Corona Daily 282: Proposition 20 Part II

The “Yes” campaign focuses on the 22 crimes that escaped being classified as “felonies” in the early propositions. Proposition 20 can now fix them, and ensure the perpetrators are given the sentences they deserve. The theft threshold is proposed to be brought down to $250, thereby widening the net to catch felons. The bill allows collection of DNA. Repeat offenders can now be classified as felons. The proposition is devised by the Law enforcement/police authorities, sponsored by retail chains, and supported by the Republican party.

The “No” campaign calls it regressive. Money will be diverted from education and rehabilitation into wasteful prison spending. Making $250 theft a felony would make California the most draconian state in America. Teenagers, blacks, Latinos and the poor will be locked up for years. Not surprisingly, the civil liberties union, league of women voters and the Democratic party is against the proposition.

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As a neutral observer, I will offer my perspective.

What can be wrong in being tough on crime? Should someone stealing your wallet or car go unpunished? Not at all. But the punishment should always be in line with how civililised we are.

Saudi Arabia amputates a thief’s right hand. Highway robbers, if caught and not executed, may get their hands and legs amputated. Why don’t we support such initiatives? Because we would like to be civilized, certainly far more civilized than Saudi Arabia. Sentences must be proportional to the crime. Depending on the circumstances, the criminal must have a possibility of rehabilitation.

If starving or stealing food is the only choice a person has, it may be the government’s crime. Particularly in pandemic times, it is the governments’ responsibility to make sure people don’t have to steal food. If a homeless person is sleeping on the pavement, there is no moral ground to imprison him, simply because the law says it. In England, until 2012, squatting (encroaching and living in a vacant house) was not a crime. If I am not mistaken, even today, a homeless family in England can squat in vacant commercial property, it’s not a crime. Such humane measures go back to the post World War catastrophe. A pandemic may create similar situations.

The state of Seattle is drafting a bill that makes hunger or homelessness a defence, by adding it to the “duress” law. Sometimes, circumstances compel a person to commit a crime. Under the existing laws of California, the person in jail will have a facility to appeal to the parole board for an early release. The parole board listens to each case and decides whether it is worth releasing the prisoner early. Now proposition 20 wants to take this right of appeal away. Felons, irrespective of circumstances and conduct, would languish in overcrowded prisons for years, making their rehabilitation unlikely.

Harsh sentences don’t eliminate crimes. Even in countries that allow capital punishment, rapes and murders don’t stop. A “tough on crime” mentality gradually makes the state a police state. In the name of safety; surveillance, DNA collection, police brutalities become commonplace. Prisons become concentration camps.

If the past bills were badly drafted (allowing 22 felony crimes to escape), the state of California should re-legislate them. What the law enforcement authorities have done is to take that loophole, and bundle it with several other issues such as cancelling parole, collecting DNA. This is not the job of a voter, but of the legislative organ. Hopefully, California will say no to proposition 20. At any time, it is a wrong initiative. More so during a pandemic.

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Ironically, on the same day the American voters will seal the fate of America’s best-known, highest-ranking criminal. His case shows that America’s desire to become ‘tough on crime’ is selective and not equitable.

Ravi