Policy Must Change for Things to Improve

Everyone wants things to be better than past years. Courageous leadership driving policy change is the only way to address problems.

Jan 06, 2024

green, red, and white fireworks on sky at nighttime — Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash

As the new year dawns, we discuss the troubles of the previous year and hope that things will either improve or even not worsen. I think it is a natural expectation, especially among the youth and youthful that whether it is health, education, violence, crime and politics, that a new year is a fresh start and hopefully we all learn our lessons from the past.

It's not cynical to say that things won’t get better, and likely will get worse, without changing the circumstances that created the problems in the first place.

I’ve stated that I’m looking forward to 2024 as I see a lot of great things coming together, but I make no claim that we will be facing less trouble in the next 12 months. The opposite is true as I’ve observed little policy movement on critical issues that will affect every person in this nation, especially the law enforcement community.

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Abandon failed social experiments

This last decade has defined the relationship between policy and the twin concerns of crime and disorder. About six years ago, when national attention focused on the growing homelessness crisis in Seattle, Portland (OR), and Los Angeles, the national homeless rate had decreased by more than ten percent in the last twenty years. In the time that has passed, significant cities including San Francisco and Denver have become symbols of terrible homeless policies becoming public safety crises. A couple of years ago there was a striking picture of where skid row ended, at a city boundary; an invisible line: a force field keeping out the homeless.

In 2007, the United States population was 302,743,399, there were 647,258 homeless people.
In 2022, the United States population was 333,287,557, there were 582,462 homeless people.
While the national population increased by 10%, and the homeless population nationally decreased by 10%. The percentage of the population homeless in 2007 was 0.21% and in 2022 was 0.17%.

Perception, due to foolish policies that encouraged and incentivized homelessness, made it appear homelessness doubled. Is homelessness worse in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, OR? It is so much worse in those cities, due to leftist civic policies, that they are cities in decline.

Our trend of decreasing homelessness will be negatively influenced by our failed border policies where illegal aliens are flooding the country, 300,000 not counting got aways, without any fear of deportation. This will impact every law enforcement agency and every single peace officer in our land.

man in blue jacket holding red and white plastic cup — Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Protests must be peaceful

I love the First Amendment and the rights it honors. Our constitution doesn’t give us rights but tells the government to respect our inherent rights.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The First Amendment recognizes the right to protest (peaceably to assemble) and to petition the government to address matters within the scope of the United States Government’s or a local jurisdiction’s power and jurisdiction. United States policy is broad and far reaching. Protesting the presence of U.S. troops at the 38^thParallel in Korea, letting your government know by protest and petition that you oppose something that the government is in control of, are legitimate. For example, Gracie Mansion is not the establishment of political authority in Middle Eastern affairs.

Today, we are plagued by riots, pillaging and looting rampages disguised as legitimate First Amendment protected protest. Affinity groups who blatantly self-segregate, protest an imagined or real injustice in a foreign land. These demonstrators including citizens, permitted guests of our nation, and illegal aliens, imagine themselves immune from consequences as they block bridges for commuters and airports for travelers while knowingly impeding emergency medical and fire services.

Today, huge protests are organized for the sole purpose of creating massive disruption and as a show of strength. They are not practicing “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Groups that show up either as spoilers or looters need to see transit buses and boxes of flex cuffs at the beginning of their demonstration. Protesters, especially illegal aliens, that intend to harass, annoy and inconvenience American citizens must know that there is an immediate, severe and lasting consequences to their actions.

Police leaders who allow these protests to practice violence on their officers without allowing an appropriate response are the ones truly undermining police legitimacy.

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No-cash-bail must end

No-cash-bail policies are demoralizing for crime victims, corrections officers, and cops. The Eighth Amendment in our Bill of Rights promises:

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

In conversations regarding bail, leftists frame bail as a penalty where the poor are disenfranchised, as their crimes may require their jail stay to continue to trial while the wealthy who commit the same crime have the resources to post bond until trial. In reality, other nations don’t have an Eighth Amendment and, in some cases, hold their citizens for years without even declaring their criminal charges. The 2010 earthquake in Haiti damaged the prison, allowing for a mass escape, where most of the prisoners had been there four years or more without being told what they were accused of.

Chicago DA Kim Foxx tried to resolve Jussie Smollet’s case by treating his bail forfeiture as though it was a civil fine and diversion. Unfortunately for Smollet, that only came close to taking place. There are voices that support no-cash-bail policies that swear that public safety has improved via their implementation. Hard evidence says no. Charles Fein Lehman writes in City Journal:

“But newly available data confirm what critics have long argued: bail reform was followed by a significant increase in criminal reoffending. In other words, offenders arraigned in 2020 were significantly more likely to get rearrested than those arraigned in 2019, even given that more time has elapsed since the 2019 arraignments. It is quite probable, given the much shorter time since most 2021 arraignments, that the “ever” figures will rise to the 2020 level in time.”

The Brennan Center, a proud fan of bail reform: “Now, amid a new legislative session, the law has come under renewed scrutiny as critics seek to blame it for recent increases in violent crime, which rose nationwide in 2020 and 2021 as the pandemic gripped the nation and ravaged the economy.”

The crime problems created by the no cash bail policy will worsen until policy change takes place.

white table with black chairs — Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

Action on youth crime, education and truancy.

On December 30, 2023, mobs of violent organized youth, in the thousands, invaded the Torrance, California Del Amo Fashion Center mall and overwhelmed the local police to control and disperse the unruly crowd requiring the response of more than half a dozen large neighboring agencies. It was a situation that went on for hours causing the mall to shut down about five hours early. Across the country, episodes like this are becoming more frequent.

In the City Journal article Deviancy Far and Wide, Wai Wah Chin writes:

“In our schools, it’s “see no poor performance.” In education, deviancy is the failure to learn, and it has been defined down by lowering academic standards and ignoring poor student and teacher performance. Public schools once had teachers, many of whom were trained in “Normal Schools,” named after the French écoles normales, to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as norms like discipline, punctuality, and respect for the written word. Now, equity-driven schools smear such values as white supremacist.”

As mentioned in my previous article, since the pandemic, truancy has doubled. Nationally 25% of school age youth 16 and under are ‘chronically absent’ and in one major city, it is pegged at 50%. Reading scores are terrible. At the fourth-grade level 58% of white students, 79% of Hispanic or Latino students, and 83% of black students are not proficient in reading.

While there are some studies that don’t find a correlation between IQ and education, the majority recognize the relationship. What we are seeing, both in online content and in conversations with youth, is a polarizing difference in the value of both knowledge and education. Some love learning passionately. An 11 year old defended teaching cursive writing stating ‘How are you going to read historical documents without it?’ while in another encounter with a young adult, being asked a basic question responds ‘I don’t know, I’m not smart.’ The military reject candidates lacking a minimum 83 IQ. Cheating youth of education when they are at the ideal age to acquire reading skills, pick up math and learning about culture and the arts, sets them up for failure.

Without changing policy, in this case, empowering law enforcement to actively work truancy including holding parents and guardians accountable, we will deprive the rising generation of the structure, skills, and socialization to thrive in society.

We can’t expect things to get better until we are ready to abandon failed policy and receptive to reestablish proven productive policy.

Please keep all law enforcement in your prayers.