“Studies have shown that adding sentencing enhancements often increases recidivism, that it is racially biased and applied in a racially biased way, and that it costs us taxpayers huge amounts of money.” That’s what Madame D.A. told her audience in Montclair.
Price can babble all she wants but she can’t avoid the truth. “Recidivism” is caused by idiotic criminals who refuse to learn anything from their first criminal conviction but instead decide to do something criminal again. That is a personal decision. Somebody makes the choice to grab a gun and stick up a liquor store, or to smash an elderly Asian on the head. There’s no way to get around it: nobody and nothing caused the criminal to do it, except the criminal’s own aberrant and sociopathic thinking. Human culture has known this since the beginning of our species, which is why personal responsibility lies at the heart of every code of law and jurisprudence. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” and don’t blame crime on “enhancements” or “structural racism” or anything else.
And—to say it again for the umpteenth time—can we stop this whining about “racial bias”? If more Black people are given sentencing enhancements than White people (and I’ve seen no proof of that), it’s because the quantity of their crimes is greater. I’ve had it up to here with complaints that Black drivers are stopped in greater numbers, that our prisons and jails are overrepresented by Black people, that “implicit bias” infects all White people. There’s an interesting story in today’s S.F. Chronicle about some California doctors suing the state Medical Board for compelling them to “study the role of implicit bias in treatment.” My sympathies are decidedly on the side of the doctors who brought the lawsuit. This is yet another example of what the journalist Christopher Rufo calls “the cynical game [of] marshalling the forces of guilt, shame, and scapegoating in order to enhance a left-wing political orthodoxy.” White Americans for the most part know that they are not “racists” and they resent being painted as such and forced to participate in ridiculous implicit bias workshops. What Americans demand is civil behavior from all citizens, regardless of skin color—and we have every right to punish people who consistently behave uncivilly.
It make me pull my hair out in desperation (and I don’t have all that much hair to begin with) when Price says stuff like she’s working to make Alameda County “a healthier place to raise your children – that we empower people to feel safe in this community.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire! How many “children” have been shot and wounded or killed by criminals in Alameda County over the years? Do a majority of Alamedans feel “safe in this community”? We do not, because of failed woke policies of undersentencing felons, of returning criminals to the streets on parole, of not even arresting them when they’re caught in the act of theft or carjacking or shoplifting. Madame D.A. doesn’t give a damn about “feeling safe.” If she did, she’d be a tough-on-crime D.A. She wouldn’t be freeing lawbreakers the way she is. She’d be an outspoken voice for greater policing, for building more detention centers, for ending the grift and corruption of “anti-violence” scams. She’d be celebrated by White voters who would be grateful to have a D.A. on their side.
Instead, Price knows she’s going to lose the White vote by a huge margin, so she’s out there hustling, spinning, fabricating, reinventing history, changing facts, propagandizing. We White people are “racists” because we want to get rid of her. How insulting.
I want sentencing enhancements when they make sense. If a thug is arrested for the sixth time for assault or something similar, can we not agree that (a) he’s unlikely ever to change his behavior and (b) we, the public, deserve to be protected from him? If a prosecutor is able to add a few years to his jail sentence with an enhancement, then for Heaven’s sake, do it. I don’t want these violent predators coddled. I want them locked away behind bars. I don’t want a D.A. who feels sorrier for criminals than she does for victims. I don’t want a D.A. who fires honest, experienced Assistant D.A.s because they want to protect the public. Price is suing Butch Ford because she can—she’s a vengeful, angry ideologue who lashes out at those who disagree with her, thereby abusing her power. Please consider making a donation to the recall effort at recallpamelaprice.org!
Steve Heimoff