Republicans Target Their Own for Supporting ‘Soft on Crime’ Policies
As midterm season approaches, attack ads are pillorying Republicans in GOP-controlled states who support justice reforms. Meanwhile, policies like reduced sentencing for nonviolent offenses are being blamed, with little evidence, for rising crime in Washington, DC.
Landwebs
As midterm season approaches, attack ads are pillorying Republicans in GOP-controlled states who support justice reforms. Meanwhile, policies like reduced sentencing for nonviolent offenses are being blamed, with little evidence, for rising crime in Washington, DC.
On the hit list are Republicans in Oklahoma, for example, which has one of the highest incarceration rates, and in Texas who support changes they say that they can reduce crime as well as costs to taxpayers, reports the Associated Press.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who approved the 2019 mass commutation of more than 450 inmates in a single day, primarily for people convicted of drug possession or low-level property crimes, said the release would save Oklahoma an estimated $11.9 million over the cost of keeping them behind bars.
However, Stitt is now the target of attack ads paid for by dark money groups criticizing him for signing off on the parole of a man now accused of three killings, including those of a four-year-old girl and a neighbor whose heart he cut out and tried to feed to relatives.
The fight over public safety has also caused contention among Washington D.C. Democrats, where the Washington Post reports that politicians are challenging D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser in the upcoming election by leveling sharp criticism against her for her effectiveness in lowering crime in the nation’s capital.
Bowser has placed blame on the D.C. Council for its alleged defunding of the city’s police force over the last two years, and pushed for their approval of her budget proposal that would add 347 officers to the police force in fiscal 2023 and its ranks to 4,000 overall, but her opponents have argued that the responsibility for the leap in lies crime squarely on her shoulders.
