RE: DC Crime Bill I've been quietly stewing when listening to your podcast and reading your newsletters on the DC crime bill. There are two facets to this discussion: 1) Is the bill wise from a policy perspective? 2) Is the bill wise from a political perspective? I was pretty disappointed to hear/read that both you and Will Saletan (a pr…
I've been quietly stewing when listening to your podcast and reading your newsletters on the DC crime bill.
There are two facets to this discussion:
1) Is the bill wise from a policy perspective?
2) Is the bill wise from a political perspective?
I was pretty disappointed to hear/read that both you and Will Saletan (a progressive I'd expect to take a deeper dive into the issue) conflate the two and think that, on both fronts, D.C. legislators are in effect out-of-touch policy and political idiots.
I know this will never be acknowledged given that the Bulwark has gone full bore on its defence of Congress' measures to overturn these measures, but I must respectfully point out that you are ill informed on the issue.
1) The DC criminal statutes were horrendously out of date and needed to be updated (they included provisions relating to horses, etc.).
2) The minimum sentences for car jacking were out of whack with the sentencing minimums for other far more serious offences. For example, the minimums for car jacking, first or second offence, exceed those for sexual assault.
3) The commission that recommended lowering the maximum sentences did so after reviewing every single car jacking case where the accused was sentenced, and literally not a single person had ever been sentenced to anything close to the maximum sentence, and not a single case resulted in a sentence larger than the new maximum. It's ironic that in yesterday's podcast you lamented the fact that the DC crime bill removes "discretion" from sentencing judges, notwithstanding the fact that the minimum draconian sentences for car jacking do just the same. And the "discretion" you are lamenting is being lost by lowering the maximum sentences, is literally a theoretical option for judges given that no one has been sentenced for anything close to the maximum.
"Let's take carjacking, an offense that spiked dramatically in recent years in D.C. and other parts of the country, and which is drawing plenty of concern among residents and grabbing a lot of media attention.
Under current law, unarmed carjacking has a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years and maximum sentence of 21. If armed, that jumps to 15 and 40, respectively. (For context, that 40-year maximum is double the current maximum for second-degree sexual abuse.) Under the revised code, carjacking is divided into three gradations depending on severity, with the lowest penalties for an unarmed offense running from four to 18 years and the highest penalties for an armed offense ranging from 12 to 24 years.
So yes, penalties for carjacking have indeed been reduced. But...
"You have to look at not just penalties on paper, but you have to look at the penalties in practice," says Jinwoo Park, the current executive director of the Criminal Code Reform Commission, which he joined almost a decade ago as an attorney-adviser to the whole process.
Park says that in many cases with violent crimes in D.C., the difference between the maximum sentence that can be meted out and the actual sentences that are handed down are significant. To better understand this, the commission looked at a decade's worth of sentencing data from D.C. Superior Court for pretty much every criminal offense charged — and in many cases, carjacking included, found that actual sentencing was below the maximums allowed by law."
I IMPLORE you to please educate yourselves on the nuances of the bill before continuing to arrogantly mock DC legislators for the crime reform bill they passed.
Ironically, if you educate yourself on the issues, the new crime bill is unquestionably good policy, but bad politics if improperly explained: the irony being that you're taking a Fox News approach to the issue (i.e. misreprenting the contents of the bill to your audience, albeit hopefully unintentionally), thus by being uninformed on the policy question, you're actively contributing to ensuring that it's bad politics as well.
As I said, there is a political dimension to the question, and indisputably, opposing the changes is good politics.
But in their analysis of the bill, the Bulwark is also arriving at judgements about the soundness of the policy. And on that front, they have been pushing misinformaton to support their view that the changes are also terrible policy.
Is it too much to ask the intelligent contributors to the Bulwark to inform themselves on the substantive elements of the changes, and provide analysis that is based on a properly informed view of the issue?
RE: DC Crime Bill
I've been quietly stewing when listening to your podcast and reading your newsletters on the DC crime bill.
There are two facets to this discussion:
1) Is the bill wise from a policy perspective?
2) Is the bill wise from a political perspective?
I was pretty disappointed to hear/read that both you and Will Saletan (a progressive I'd expect to take a deeper dive into the issue) conflate the two and think that, on both fronts, D.C. legislators are in effect out-of-touch policy and political idiots.
I know this will never be acknowledged given that the Bulwark has gone full bore on its defence of Congress' measures to overturn these measures, but I must respectfully point out that you are ill informed on the issue.
1) The DC criminal statutes were horrendously out of date and needed to be updated (they included provisions relating to horses, etc.).
2) The minimum sentences for car jacking were out of whack with the sentencing minimums for other far more serious offences. For example, the minimums for car jacking, first or second offence, exceed those for sexual assault.
3) The commission that recommended lowering the maximum sentences did so after reviewing every single car jacking case where the accused was sentenced, and literally not a single person had ever been sentenced to anything close to the maximum sentence, and not a single case resulted in a sentence larger than the new maximum. It's ironic that in yesterday's podcast you lamented the fact that the DC crime bill removes "discretion" from sentencing judges, notwithstanding the fact that the minimum draconian sentences for car jacking do just the same. And the "discretion" you are lamenting is being lost by lowering the maximum sentences, is literally a theoretical option for judges given that no one has been sentenced for anything close to the maximum.
Don't take my word for it:
https://www.npr.org/local/305/2023/01/27/1152145266/is-d-c-really-reducing-penalties-for-violent-crimes-it-s-complicated
"Let's take carjacking, an offense that spiked dramatically in recent years in D.C. and other parts of the country, and which is drawing plenty of concern among residents and grabbing a lot of media attention.
Under current law, unarmed carjacking has a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years and maximum sentence of 21. If armed, that jumps to 15 and 40, respectively. (For context, that 40-year maximum is double the current maximum for second-degree sexual abuse.) Under the revised code, carjacking is divided into three gradations depending on severity, with the lowest penalties for an unarmed offense running from four to 18 years and the highest penalties for an armed offense ranging from 12 to 24 years.
So yes, penalties for carjacking have indeed been reduced. But...
"You have to look at not just penalties on paper, but you have to look at the penalties in practice," says Jinwoo Park, the current executive director of the Criminal Code Reform Commission, which he joined almost a decade ago as an attorney-adviser to the whole process.
Park says that in many cases with violent crimes in D.C., the difference between the maximum sentence that can be meted out and the actual sentences that are handed down are significant. To better understand this, the commission looked at a decade's worth of sentencing data from D.C. Superior Court for pretty much every criminal offense charged — and in many cases, carjacking included, found that actual sentencing was below the maximums allowed by law."
I IMPLORE you to please educate yourselves on the nuances of the bill before continuing to arrogantly mock DC legislators for the crime reform bill they passed.
Ironically, if you educate yourself on the issues, the new crime bill is unquestionably good policy, but bad politics if improperly explained: the irony being that you're taking a Fox News approach to the issue (i.e. misreprenting the contents of the bill to your audience, albeit hopefully unintentionally), thus by being uninformed on the policy question, you're actively contributing to ensuring that it's bad politics as well.
I expect more from the Bulwark.
I take everything you explained to be true. But if you are explaining, then you are losing. Voters don't want nuance.
Biden did the right thing, at least if you don't want Trump 2.0 or the equivalent.
As I said, there is a political dimension to the question, and indisputably, opposing the changes is good politics.
But in their analysis of the bill, the Bulwark is also arriving at judgements about the soundness of the policy. And on that front, they have been pushing misinformaton to support their view that the changes are also terrible policy.
Is it too much to ask the intelligent contributors to the Bulwark to inform themselves on the substantive elements of the changes, and provide analysis that is based on a properly informed view of the issue?