Asian Industry B2B president rebuts SJ jailbreak advocates’ wacky zero bail claims
SoCal’s Marc Ang is president of Asian Industry B2B and renowned for his pioneering journalism championing minority communities and fighting bills like Prop 16. He turns his gaze on local Santa Clara County decarceration advocates' arguments for zero dollar bail, and finds that facts don't support their assertions. An Opp Now exclusive. To receive daily updates of new Opp Now stories, click here.
As reported in San Jose Spotlight: San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo claims [zero bail and citation and release] policies have led to increased crime on San Jose streets and created a revolving door of repeat criminals getting arrested several times without consequences. The victims of that revolving door are small businesses and residents, he said. But county crime data doesn’t appear to support the mayor’s claims and social justice advocates say there is no connection between the policies and violent crime.
Marc Ang: I think that’s a ridiculous obscuring of reality, which is what a lot of big government, Sacramento-types are doing. And it’s to distract from their own incompetence when it comes to enforcing law and order. I personally am a huge proponent for criminal justice reform. But that does not mean throwing out the things that work in our system currently.
This is an especially ridiculous assertion when we have statistics proving otherwise. In L.A. County and S.F. County, early release by these DAs, specifically Chesa Boudin and Gascón, has caused crime to spike.
One of my articles on Redstate researched and overviewed a lot of anecdotes where people went back and committed the exact same crimes again right after they were released. One man was apprehended, put in jail, released right away, and ended up getting 23 rental cars out in his own name the next day. That could have been prevented if he was kept in custody just a few more days.
If you committed a crime and you were caught, what is a few days in jail to reflect on that? And if you didn’t actually do it, maybe you can sit in jail and reflect on why you’re in that situation, and your public defender will help fight for a speedy and just trial for you.
When you balance it out in society, it's super important to have bail. You can’t just have zero bail. We’ve seen ramifications through the Boudin and Gascón tenures, which are still going on because we haven’t recalled Gascón yet.
Overall, the results of counties without bail are clear as day. Society does not deserve to have a potential threat run around because we want to be compassionate and have “criminal justice reform” at the expense of everyone else. Where is the compassion for victims? Where is the compassion for everyday hardworking businesses?
SJS: Hendrickson said the expiration of these policies just means more people awaiting trial are going to sit in jail —which will affect poor people who cannot afford to post bail.
MA: Actually, zero bail disproportionately affects poor, especially minority, communities. Evidence has shown that many of these criminals that burglarize and damage property—even rape and commit homicide—disproportionately come from low-income communities. So where are they committing those crimes? Mostly back in those same communities, where there’s hardworking people trying to build better lives for themselves; but they’re distracted, derailed, hurt by the lack of safety and bad guys running around because the government wants to be overly compassionate in an area where it makes no sense to be.
In addition, on the subject of people disproportionately hurt by zero bail, a forgotten population is businessowners. As the president of Asian Industry B2B, I always have a heart for those who are entrepreneurs taking risks and contributing to society through their product or service. Unfortunately, these entrepreneurs are also unduly hurt by criminals released early under zero bail. A lot of these criminals, especially in property crime/break-in situations, strike small businesses (in particular, those owned by individuals from the black and Hispanic communities) first.
SJS: “Arresting and incarceration doesn’t make those people vanish forever. It doesn’t deal with whatever underlying issues may have caused concern to begin with,” Jayadev told San Jose Spotlight.
MA: I’ve seen situations of wrongful incarceration, where individuals—especially from the black and Hispanic communities—are sentenced to a ridiculous number of years in jail/prison (e.g., “Tiger King” Joe Exotic) due to many other factors that don’t relate to early release. However, why are we lumping all that that together when those issues need to be addressed piece-by-piece? That’s one fallacy right there that I certainly have an issue with.
Let’s talk about the sentencing process. Let’s talk about due process when it comes to hearing evidence and making a judgment in that regard without a shadow of a doubt. Those things are important, and we must uphold them so that we don’t wrongly put people in prison.
But ultimately, zero bail policies send the wrong message to society: that it’s okay to commit a crime because if you’re arrested, you’ll be right back on the streets.
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This article is part of an exclusive Opp Now series.
In the first article, national criminal justice organizations echo the City’s concerns that catch-and-release policing encourages crime.
The second article features commentary from SJPD Sergeant Christian Camarillo on California’s disastrous zero bail legislation.
In the third article, SCC Supervisor candidate Johnny Khamis and SJ Mayor candidate Matt Mahan emphasize the importance of ditching catch-and-release procedures.
Then, Opp Now breaks down a Merc article privileging jailbreak supporters for the fourth series installment.
Finally, in the fifth article, Asian Industry B2B president Marc Ang rebuts pro-jailbreak San Joseans’ rhetoric.
Image by Jernej Furman on Flickr