Fewer Penalties, More Crime
The role of a prosecutor is to pursue justice and enforce the law. That sounds straightforward, but more and more, that doesn’t seem to be happening. Why? Rafael Mangual, Deputy Director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute, answers this important question.
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Script:
The role of the prosecutor is to pursue justice.
This primarily means enforcing the laws passed by the representatives of the people. Enforcement protects citizens from future crime, but also offers some measure of satisfaction to the victims of crime. This is the basis of civil society. But over the last several years, a growing number of American cities have elected prosecutors who are deemphasizing enforcement.
This is by design. These prosecutors openly vowed to “reform” the criminal justice system by means of selective prosecution. Their motive, seemingly well-intentioned, is that criminals do better when they’re not incarcerated—that many people who are in jail shouldn’t be there because they don’t present a danger to society.
So what does this reform look like? Here are just a few examples:
In Boston, Suffolk County District Attorney Rachel Rollins has ceased prosecuting 15 different offense categories, including charges like trespassing, stealing less than $250, destruction of property, and drug possession with the intent to distribute.
In Brooklyn, Eric Gonzalez has either refused to prosecute or has rerouted many gun offenders to pretrial diversion programs.
In Los Angeles, George Gascón has actually prohibited prosecutors from speaking at parole hearings. This forces victims and their families to take on the burden of speaking in opposition to early releases. He has also ordered his prosecutors not to pursue sentencing enhancements enacted by elected representatives, including those for “third strikes” and gang-related offenses.
In San Francisco, Chesa Boudin instituted a policy prohibiting prosecutors from seeking bail and heavily restricted their ability to ask for pretrial detention.
This is not a fringe movement. In addition to the four cities just mentioned, St. Louis, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, Portland, San Antonio, and others have taken the same route. In fact, more than 40 million Americans now live in cities with so-called “progressive” prosecutors. That’s a lot of “reform” happening outside the institutions designed to make the law: state, county, and city legislatures.
And that’s concerning for a couple of reasons. First is that a single official shouldn’t be able to sidestep the political process and decide what laws to enforce or not. But a second, larger and more obvious, concern is that these changes aren’t making our cities safer. Based on the data, they seem to be making our cities less safe.
Take, for example, George Gascón’s ban on third-strike sentencing. In 2007, economists studied the deterrent effects of California’s three-strikes law. What they found was a 17-20% reduction in the felony arrest rate among those with two strikes. That’s a pretty big benefit to throw away on one man’s say-so.
How about the goal of sharply curtailing pretrial detention? The data out of jurisdictions like New York and Chicago tell us that increasing the number of pretrial defendants out on the street will most likely mean more crimes committed by that population—crimes local residents could certainly do without. One study of Chicago’s bail reform concluded that “after more generous release procedures were put in place…the number of pretrial [defendants] charged with committing new violent crimes increased by an estimated 33%.”
In New York, the share of violent felony arrests constituted by those out of jail, either on reduced bail or released without bail, while awaiting trial for previous crimes jumped by more than 27% in the first nine months of 2020 (the year New York State’s bail reform went into effect), and that’s compared to the same period in 2019.
For the complete script as well as FACTS & SOURCES, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/fewer-penalties-more-crime
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‘More lies, easily debunked with a quick google search.’ is what it should say. Nice try Dennis, you are full of sh*t.
Great eexplanations s
Would love to see a debate on this topic.
It's interesting to note that the left wants to release criminals into the streets, defund the police, and take your guns away all at once.
This is just sidestepping the issue, the reason people hate our system is because its outdated and instead of people in the community getting involved we keep relying on officials to fix issues leading to these streamlined actions that don't work usually, instead of having the person not go to jail how about reform that can be used to actually get a job in place, not "development of the skill" actual job offerings, also this should bleed into the jail system aswell because jails make a significant amount of wealth off the prison system by paying inmates small amounts of money. This money made by the jail should be seized by the government otherwise you can get tons of establishments who would prefer people to always face a higher charge to keep the money coming in so just overcharge, plea deal out, then a new worker is made. Their are alot of issues with the legal process but just not prosecuting or over prosecuting is not the answer anyone is looking for, it's just lazy
You know what saddens me the most about YouTube removing the dislike button? It allows channels like this to thrive just as much is the corporate ones, because people will hve an even harder time telling whether or not what they’re saying is accurate or well intended. I’m not saying this video is 100% wrong, but I am saying I’ve seen a lot of videos from this channel that it made me question their ethics (such as the one where they encourage women to their husbands ogle other women)
huh, who would have thought that when you stop enforcing crime an punishment/ justice that more people engage in crime?
The left thinks its ok not to prosecute criminals and imprisons them which it isnt and the lefts idea of abolishing prisons and police will promote mass lawlessness and leave many americans at the mercy of criminals
Funny how Dennis himself argues quite literally the opposite of this video when talking about laws pertaining to vaccination and masks. If that isn’t irony, I dunno what is.
Intent to sell, what does that mean in the USA? Possession of a certain amount of drugs?
Word.
Crime is a historical lows, man Prager u fact checking needs work
This is literally the process everywhere. Prosecutors pick and choose what case they prosecute with their political career in mind.
The us has more people on jail than the rest of the world together. Including north corea. Cuba and russia.
So we should be like China and severely punish crime, with no way to rehabilitate?
Leftie Liberals can't look at a modern civilized productive and religious society without losing their shit and attempting to destroy it, it's in their genes I suppose-
So I guess conservatives support big government now? Well, thanks for confirming it. Thanks for confirming that you support people being literally tortured in prison for having a handful of weed which has killed nobody.
Isn't it funny how other western countries don't have harsh punishments but yet their crime rates are significantly lower? How does that work?
If you really want to reduce crime rates stop making convicts tell everyone about their crimes so they can get a decent paying job. Unless it's sexual assult or murder it's literally none of your employers business. I don't need to know that you tried to steal a car or shop lifted a candy bar 30 years ago. Why are we punishing the crimes even after they've served their time.
Also stop throwing drug addicts in jail. Addiction is a mental illness which requires professional help. Throwing them in the same building as the dealers who will exploit the mental illness.
And perhaps we should help Integrate them back into society. Once you're out of jail you're basically thrown into the world with no job, no house, and nothing to your name and told "Good luck." Or you get put on parole and told "get a job or go back to jail." Instead we should ease them back into society so they're not in a position where they're more likely to resort to crimes.
Lol…. yeah, how’ that working out??….
This is good work!
You oversimplified such a complex matter as the reasoning behind crime rates, this subject absolutely does not fall in the rhetoric that “statistics say what’s good and bad policy”