by Jeanne Kuang
Republican state Sen. Brian Jones has been trying to block sex offenders from being released from prison through California’s elderly parole program for several years. Last week, for the first time, his bill to do so made it out of its first committee.
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It was just one of many votes Senate Bill 286 will have to survive in a long road ahead in the Capitol, but it caught Jones’ attention. In a Legislature dominated by Democrats who often shelve Republican tough-on-crime proposals, the approval from the Senate Public Safety Committee was unanimous.
“I don’t think it would have passed a committee last year,” said Jones, the Senate minority leader.
California’s Democratic legislators — who for years have been passing progressive measures designed to reduce sentences and lessen mass incarceration by emphasizing more rehabilitative solutions to crime — were dealt a blow last fall when an overwhelming majority of voters approved Proposition 36.
The measure backed by business owners, police and Republicans, increased sentences for some drug and theft crimes, partially undoing more lenient measures that voters approved just 10 years ago. Though many Democrats opposed the measure, they’re now tasked with providing funding to carry it out.
Jones, of San Diego, said he’s seeing Democrats inching toward stricter incarceration measures as a result. He said he saw a window to bring back the legislation this year.
“The smart Democrats are getting it,” he said. “The voters spoke overwhelmingly.”
The Public Safety Committee also gave unanimous approval this month for another bill Jones authored, SB 379, that would add regulatory guardrails before the Department of State Hospitals releases sexually violent predators. It’s his fourth year in a row pushing that measure; the proposal passed the Senate and died in the Assembly last year, after failing to clear a single committee both years before that. SB 432, authored by a different Republican senator to increase penalties for selling or giving fentanyl to minors, also got unanimous approval in the committee this month.
Freshman Sen. Jesse Arreguín, an Oakland Democrat who chairs the committee, said his fellow Democrats don’t intend to return to an era of overcrowded prisons or harsh penalties for lower-level crimes. But he acknowledged they’re also shifting their thinking in response to their voters, and called that approach “pragmatic.”
“That was the direction I was given as chair of the Public Safety Committee, was that we need to provide more balance in terms of how we look at criminal justice policy,” he said, referring to the Democratic caucus. “Just focusing specifically on restorative justice and prevention, and not focusing on accountability (for offenders), that’s not where the voters are now.”
Criminal justice reforms still advancing
So far, the shift hasn’t been enough to worry Tinisch Hollins, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, a group that advocates for reduced imprisonment and pushed for the 2014 sentencing changes that voters approved.
She pointed to bills her organization has sponsored that are also advancing through the Legislature, including legislation to expand the state’s efforts to clear criminal records to give past offenders second chances, and to require that the California Department of Corrections apply more good behavior credits to reduce prisoners’ time served. With the state tight on cash, she said she doesn’t believe lawmakers will be eager to significantly increase imprisonment and sees a “consensus that we shouldn’t go back that way.”
“Even Prop. 36 wasn’t a referendum on reform,” Hollins said. “There’s still plenty of support for different approaches to public safety that really address the root cause and prevent crime from happening in the first place.”
Any stricter measures the Legislature approves this year will ultimately be narrow, with Republicans pointing to extreme examples to push their case.
The bottom line is NO they are not changing their ways.
As Clinton, Obama, Biden, and Slick et-al have proven, they only move to deceive.
Democrats are now Radicals and have little regard for the founding of the nation and the Constitution.
Welcome to the Red Guard.
“Democrats are now Radicals and have little regard for the founding of the nation and the Constitution.”
Really you said this? I don’t have time to list all the crap that the orange asswhole has done to the Constitution but what does come to mind is how he is attacking judges that don’t agree with him, hiring a nazi idiot to run DOGE, trying to run for a third term, kissing Putin’s butt and not to mention J6… When will you MAGAts learn that this clown you voted into office will ruin our one prosperous country (and probably the world too) and lies straight to your face and says everything is good. There is a sucker born every minute and they grow up to wear a red hat.
You get what you vote for idiots.