Thousands of California inmates may be released early and be right back to committing crime in your neighborhood.
Come this November 4, an initiative will be on the ballot to do just that. Proposition 47, also known as the ‘Reduced Penalties for Some Crimes Initiative’ will reduce certain non-serious and nonviolent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.
The plan is to free criminals early who have committed misdemeanors so that the California government can save money and spend it on K-12 schools as well as protecting and rehabilitating crime victims.
However this proposition will be doing the opposite of protection by freeing these men and women that have committed such crimes as armed robbery, kidnapping, carjacking and child and animal abuse.
Protection for citizens is a top priority, and this is not the correct way of achieving that goal. Risking the protection of citizens to protect criminals is wrong in every sense of the word. Criminals don’t need protection; criminals need a cold concrete 8 by 11 cell to think about what they have done.
According to NeighbrhoodScout, the crime rate in California is 31.82 per 1,000 residents. If we release thousands of criminals back into the streets that number is sure to rise, making nearly every neighborhood more unsafe than it was before.
In today’s society where sexual assault is prevalent every day, proposition 47 will make possession of a date rape drug a misdemeanor as opposed to a felony.
The proposed bill will allow an estimated 10,000 inmates to be eligible for re-sentencing, according to Lenore Anderson of Californians for Safety and Justice. An even scarier statistic is that there are about 40,000 offenders that would be affected if the measure passes, according to the states Legislative Analyst Office.
Not only will the bill release inmates early, it also has a lot of other negative effects. Criminals will be charged with misdemeanors as opposed to felonies which will overcrowd jails and jam the courts with re-sentencing hearings.
Even the people that protect California on a daily basis are against this bill. California’s Police Chief’s, California’s District Attorney’s and California’s State Sheriffs are all opposed to this bill.
If you did the crime you have to do the time.
