov. Newsom’s desk, I trust he will veto them.
Steve Heimoff