Reforms have made Californians less safe and cost lives
(excerpt from the San Francisco Chronicle – November 23, 2018)
For nearly a decade, California has been sold on a series of public safety “reforms” built on a foundation of empty promises. The kind of promises told by people who want to get what they want, made to people who really want to believe what they hear.
As a family law and victims’ attorney, it’s a story I hear all too often. A story of abuse and victimization. An abuser continuing to abuse, each time promising to change. The victim feeling defeated and helpless — willing to believe almost anything.
But in this case, the abusers are a group of California policymakers and the victims are well-meaning Californians.
It started with the passage of AB109, which shifted tens of thousands of state inmates to local jails and ultimately onto our streets. It continued with Propositions 47 and 57, changing sentencing and parole policies, and authorizing mass early release. And this year, SB10 made California the first state in the nation to eliminate cash bail.
These policies all came wrapped in grand promises, each one slightly less plausible than the last. Yet Californians believed. Like the abused spouse, they so wanted to believe that, this time, it would be true.
Less incarceration and more treatment. Safer streets and schools. A fairer and more efficient justice system. Reduced costs to the state. Early release would never apply to violent or sexual offenders.
God help us.. I’m here in my office helping people! God has given me a purpose in life.. I’ve been poisoned, in a coma for 2 weeks, no antidote could be found.. my mother was called by a priest.. last rights to be given. A A man with only one eye goes to my grandparents house in there garage and finds a loose bottle cap on a bottle, smells like my vomit where they found me unconscious .. after 3 blood transfusion organized by SAC PD I awake on Palm Sunday.. that same year 18 children in the US intgest or drink that same poison… 17 die… since then I’m suffering from diabetes, 3 stints in my heart, cancer found because of an accident at 2:am on an March morning, 2 days later I’m told to come see my doctor right away..from the X-ray from the accident he tells me I have cancer .. a tumor wrapped around my right kidney( not good for anyone especially a diabetic) not yet has a cell shifted into my right kidney.. the tumor was discovered to be 2 and half years old.. afterward I got an infection on my brain my heart, my heart failed 3X and my left Kidney failed and I had to go into dialysis all within 5 hours. always getting up to ask god to please let me help people… it’s my path.. Bail Bonds is my life.. and I pray the industry will and by Gods will survive all storms.. btw.. my doctor says I’m one tough son of gun.. soooo fellow bail Agent.. stand up, be proud, stand courageous.. remain professional.. and pray to the good lord that we will always be here to help others in there urgent time of love and direction that helps them redirect there lives, there families lives on gods path that he has giving all a destination. Jim Holtzclaw.. Sacramento Ca.