Groups debate if Calif. has gone too far on crime reform
By Don Thompson, AP
Crime survivors and law enforcement leaders on Monday criticized a legal system they said has gone too far in reversing get-tough-on-crime policies of past decades as they stood before hundreds of photographs of crime victims as part of their annual Capitol rally.
They urged voters to support a ballot initiative that would roll back portions of measures passed in 2014 and 2016 that critics say impede investigations and free violent offenders too soon.
On the opposite side, a reform group wants to further scale back what was once the nation’s toughest law targeting repeat offenders.
Domestic violence survivor Jennifer Adkins said her attacker was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2015 on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, making terrorist threats, causing injury and assaulting a police officer. Under recent legal changes his sentence was reduced to three years and he is due for release next year, she said.
“I fear for my life,” she said.
El Dorado County Sheriff John D’Agostini said stories like hers show recent changes “have exacerbated that revolving door.”