BJH65
AH enthusiast
Hello Saul,That is also true. It is up to voters to say enough.
Well, in California, it was the voters who helped to create this mess. I can speak to this since I spent 25 years as a law enforcement officer in CA extensively dealing with this problem. Years back, CA passed a dangerous trifecta: AB109, Prop 57 and Prop 47. This in a nutshell, decriminalized the laws that we in law enforcement and the criminal justice system used as a tool to keep some semblance of order. It wasn’t a perfect system but it was the most effective I’ve seen to date.
Of course it’s no crime to be homeless, however, the vast majority are addicted to drugs and alcohol, committed mostly petty theft and possession of illegal narcotics type crimes among others. In addition, many suffered from mental health issues. We were able to use these crimes as tools to arrest and at least briefly incarcerate them where they received treatment in custodial facilities.
So with the public’s passage of AB109, Prop 57, and Prop 47, a large segment of a population that used to be incarcerated was no longer. It essentially decriminalized all of the previous laws we used as tools to maintain order and quality of life for citizens In CA. One could say, society decided they no longer desired to incarcerate these individuals for these types of crimes. I believe this to be a nationwide trend. Part of the disintegration of CA I have previously mentioned.
One could say its wasn't entirely the voting public’s fault. If you’ve ever seen a CA ballot proposition, you would shake your head. They are full of word trickery and must be carefully studied or one must have advanced knowledge ahead. A voter may think they are voting one way like a tough on crime proposition when it’s the exact opposite!
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