Some people fell asleep on Tuesday, November 8, feeling scared, not knowing the results of our Presidential election. Some woke up on Wednesday morning, feeling more terrified than ever, having seen it in the news: we had elected our new President. Since then, I have seen so much negativity, fear, and hate on all social media. We are a nation divided, half of us are thrilled at what happened on Tuesday and half of us are scared to death. Let me tell you something, there is something far worse that happened on the fateful day of Tuesday, November 8.
Yes, the worst thing to happen on Tuesday had nothing to do with Donald Trump, but instead had everything to do with something called Prop 57. Prop 57 (California Proposition 57, Parole for Non-Violent Criminals and Juvenile Court Trial Requirements) is a change to a state law that increases chances for parole for felons convicted of non-violent offenses. This is not the scary part. The scary part is the fact that some of the crimes that are identified as "non-violent" include battery with serious bodily injury, solicitation to commit murder, domestic violence, inflicting corporal injury on a child, rape/sodomy/oral copulation of unconscious person or by use of date rape drugs, human trafficking involving a minor, hate crimes, arson of forest land causing physical injury, and exploding destructive device with intent to cause injury. These are just a few of the non-violent felonies.
This is particularly terrifying and repulsive because of how we are treating crimes like domestic violence, violence against a child, rape, human trafficking, and hate crimes. In order to give you a better perspective, this means that a rapist will receive a prison sentence that is much shorter, he/she will be offered parole earlier and will be released earlier. Under this change, Brock Turner could have potentially served less than 3 months in prison for raping an unconscious woman. This means that a criminal who is buying/selling children for sex (human trafficking involving a minor) will receive little time and early chances for parole. This means that these criminals will be out on our streets again in less time.
The truth is, the scariest part of all of this is not the sentences being decreased, but instead the message we are sending about these "non-violent crimes". The idea that rape and human trafficking and hate crimes and domestic violence are not violent is disgusting to me. It conveys that these crimes are "less than" others. That the victims of these crimes experience no violence. Ask a victim of domestic abuse if he/she was not physically abused. Some are not, but some are. Ask a victim of rape if he/she was not physically threatened or harmed. Some are not, but some are. And that means we only see violence as physical harm, not emotional or mental abuse.
The saddest part of this whole thing is that it passed 63.59% to 36.41%. It is being encouraged and advertised by John Legend. Governor Jerry Brown said, "Why not give some of these people a second chance? Isn’t that human nature? Aren’t redemption and forgiveness what it’s all about? If we take away all of that, the inmates have no hope. We’re throwing them in a cell with no hope." Sure, Governor, but what are you doing to the victims? You're throwing them in to a world with no hope.
