Why I Support Reform Prosecutors - WSJ
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Americans desperately need a more thoughtful discussion about our response to crime. People have had enough of the demagoguery and divisive partisan attacks that dominate the debate and obscure the issues.
Like most of us, I'm concerned about crime. One of government's most important roles is to ensure public safety. I have been involved in efforts to reform the criminal-justice system for the more than 30 years I have been a philanthropist.
Yet our system is rife with injustices that make us all less safe. The idea that we need to choose between justice and safety is false. They reinforce each other: If people trust the justice system, it will work. And if the system works, public safety will improve.
We need to acknowledge that black people in the U.S. are five times as likely to be sent to jail as white people. That is an injustice that undermines our democracy.
We spend $81 billion every year keeping around two million people in prisons and jails. We need to invest more in preventing crime with strategies that work—deploying mental-health professionals in crisis situations, investing in youth job programs, and creating opportunities for education behind bars. This reduces the likelihood that those prisoners will commit new crimes after release.
In recent years, reform-minded prosecutors and other law-enforcement officials around the country have been coalescing around an agenda that promises to be more effective and just. This agenda includes prioritizing the resources of the criminal-justice system to protect people against violent crime. It urges that we treat drug addiction as a disease, not a crime. And it seeks to end the criminalization of poverty and mental illness.
This agenda, aiming at both safety and justice, is based on both common sense and evidence. It’s popular. It’s effective. The goal is not defunding the police but restoring trust between the police and the policed, a partnership that fosters the solving of crimes.
Some politicians and pundits have tried to blame recent spikes in crime on the policies of reform-minded prosecutors. The research I’ve seen says otherwise. The most rigorous academic study, analyzing data across 35 jurisdictions, shows no connection between the election of reform-minded prosecutors and local crime rates. In fact, violent crime in recent years has generally been increasing more quickly in jurisdictions without reform-minded prosecutors. Murder rates have been rising fastest in some Republican states led by tough-on-crime politicians.
Serious scholars researching causes behind the recent increase in crime have pointed to other factors: a disturbing rise in mental illness among young people due to the isolation imposed by Covid lockdowns, a pullback in policing in the wake of public criminal-justice reform protests, and increases in gun trafficking. Many of the same people who call for more-punitive criminal-justice policies also support looser gun laws.
This is why I have supported the election (and more recently the re-election) of prosecutors who support reform. I have done it transparently, and I have no intention of stopping. The funds I provide enable sensible reform-minded candidates to receive a hearing from the public. Judging by the results, the public likes what it’s hearing.
Mr. Soros is founder of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations.
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I submit this article for various reasons.
The first is to demonstrate that the WSJ allows opinions, even if the vast majority disagree with them.
Second to prove, despite what our lefty members say, that this individual has had a lot to do with the rise of these woke prosecutors. You know, the prosecutors that we don't know about until they are in office.
Most important of all, if you simply follow his "logic" (more like lunacy), you can easily see what a truly evil ideology this is:
Example:
"We need to acknowledge that black people in the U.S. are five times as likely to be sent to jail as white people."
Does anyone know what is left out of that statement?
Hint: If one group is 5 times more likely to be sent to jail, then how many times more likely is that group to commit crime? It is only an injustice if black people are not five times more likely to commit a serious crime.
Soros never had such sympathy for European Jews.
He has created untold mischief in this country and nobody can put a stop to it.
Prove it.
Recent history of Soros' support of "reform" minded prosecutors are all the proof you need. And you can do your own research to prove otherwise.
You're challenging whether the majority of WSJ readers are going to disagree with a movement they see as soft on crime? Really?
Prove it.
yea right,
The left has historically been soft on soft on crime and criminals....coming up with one lame excuse after another for them. Prove me wrong
Your opinion is a sweeping generalization, by definition, always wrong Greg.
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You seem unable to prove me wrong.
One need not take the propaganda of Fox News and the demise of America seriously.
The notion of entire cities becoming unlivable due to rampant crime is just
partisan "imagined drama" regardless of who does it.
True, but why did most leftists take the left wing propaganda of the Russian hoax hook, line and sinker, and carried on seriously about it for three years?
I believe you were one of them.
Then flag it.
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Removed for context
Because they hate(d) Trump as do many East coast Republicans who ever did
business with Trump and were burned or sued into insolvency.
Were you sued or burned into solvency, or did you have a different reason to fall for the Russian hoax?
Which hoax?
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Removed for Context
You first.
Facts, not opinions please.
Ironic coming from you.
Fact: Russia did in fact work hard to get Trump elected in 2016 by illegally hacking US email servers and publicly releasing only the emails that would make the political party Putin wanted to lose look bad. They spent up to $1.25 million a month of social media ads that pretended to be domestic coming from supposedly 'concerned' Americans. They offered dirt on Hillary to the Trump campaign.
When Putin was asked "did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?” Putin's reply was “Yes, I did. Yes, I did.".
Fact: Multiple Trump campaign staff and the campaign manager had ties to Russian operatives and the Republican led senate investigation showed they were "eager" for whatever aid the Russian operatives could give them to help Trump win and the Trump campaign manager “represented a grave counterintelligence threat,” and did in fact give sensitive election data to Russia through a Russian agent.
So it's no wonder that Democrats believed there was some form of cooperation or "collusion". The only thing that wasn't ever proven by the investigations was a specific 'quid pro quo' detailing what Russia would get in return for their surreptitious aid. Does that make the Russia investigation a "hoax"? Of course not, to believe that you'd have to be either bat shit crazy or intentionally obtuse because to accept the facts would be counter to the bullshit narrative of 'Trump is innocent and the victim of a deep state conspiracy' that so many right wing conservatives have invested in.
So far not a single one of the conservatives here have proven that "the vast majority disagree with" Soros's sentiment in this seed. The facts would indicate otherwise since many millions more Americans voted for Biden than they did for Trump in 2020.
So far not a single one of the conservatives here have proven that Soros "has created untold mischief in this country". I guess some conservatives are so fucking brain washed and gullible they simply believe all the Qanon horse shit conspiracy theories about Soros without a lick of actual evidence.
Anyone with more than half a brain knows the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. This conservatives comment is like saying "Rural conservatives like to fuck farm animals. Prove me wrong". And of course the follow up when no conservatives come forward with definitive proof that no rural conservatives like to fuck their farm animals would be "You seem unable to prove me wrong".
The WSJ does not deserve a bravo for what they all do.
You have fallen for the typical conservative problem with math, again.
Maybe because the crime rate of blacks is far higher than whites, so the "logical solution" is their communities are policed more.
"When black people are arrested for a crime, they are convicted more often than white people arrested for the same crime."
Could be bias, but also could be if there was a plea deal or the defendant decided to take it to court...and lost.
"When black people are convicted of a crime, they are more likely to be sentenced to incarceration compared to whites convicted of the same crime.:
Depends on the past history of the criminal. If a black has an extensive history of armed robbery over the years, but the white was arrested for the first time, then the "logical conclusion" is the black will get a harsher sentence.
This is not rocket science......and it should not be a thrown race card.
More lame ass excuses. Perhaps they need strong father figures in the home.
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Vic has made the whole seed about race, get over it.
And you are using the seed to make excuses.
Vic seeded the article to show how incomplete the WSJ editorial was.
The purpose of this site is supposed to be debate and civil discussion,
not accusations or character assassinations.
Are you calling Vic a liar? He clearly thinks highly of the WSJ publishing an editorial
clearly in conflict with their usual "standard" conservatism.
Vic then slides easily into his opinions and expressed disdain for Soros.
Huge surprise. /s
Really?
Then why did you post this in 1.2.3?...
"Your opinion is a sweeping generalization, by definition, always wrong Greg.
Removed for Context
Debate? Strike one
Civil? Strike two
Accusations? Strike three
Character assassinations? Strike one for the next inning
{deleted}
Nothing else.
I confess, it is Shark Week.
Sorry you were so easily offended.
if only...
It is equally if not more likely that the black person is experiencing systemic racism as a result of being black since that is what black people say. Or don't you believe them?
But you are right about one thing: It isn't rocket science.
Nope...sure don't. No such thing as systemic racism. All made up by the left, much like global warming.
It's impossible to tell whether those who reject and disbelieve the facts shown about racial injustice in the justice system are just jaded conservatives who don't believe in facts because they are contrary to the conservatives 'gut' or if they are true white supremacist racists who wholeheartedly support the racial disparity. But either way it's clear that the racists just LOVE the cover provided them by right wing conservatives making excuses and challenging the facts and reality of the continued systemic racism in America.
It's why most of the white supremacists flocked to the Republican party and stand side by side their fellow right wing religious conservatives and vote for candidates that also reject the facts that expose systemic racism while they continue to push for voting laws that intentionally disenfranchise black voters as exampled by Republicans who were caught red handed drafting voting laws that "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision," according to the courts.
This statement doesn't make sense. If people didn't know about them, how do they achieve their office?
I will just let our readers ponder that statement and come to the conclusions that they will.
Funding and a voter pool who likes criminals in their midst. The same people who won't help police solve murders vote for prosecutors who won't imprison criminals.
They are the same voters who claim to want strict and new gun laws and who elect prosecutors who won't charge criminals for breaking gun laws.
So they just occurred on the ballot? No campaign, no meeting the voters, no debating? Or is it worse than that: They just show up to work? That would seem to be how one could not "know about until they are in office. "
Or do you contend that these voters that like" criminals in their midst" are numerous enough to elect a pliant stooge for a prosecutor?
I will go by my old initials for that one: B.S.
Of course not. They are well funded candidates in progressive jurisdictions. I literally said "the same people who won't help police solve murders vote for prosecutors who won't imprison criminals."
t these voters that like" criminals in their midst" are numerous enough to elect a pliant stooge for a prosecutor
There are certainly enough to vote for the most well funded candidate who gets party support. Again, we are talking about districts where a glass of water with a D after their name gets elected. Take Kim Foxx, cited below. She was elected with 53% of the vote in a jurisdiction where the Democrat usually gets 75%.
No? Why do you think they wind up facing recall attempts?
Your statement: You know, the prosecutors that we don't know about until they are in office.
They campaign on what they are going to (try) to do when they are in office. It is not like they sneak in under cover of darkness to surprise you in the morning.
Why are they facing recall attempts? Because some people like to think they have the answers to all of the worlds problems in their back pocket. These politicians and pundits pontificate about the perilous state of the city/county/state/nation/world and predict dire and compelling circumstances if we do not do as they say.... Some people believe them. I happen to think that it is not as simple as all that and that the rise in crime is a reflection of the state of the world and feelings of helplessness, kind of a grand,"Fuck it! I am not getting anything anyways. I might just as well take matters into my own hands." Since different people have different ways of dealing with stressors, results may vary.
Over the past two and one half years the human population of the world has been attempting to deal with a disease that is beyond the experience of most everyone. As a result of various attempts to control the spread of same, some sections of the population began to be more fractious and vocal on several sides of several issues. Taken in conjunction with the poisonous political atmosphere of the country, we get the picture of people bickering amongst themselves. If we remove ourselves from the picture by a couple of degrees, we can see that it is primarily the "Have's" arguing amongst each other and the "Have-Not's" being left out of the picture because they have-not. What is more, the Have-Not's are discriminated against because they are have-not's, that is, the system is designed to keep them down. "The Man" is alive and well and we are it.
Americans have to be the most impatient people. They (we) demand immediate gratification for little to no expended cost in energy or monetary terms. Then, when results do not meet expectations, we shit can the one grifter for another promising to return us to our "Greatness", not realizing that most of our "Greatness" comes from being oceans away from the rest of the world.
What a sad philosophy!
Let me correct just one thing in that long explanation of how we find ourselves in the undreamt of position of having social justice warriors as DA's:
"Because some people like to think they have the answers to all of the worlds problems in their back pocket."
Because even a ten year old knows that you don't put dangerous thugs right back out in the street!
Not really sad. Realistic. By Not holding our elected officials to some absurdly fast time table and not demanding that they "do something" immediately about real and perceived problems, I am able to sleep quite well. When they do achieve their goals, I am pleasantly surprised, unless, of course, the issue was created from pixie dust and unicorn farts, then I am bothered that someone can spew innacurate information and still watch the bobble headed lemmings nod and grin.
As in the misspelling of inaccurate.
That's why I call people out.
I am so sorry for you. Phat Phingers and Fones...meh. At least I am over it.
Did you know what I meant? Obviously. Would that be a case in point? Probably.
Everyone got it. I didn't bother to flag it.
There is nothing to flag.
Here we go, another round of Soros as boogeyman extraordinaire. Keep the cult alive Vic!
Lots of blood on his hands.
Sounds like useful idiots consider him to be harmless
He's as harmless as conservative mega-donors are.
Crime friendly prosecutors in action:
Reese was arrested Thursday. He a llegedly ran from a crashed car in the Loop on Thursday evening, leaving behind a bag containing $8,000 in marijuana and a loaded handgun with an auto-fire switch and an extended magazine attached. T hey charged Reese with possession of cannabis and possessing a controlled substance for the pot and promethazine that was allegedly inside the blue bag
Glock switches, not talked about very much but becoming more prevalent among criminals.