Keeping people in jail and prison longer doesn’t deter crime, but it does exacerbate many root causes of harmful behavior. RS
This happens every year. Legislators, responding to their constituencies, put forth bills that use the threat of punishment to address social issues as varied as reproductive rights, gun control, domestic violence, and drug use.
This War on Crime has been a bipartisan affair since the 1990s, though it’s true that Republicans and Democrats sometimes try to criminalize different things. During the Washington Legislature’s 2022 session, Republicans tried to criminalize certain kinds of abortion and houselessness while Democrats tried to criminalize certain kinds of guns and magazines. But the underlying
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