Fueled by public outrage over the 2020 murder of George Floyd and other high-profile incidents of police violence, the U.S. saw a wave of initiatives aimed at reining in police powers and reimagining criminal justice systems.
Now, political leaders from coast to coast are embracing a return to “tough-on-crime” policies, often undoing the changes of recent years, reports Stateline.
San Francisco voters this month approved ballot initiatives that would require drug screenings for welfare recipients and would loosen restrictions on police operations. Washington, D.C.'s mayor signed a sweeping package that toughens penalties for gun crimes, establishes drug-free zones and allows police to collect DNA from suspects before a conviction.
Local and state leaders in blue and red states — including California, Georgia, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont — have looked to toughen their approaches to crime and public safety in a variety of ways.
Lawmakers have proposed bills that would stiffen retail theft charges, re-criminalize certain hard street drugs, keep more suspects in jail in lieu of bail and expand police powers. Many pass with bipartisan votes.
To some experts, the legislative actions represent more of a partial rollback of progressive criminal justice changes rather than a complete return to past punitive policies.
“The issue for most people isn’t whether something is up or down by 10%. It’s that they are seeing randomness and brazenness, and getting a sense of lawlessness,” said Adam Gelb of the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. “Some of what we’re seeing is more like … shaving off the edges of some of the policies that felt too lenient.”
The percentage of Americans who think the United States is “not tough enough” on crime grew for the first time in 30 years, found a Gallup poll released in November. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they believe the criminal-legal system is too soft, up from 41% in 2020.
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Georgia’s legislature this year passed a bill that would add 30 additional felony and misdemeanor crimes to the state’s list of bail-restricted offenses, meaning that people accused of those crimes would be required to post cash bail.
Last week, the Tennessee Senate passed a bill that would prohibit local governments from altering police traffic stop policies. If signed into law, it would overturn a Memphis city ordinance that bans pretextual traffic stops, which is when police use minor traffic infractions such as broken taillights as grounds to investigate motorists for more serious crimes.
Some criminal justice advocates and experts call the trend of states dialing back reforms as impulsive reactions to what might be a temporary, pandemic-related spike in certain crimes.
“Some of the knee-jerk reactions aren’t even responsive to the actual problem at hand,” said David Muhammad of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, an advocacy and research group.
Others say recent votes are a “rejection of pro-criminal policies” that prioritized the rights of offenders over the needs of crime victims.
“This is a return to normalcy — to common sense. The fact is that their ideas failed. They were bad,” said Charles Stimson of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “This isn’t a Democrat or Republican thing or a blue or red state thing. This is a law and order versus chaos thing. Period.”
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