George Soros says it's not his fault violent crime is on the rise

[dilbert firestorm]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...-violent-crime

George Soros says it's not his fault violent crime is on the rise
by Andrew Kerr, Investigative Reporter |
| August 01, 2022 05:29 PM

Liberal billionaire George Soros rejected accusations that his decadelong effort to install liberal prosecutors has led to crime waves in some of America's largest cities.

Soros acknowledged in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Sunday that crime was on the rise around the country, but he said it couldn't be attributed to the policies championed by liberal prosecutors that he has invested over $40 million throughout the past decade to help elect.

"Some politicians and pundits have tried to blame recent spikes in crime on the policies of reform-minded prosecutors," Soros wrote. "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."

Soros did not specify the study or research he was referring to. Soros-backed prosecutors have advocated criminal justice reforms such as ending cash bail and declining prosecution of low-level offenses.

The liberal financier said violent crime has risen more in jurisdictions without "reform-minded prosecutors" and has been rising the 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," Soros wrote. "Many of the same people who call for more-punitive criminal-justice policies also support looser gun laws."

Soros added that he has no intention of slowing down his financial support of liberal prosecutors.

"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," Soros wrote. "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," he added. "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."

"The funds I provide enable sensible reform-minded candidates to receive a hearing from the public," Soros concluded. "Judging by the results, the public likes what it’s hearing."

Contrary to Soros's claims, many prosecutors that he helped elect have overseen massive crime waves under their watch and have lost the support of their constituents.

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, who received $4.7 million from a Soros-funded political action committee, saw a 46% increase in homicides in his city during his first year in office, the Washington Examiner reported.

Gascon faces a recall over his policies of downgrading felonies and choosing not to enforce most gun and drug crimes.

Murders in Philadelphia reached unprecedented levels in 2021 under District Attorney Larry Krasner, the recipient of $1.6 million of Soros's money in 2017.

And San Francisco voted overwhelmingly in June to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who received financial support from a Soros-funded PAC, in a stark rejection of his policies of doing away with cash bail and declining prosecution of "quality of life" crimes such as public urination and camping on the streets.

[dilbert firestorm]

in the next article. soros claims his progressive DAs and AGs had nothing to do with the crime wave are debunked..

[dilbert firestorm]

https://www.city-journal.org/what-ge...iminal-justice

What George Soros Gets Wrong

“Progressive” approaches to law enforcement carry a steep price for the victims of violent crime.

Rafael A. Mangual | August 1, 2022 | Public safety | Politics and law

George Soros took to the Wall Street Journal yesterday to defend his financial support for “reform prosecutors.” He began by asserting that “Americans desperately need a more thoughtful discussion about our response to crime.” I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I wrote a book (out last week) on our ongoing national debate about crime and justice.

Sadly, Soros’s piece failed to deliver that thoughtful discussion. Instead, the philanthropist offered a shallow, essentially data-free collection of platitudes—“If people trust the justice system, it will work”—and incomplete observations.

Soros highlights the statistic that “black people in the U.S. are five times as likely to be sent to jail as white people.” This is, he says without explanation, “an injustice that undermines our democracy.” Such a contention is meant to persuade the reader that these incarcerations are mostly (if not overwhelmingly) illegitimate—the product of racial animus more than anything else. What else could it be? Well, how about disparate rates of criminal offending? A Bureau of Justice Statistics study of homicides between 1980 and 2008 found that blacks commit homicide offenses at a rate “almost eight times higher than the rate for whites.”

Presenting a disparity without any mention of what its causes might be is not a responsible way of arguing that “injustice” is afoot. That’s a serious charge, and, as we’ve seen over the last few years, many who believe it will push (often successfully) for serious policy changes couched in breezy phrases like “reimagining public safety.”

When relevant factors are taken into account, the disparities that Soros point to as obvious evidence of injustice shrink substantially, undercutting his claim. As a 2014 report on incarceration from the National Academies of Sciences shows: “Racial bias and discrimination are not the primary causes of disparities in sentencing decisions or rates of imprisonment. . . . Overall, when statistical controls are used to take account of offense characteristics, prior criminal records, and personal characteristics, black defendants are on average sentenced somewhat but not substantially more severely than whites.”

I wish Soros were as interested in even starker, more persistent disparities: namely, those regarding violent victimization. We often speak of crime in national, state, or citywide terms. While crime does affect society writ large, some communities feel its sting more than others. In 2020—a year in which homicides rose nearly 30 percent across the U.S.—the share of white homicide victims actually declined by 2.4 percentage points relative to 2019, while the share of black and Hispanic victims increased by 2.2 percentage points. The black homicide victimization rate was almost ten times the white rate that year. In my home city of New York, at least 95 percent of shooting victims every year, going back at least to 2008, are either black or Hispanic. Blacks and Hispanics don’t constitute anywhere near 95 percent of the city’s residents. A University of Chicago Crime Lab analysis found that, in that city, just under 80 percent of homicide victims were black. It also found that almost 20 percent of gun-violence suspects in 2015 and 2016 had at least 20 prior arrests.

Soros and his beneficiaries have built a movement around the proposition that criminal offenders in cities like New York and Chicago are treated too harshly and are systematically denied “second chances.” In addition to the data on the degree to which serious violence is committed by repeat offenders, this claim is also undercut by the fact that that those released from state prisons and tracked by the Bureau of Justice Statistics had, on average, around ten prior arrests and five prior convictions before their most recent stints.

Soros offers nothing in the way of support for the victims of violent crimes committed by those who have received many “second chances.” Perhaps that’s because, in his mind, there is “no connection between the election of reform-minded prosecutors and local crime rates.” In support of that claim, he cites a single analysis, whose authors are, as they say in the very paper he references, unable to “rule out large increases or decreases in any particular type of crime.”

Rather than engage the substance of his critics’ arguments, Soros implies that they’re hypocrites by highlighting the overlap between them and opponents of progressive gun control measures—ignoring, of course, the substantial overlap between supporters of such measures and those who want to divert gun offenders and would-be shooters away from incarceration. It does not seem to have dawned on Soros that sending shooters with lengthy criminal histories back onto the street actually worsens gun violence.

Here’s hoping that voters will begin to see the truth to which George Soros and his supporters seem blind—that, while our system is imperfect, true justice requires that dangerous offenders be stopped from harming innocent people.

Rafael A. Mangual is a contributing editor of City Journal and the Nick Ohnell fellow and head of research for the Manhattan Institute’s Policing and Public Safety Initiative. He is also the author of Criminal (In)Justice: What the Push for Decarceration and Depolicing Gets Wrong and Who It Hurts Most.

[Yssup Rider]

You still wringing your hands and gnashing your teeth about Soros?

Must be getting REAL close to sending Trump to the hoosegow, because you're now lashing out at anybody who ISN'T him.

Just take a deep breath. It'll be over soon.

HAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA H!

[winn dixie]

soros backed folks are a huge problem. Along with bail reform

[Grace Preston]

Bail reform wouldn't be a thing if not for that pesky Bill of Rights. Can't fight for the 2A if you aren't willing to fight for the 8A.

[lustylad]

The 8th Amendment prohibits EXCESSIVE bail. The libtards are trying to eliminate ALL bail. Anyone can see that's insanity - and completely contrary to the intent of 8A.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by lustylad

The 8th Amendment prohibits EXCESSIVE bail. The libtards are trying to eliminate ALL bail. Anyone can see that's insanity - and completely contrary to the intent of 8A.

I'd do away with bail as its very arbitrary.

[Grace Preston]

Originally Posted by lustylad

The 8th Amendment prohibits EXCESSIVE bail. The libtards are trying to eliminate ALL bail. Anyone can see that's insanity - and completely contrary to the intent of 8A.

Ok--



Now tell us-- what is excessive bail? Is 1 million excessive if you've got 10 million in the bank? Is it excessive if you have $5 in the bank?



How do we determine what is excessive? That is the issue.



What is the intent of 8A? I mean-- a lot of folks argue that the intent of the 2A was to be able to have citizen militias due to the "well regulated militia" phrase....

[lustylad]

Originally Posted by Grace Preston

Ok--

Now tell us-- what is excessive bail? Is 1 million excessive if you've got 10 million in the bank? Is it excessive if you have $5 in the bank?

How do we determine what is excessive? That is the issue.

Obviously, it depends on the crime and the criminal. At bail hearings, judges are supposed to consider all such factors. They should NOT be required to release ALL "non-violent" felons for free, regardless of individual circumstances or prior convictions. That's insane. It openly threatens the public's safety and our ability to dispense justice to crime victims.

Bail also incentivizes the perp to show up at trial. It makes it costly for scofflaws and career criminals, petty or otherwise, to no-show and keep breaking the law. "No bail" essentially tells the perp we have a revolving-door justice system that imposes zero costs on repeat offenders.

Originally Posted by Grace Preston

What is the intent of 8A? I mean-- a lot of folks argue that the intent of the 2A was to be able to have citizen militias due to the "well regulated militia" phrase....

All 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights were adopted by Congress in Dec. 1791 after being ratified by 3/4 of the states. There was plenty of prior deliberation that shed light on each amendment's intent at that time. Sorry I don't have time to look up more for you right now.

[Grace Preston]

So in other words.. you're going to claim intent of the forefathers in regards to the 8th, but then when questioned, not back up your statement. Got it.

[lustylad]

Originally Posted by Grace Preston

So in other words.. you're going to claim intent of the forefathers in regards to the 8th, but then when questioned, not back up your statement. Got it.

Ok, I did a little homework for you.

When most of us think of the 8th Amendment, we think of its ban against "cruel and unusual punishment". That ambiguous phrase was the focus of most of the prior debate regarding the Amendment back in 1789-91. The prohibition against "excessive bail" was not as heatedly deliberated.

Below is a pretty good discussion of the meaning of the "excessive bail" clause. It had antecedents in British law stretching all the way back to the Magna Carta. The language of the 8th Amendment was part of Virginia's state constitution and was introduced verbatim to the US Congress by James Madison for inclusion in our Federal Bill of Rights.

You said "bail reform would not be a thing were it not for... the 8A". But the 8A only prohibits "excessive" bail. It deters judges from either 1) unfairly denying bail altogether or 2) deliberately setting it so high it effectively keeps the accused in jail. You are turning everything upside down if you are trying to suggest it means judges are prohibited from setting ANY bail for ALL defendants accused of certain broad, sweeping categories of crimes.

If the State of NY is foolish and irresponsible enough to pass this kind of "bail reform", I can't stop them. But it's heresy to say they are merely following the language, intent, or historical precedent of the 8th Amendment.

Just as there is no absolute right to bail, there is likewise no absolute right to "everyone gets out of jail free".

In my view, New York's current revolving-door "justice" system is a cruel joke that is inflicting cruel & unusual punishment on all of its law-abiding residents.

https://constitution.congress.gov/br...ALDE_00000960/

[LayingPipe]

When someone dies we ask a coroner for the answer
When there's a fire we ask a fire investigator for the answer
When crime goes up we ask police officers for the answer
The police in Dem cities have spoken out against no bail



It's victims who are being denied justice when some one gets an appearance ticket then just leaves the county The judge issues a bench warrant for failure to appear and the DA attaches will not extradite to the warrant. Career criminals just roam the country leaving behind a wake of victims

[Yssup Rider]

Originally Posted by LayingPipe

When someone dies we ask a coroner for the answer
When there's a fire we ask a fire investigator for the answer
When crime goes up we ask police officers for the answer
The police in Dem cities have spoken out against no bail



It's victims who are being denied justice when some one gets an appearance ticket then just leaves the county The judge issues a bench warrant for failure to appear and the DA attaches will not extradite to the warrant. Career criminals just roam the country leaving behind a wake of victims

You got something to substantiate those claims?

And which municipal governments are you aware of that based on party affiliation? I'm not talking about the party affiliation of the mayor, but actual partisan election process. (I think there are only a couple of those - the yuge majority of American cities elect their governments in nonpartisan elections.)

Typical RWW talking point. Apparently if you pound it and pound it, eventually people will believe it.

[Grace Preston]

Here's one for you..


Despite having almost an entire council that is leftist here in Cincinnati-- our DA is a Republican.. and not just any variety-- he's also a Trump supporter. We also just had a major issue with someone who was let out on bail and then killed a random person-- the judge that let him out? Republican.



It seems to me that Republicans on the bench in "leftist cities" know that even if they let these criminals out-- the masses will blame the "liberal agenda".



And now we've circled back-- who decides whether or not bail is fair or excessive? What criteria should be in place? In my opinion-- if you are on trial for murder, bail shouldn't be an option-- but the flip side of that coin is that more than one man has been exonerated-- and then what? Their life is still ruined. They still spent close to 2 years in jail in most cases-- lost their jobs-- had their name all over the media..



Bail reform has become a thing because in this country- -the wealthy seem to have a different justice system than the poor. We need to look at the possibility of codifying bail across the board-- otherwise, this issue isn't going to die.