Criminal Justice Reform | California Policy Center

Los Angeles Should Follow San Francisco’s Path to Recovery — Says Man Who Helped Set Back Both

A former aide who served and defended two disastrous DAs now offers advice on urban governance. Alex Bastian has lived and worked in California’s two most important cities, and he has advice for Los Angeles: Be more like San Francisco. San Francisco “is my hometown,” he wrote recently in The Hill, while Los Angeles “has been my...

By Will Swaim

Newsom’s Empty Comparison: The Real Difference Between California and Texas Shoplifting Laws

Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to gaslight voters about Proposition 36, the ballot measure that would strengthen California’s shoplifting laws. In his tone-deaf defense of the state’s lenient laws, the governor has repeatedly argued that California is tougher on shoplifting than Texas. In reality, the difference between the two states tells another story. Prop 36 seeks...

By Thunder Parley

Newsom’s Unease with Numbers

Though he’s still banging the drum for Joe Biden, California governor Gavin Newsom is fading from White House consideration in 2024. But 2028 is still in sight. And because four years is an eternity — in politics, for dogs’ lives, and to your average five-year-old kid — it’s good to mark now the governor’s problems...

By Will Swaim

Democracy wins when Gavin Newsom loses

Gov. Gavin Newsom has abandoned his plan to put a competing crime measure on California’s November ballot that he launched — and withdrew— this week in an attempt to neuter a district attorney-backed initiative to reform Prop 47. Proposition 47, passed by voters in 2014, weakened penalties for drug and theft crimes and notoriously reduced the...

By California Policy Center

Oakland NAACP Calls on Politicians to Crack Down on Criminals

The following is an open letter published by Oakland’s NAACP and other Community leaders on July 27, 2023. End Oakland’s Public Safety Crisis by Cynthia Adams, President of the Oakland Branch of the NAACP Bishop Bob Jackson, Senior Pastor, Acts Full Gospel Church Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis...

By California Policy Center

How a San Francisco union brought shame to the city’s police department

Emilie Daedler | California Policy Center If you hope to reform policing in America, you have to reform the unions that invariably protect bad cops. That’s how Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, though trailing at least 17 excessive-force complaints, ended up on duty on May 25, the day George Floyd died. And that’s how San...

By Editorial Staff

‘Progressive’ LA District Attorney protects the union that protects bad cops

By Dennis Hull | California Policy Center By the time we saw him kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin already had at least 17 excessive-force complaints against him, just one of which ended in disciplinary action. Neither the city’s progressive city council nor its black police chief could alter that tragedy...

By Editorial Staff

POLICING IN CRISIS: IT’S ALL ABOUT UNIONS

A conservative response to police-reform protests Intense public protests and riots following George Floyd’s deadly encounter with a Minneapolis police officer in May have caught many conservatives off guard. Because of their overall support for police officers and their respect for public order, conservatives seem generally troubled by the public reaction. They have – at...

By California Policy Center

Correcting evil with insanity

The tragic death of George Floyd has sent the country into yet another misguided frenzy. Following the death of George Floyd at the hands – or more accurately the foot – of a bad cop, much of the U.S. has descended into bonkersville. What talk-show host Michael Medved has labeled the “do something disease” –...

By Larry Sand

Penalty Assessment Fees Report

Investigating the relationship between stressed public finances and rising misdemeanor fines and penalties By Reiss Becker, David Vasquez, Zane Zovak BACKGROUND California Policy Center analysts have documented the state’s collapsing public finances over the past few decades – not just the rising level of public debt, but the subsequent effects of crumbling infrastructure, slashed government...

By California Policy Center

Sorry, but police unions are just as troubling as other public-sector unions

Sacramento During a speech to a conservative group about the state’s pension crisis several years ago, one member of the audience was upset that I focused so much attention on police and firefighter unions. He thought I should basically give those groups a pass, to which I replied that perhaps we should skip talking about...

By Steven Greenhut

Steps to Improve Police Training and Accountability

“We’re not anti-cop. We’re anti bad cop. Bad cops have to be fired, just like bad politicians” – Leader of Black Lives Matter counter-protest, who was spontaneously invited to speak at a pro-Trump rally (watch video). There aren’t too many things that are easier to agree on than this sentiment. Even those of us who...

By Edward Ring

Police misconduct undermines justice and costs taxpayers plenty

Sacramento — News reports last week suggest the city of Oakland may be ready to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the teenage woman at the heart of a sex-abuse scandal that rocked Oakland’s and other nearby police departments since 2015. All things considered, the city is fortunate. The reported settlement is just under $1...

By Steven Greenhut

If Police Unions Were Abolished and Police Associations Were Restored

Earlier this month the New York Times ran an editorial entitled “When Police Unions Impede Justice.” They make the point that collective bargaining agreements for police employees often make it very difficult to hold police officers accountable for misconduct. When you have nearly 1.0 million sworn police officers in the United States, you’re bound to...

By Edward Ring