Groups Want to Restore Law and Order in Upcoming Election

Police officers work the scene on the corner of 10th and L streets of a shooting that occurred in the early morning hours on April 3, 2022 in Sacramento, Calif. David Odisho/Getty Images

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—The midterm elections are coming up, and people are fed up with the crime plaguing the state. A coalition of groups hopes to bring law and order back.

A number of community leaders are speaking against, what they call, California’s “soft on crime” policies.

During a Zoom press conference on Oct. 7, Carl Chen, president of the Oakland Chamber of Chinese Commerce, recalled an incident when someone attacked him in public.

“When we went through the whole process, believe it or not, at the sentencing, there were about 30, 40 people. They came to the courthouse, and guess what, they were supporting the attacker,” Chen said.

He later got a call from a New York Times reporter telling him his attacker was released and there is a GoFundMe for the criminal.

“Oh, my God, are you kidding me? So, what my point is, when people keep talking about ‘I’m so sorry that you know, you’re committing crimes,’ and when you go out there and support them, you send them the wrong message,” Chen said. “I don’t think any one of us wants to put people in jail. But there have to be consequences.”

According to statistics released by the FBI, the country reported similar levels in crime between 2020 and 2021—around 11 million criminal offenses reported. That’s a 5.6 percent increase from the number of reports in 2019.

At the state level, the Public Policy Institute of California found that the violent crime rate increased from 440 per 100,000 residents in 2020 to 466 in 2021. That’s a 6 percent increase in the Golden State.

Of the reported violent crimes, aggravated assaults make up 67 percent. The second most common is robberies at 24 percent, followed by rape at 8 percent, and homicides at 1 percent.

The community leaders agree that policies like reducing felonies to misdemeanors and defunding police have brought about more violence.

“I have a personal experience back in China and I went through the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. And the first thing… the Red Guard came in and destroyed the basic fundamental social order [to] remove the law and general law. So, it created lawlessness in China. And that’s a horrible experience,” recalled Jason Xu, president of the Silicon Valley Chinese Association Foundation.

Earlier this year, two district attorneys who faced grassroots-led recalls were criticized for their leniency on crime. San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin was successfully removed from office after two recall efforts joined together.

In Los Angeles, George Gascón also faced a recall, but it failed due to a lack of signatures.

In July, a masked shooter gunned down a man working at a 7-Eleven in Southern California. The suspect is responsible for five other 7-Eleven store robberies across the region, which left two dead and three wounded.

In June, San Diego County officials urged a judge to issue the maximum sentence for a repeat offender arrested in Escondido. It was the tenth time the suspect was arrested in the last two years. They blamed Propositions 47 and 57, and Assembly Bill 109 for the offender’s record.

Prop. 47, passed in 2014, downgraded certain thefts and drug offenses from felonies to misdemeanors.

Prop. 57, passed in 2016, allows individuals convicted of “nonviolent” crimes to be released early to prevent prisons from overcrowding.

AB 109, passed in 2011, allows current non-violent, non-serious, and non-high risk sex offenders to be supervised at the local county level after they are released from California State prison.

In April, a suspect in the downtown Sacramento mass shooting was released from prison just weeks before the incident. He served less than half his 10-year sentence because of voter-approved changes to state law that lessened his punishment for his felony convictions, allowing him to be released earlier. Six people died, and 12 were injured.

In December 2020, San Jose officials urged the county to change the sanctuary policy after they heard that an undocumented suspect accused of stabbing five people at a San Jose Church was a repeat felon who had been deported three times.

On EpochTV’s “California Insider” program, a district attorney said the current crime wave is fueled by “well-intentioned but misguided” policies that try to reform the criminal justice system. But it can only be remedied when people start voting for change.

“Public safety is a very top priority in any society. As simple as that, we have to strike the balance and cannot go to the extreme. At the end of the day, everybody has to have confidence that we can come home safely after a day of work or school,” said Frank Lee, president of the Organization for Justice and Equality.

The community leaders encouraged people to elect officials who can regain that balance.

With reporting by Ilene Eng.