By S. Priana Aquino
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – California’s 23 Republican-voting counties have higher rates of violent crime, and Democratic-voting counties have had the biggest decrease in violent crime, according to report released by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice this week.
The report cites that “the clearest difference between areas that have cut crime substantially and those suffering the worst crime trends and rates is not geographic nor demographic, but how they vote – Republican versus Democratic.”
Republican officials have traditionally promoted a “get tough” on crime approach, which, according to this report, has not been an effective method of decreasing crime.
These kinds of approaches that boast longer sentences for convicts and generate more arrests are doing the opposite of what was intended, said CJCJ, noting that instead, in a Republican-voting county a person is 58 percent more likely to be arrested and 41 percent more likely to be incarcerated as opposed to being in a Democratic county.
Additionally, the CJCJ report showed that homicide rates in Republican-voting counties are now 28 percent higher than in Democratic-voting counties and that “the homicide death rate among White people in Republican-voting counties is on par with people of color in Democratic-voting ones, challenging widely held beliefs about violence in urban communities of color.”
The CJCJ report also points out that “while people of color in Republican counties are arrested at the highest rates, racial arrest gaps have narrowed considerably in recent decades. However, Republican counties lag behind Democratic counties in reducing crime and arrest rates involving both White people and people of color.”
In a tweet promoting the recent report, Rachel Marshall, co-host of the Chasing Justice Podcast with SF District Attorney Chesa Boudin, shared the report’s graphic showing the decrease in violent and property crimes.
Boudin supporter, @cameronshanti3, tweeted, “Noting that SF Police are fully funded-plus (I believe all U.S. police still fully funded), that elected reform DA Boudin prosecutes as much as any DA, that mass incarceration creates criminals, and reform justice = safety. #StandWithChesa.”
The SF DA has made it a point to reform criminal justice in San Francisco, pushing for less jail time and more of an emphasis on resources for at-risk communities.
In a recent community update, the DA’s office wrote about its recent mandate directing staff to both inquire and use correct pronouns, names, and titles for crime victims, witnesses, and the accused in a criminal case.
Boudin writes, “Transgender people are disproportionately victimized by violent crime and hate. We believe that this policy will promote public safety and increase tolerance while honoring the humanity of all members of the LGBTQIA community.”
