The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

What ‘Social Justice’ Really Means

Posted on | January 5, 2022 | Comments Off on What ‘Social Justice’ Really Means

New Yorkers are about to get what they voted for, and they deserve it:

Manhattan’s new liberal district attorney sent guidance to his staff this week saying he does not intend to prosecute several offenses, suggesting that “decriminalization” will help “make us safer,” according to reports.
Alvin Bragg, who was sworn in as Manhattan district attorney on January 1, sent a memo to his office on Monday calling for the “decriminalization/non prosecution” of crimes including marijuana possession, turnstile jumping, trespassing, resisting arrest, interfering with an arrest and prostitution.
The guidance calls for downgrading felony charges in cases including armed robberies and drug dealing.
The memo says the office will “not seek carceral sentence other than for homicide” or “class B violent felony in which a deadly weapon causes serious injury, domestic violence felonies” with few exceptions.
“This rule may be excepted only in extraordinary circumstances based on a holistic analysis of the facts, criminal history, victim’s input (particularly in cases of violence or trauma), and any other information available,” the memo reads.
Bragg suggested that “reserving incarceration for matters involving significant harm will make us safer.”
The office also does not plan to seek any sentences of life without parole, regardless of how heinous a crime is, and will only recommend pretrial detention in “very serious cases.”
“The data show that the overwhelming majority of those released pretrial do not commit a violent crime while at liberty,” the memo says. “Two studies show that even three days in jail can lead to a loss of housing, employment and strain family connections and increase the likelihood failure to appear in court.”
The move comes as the number of murders, robberies, felony assaults, burglaries, grand larcenies and grand larceny auto thefts surpassed 100,000 for the first time since 2016, according to data from the New York Police Department.
The New York Police Benevolent Association expressed “serious concerns” about the plan in a tweet on Tuesday.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

One must admire the blandness of that phrase, “The data show,” by which Bragg asserts that most criminal suspects released on bail “do no commit a violent crime” while awaiting trial — certainly a fact, but one which offers no comfort to the law-abiding citizens whose safety is jeopardized by the catch-and-release policy that liberals advocate.

Suppose, arguendo, that a mere 5% of suspects out on bail commit violent crimes; 95% can be fairly described as an “overwhelming majority.” But (a) this is the situation under the existing system, rather than the “progressive” policy that Bragg intends to implement, and (b) that 5% can wreak serious havoc, when you’re talking about a city like New York with a criminal population numbered in the tens of thousands. And we might furthermore add (c) that the “data” to which Bragg refers is no doubt supplied by left-wing advocacy organizations which may not be entirely scrupulous in dealing with statistics.

We do not need any research to know that Bragg’s policy will produce disastrous results — common sense tells us so and, given what we’ve seen in other cities where funding from George Soros has elected “progressive” district attorneys like Bragg, we know that life in New York City will become nightmarish. Prostitutes and drug dealers will ply their trades without fear of prosecution, carjackings and burglaries will skyrocket, and the daily death toll from drive-by shootings will shock the nation.

“Social justice” requires this. It is unfair for some people to live in safe neighborhoods with nice cars; to make things equal, every neighborhood in New York City must become as lawless and chaotic as the worst slums of the Bronx. While “social justice” will not improve the quality of life of allegedly “oppressed” minorities — indeed, black and brown people will be victimized at much higher rates — it will help accomplish Bragg’s real goal, i.e., to make life worse for white people in New York.

You’re not supposed to say this out loud, of course, but this is the ultimate meaning of all that “Critical Race Theory” noise. The problem with law enforcement, according to the CRT perspective, is not merely the “disparate impact” of locking up black criminals. No, the real problem is that keeping criminals in jail allows white people to live in nice neighborhoods. It is wrong for white people to be safe from crime.

We know for a fact that 37% of criminals released from prison are re-arrested within a year. The reality of recidivism — the fact that most crime is committed by repeat offenders, who are more or less full-time criminals — is something that “progressives” wish to ignore, or bury beneath a lot of blah blah blah about “oppression.” The fact that about half the violent crime in America is committed by young black males is another fact that “progressives” seek to conceal or obscure. When calling attention to these facts, one must point out that the disproportionate amount of violent crime committed by young black males does not mean that most young black males are criminals. It is a minority of the minority, as it were, who are responsible for this misunderstanding, in the same way that a comparative handful of outspoken bigots can engender the false belief that most white people are racists. If we wish to protect the black community from stereotypes about criminality, locking up black criminals should be high on the list of priorities, since prison inmates are thereby quarantined from the public.

Instead, the “progressive” solution is to normalize criminality, to permit prostitution and drug dealing to flourish, and to effectively legalize theft (e.g., California). How can anyone possibly justify this madness? Simple — just shout “racist” at anyone who complains. One marvels at the childishness of such reasoning, but this mentality is now the dominant force in Democratic Party politics, and no one’s life or property is safe wherever Democrats are in power. Therefore, anyone who votes for Democrats — as did 78% of Manhattan voters in 2020 — is voting for violent anarchy. New York City deserves what comes next.




 

Category: Crime, Democrats, New York

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