Don't rush to restart the war on crime

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, the cop-turned-reformer who came to office in 2020 promising to transform the justice system so it "works for everyone," is fighting for his political life.

There's a movement underway to recall him, and its backers say they've already raised $2.7 million. He is opposed by hundreds of rank-and-file prosecutors in his own office, who voted nearly unanimously last week to support his ouster.

On the defensive, Gascón reversed course and said he would allow minors to be tried as adults in certain cases. He then rescinded another policy, saying prosecutors could now in some situations seek life sentences without parole for murder defendants.

But those moves satisfied few people on either the right or the left.

Gascón can take comfort in the fact that he's not alone. All around the country, progressive prosecutors who were winning elections just a few years ago by promising to undo the tough-on-crime policies of previous decades are under fire, struggling to keep their jobs in the face of rising violent crime rates and a growing political backlash.

In San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin faces a tough recall election in June. Boudin, who was elected in 2019, is being accused of coddling criminals and being "anti-cop," among others things.

In New York City, newly elected progressive prosecutor Alvin Bragg is butting heads with the new mayor, Eric Adams. Bragg's instruction to prosecutors in his office not to seek jail or prison time for defendants in any but the most serious crimes didn't go over well with City Hall.

Progressive prosecutors have made their share of mistakes and, at times, have moved too quickly or in a tone-deaf way, often failing to explain their reforms to the public.

But reformers have started a policy discussion that badly needs to be had. They've made changes that can't be judged successes or failures yet.

The move to undermine these elected officials is too-often driven less by facts than by emotion, fear and vague perceptions about rising crime. Political pressure comes from law enforcement's old guard — including police unions, rank-and-file prosecutors and crime victims' groups — who are often pushing anecdotes rather than data, scare stories meant to encourage a return to the familiar, throw-away-the-key policies they believe in.

But homicides are rising in cities all around the country, including in jurisdictions that don't have reform police chiefs and district attorneys.

The fact is, criminal justice reformers get many things right. Recidivism rates are still way too high. States and cities still don't put sufficient resources into re-entry programs, drug and mental health treatment or alternatives to incarceration. The cash bail system — which often allows people with money to get out of jail while poor people languish behind bars until trial — is an outrage. Systemic racial inequities persist at all levels of the criminal justice system.

But a swing of the pendulum too far back toward the tough-on-crime mentality that dominated for so long would be a serious mistake.

Unfortunately, criminal justice policy too often does just that: It swings back and forth. A few grisly murders, a rising crime rate, a fearmongering politician or ballot proposition — and suddenly society lurches to the right. When voters feel safe again, policy swings back.

In the 1960s, there was a movement to encourage rehabilitation over punishment. By the 1980s and 1990s, rising crime rates, and rising fear of crime, led to tough-guy policies that filled — and overcrowded — state prisons for decades.

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country for which data are available. The current generation of reformers rose up in response to that.

And now they may be shut down.