Policy and election-year politics mixed into new Georgia laws

by Kimberly Sawatka | Mar 30, 2024

Georgia news, in the news, current events, Georgia happenings, GA happenings

Policy and election-year politics mixed into new Georgia laws

Flush with cash and facing an election year, Georgia lawmakers prioritized bills that cut taxes, stoke political emotions and touch voters’ lives in some way.

Legislators left the Capitol early Friday morning after making their mark on the state over the past three months, with the Republican majority pushing both practical spending bills and sparking debates over partisan issues including immigration and transgender people.

“I think they were looking for things to show their constituents that they’re doing something,” said Buzz Brockway, a former Republican state representative who now works at the Georgia Center for Opportunity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing poverty. “I would call it a ‘medium session.’ Some things got done that are important and move the ball forward, but nobody got everything they wanted.”

Read the full article in The Herald

Read the full article in Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Shackled by Freedom: How Workplace Licensing Holds Back Ex-Convicts

by Kimberly Sawatka | Mar 25, 2024

Shackled by Freedom: How Workplace Licensing Holds Back Ex-Convicts

After years of drug abuse and crime, Rudolph H. Carey III began to get his life back on track in 2007 when he checked himself into rehab and eventually drew on his experience to become a substance abuse counselor in Virginia.

Then it was all taken away from him. After his company was taken over, his new employer fired him in 2018 due to his 2004 conviction for assaulting an officer while trying to run away from a traffic stop. State law prohibits former offenders like him from working as substance abuse counselors.

Joshua Crawford, Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives for the Georgia Center for Opportunity, acknowledged that the formerly incarcerated are often an unsympathetic group. But he said growing evidence shows that occupational licensing laws fail to improve public safety and sometimes even make communities less safe and less prosperous. “It’s not about benefiting that person as much as leveling the playing field and the benefits to public safety and more productive members of society,” he said.

Read the full article in Real Clear Investigations

Read the full article in The Epoch Times

Is the tide turning on Larry Krasner?

by Kimberly Sawatka | Mar 22, 2024

Is the tide turning on Larry Krasner?

Hate to say I told you so, but real is real. Back in 2018, three months into Larry Krasner’s revolution in ultra-lenient prosecution, I wrote these prophetic words:

I’ve written before that many of Krasner’s reforms — as with those of many of the other Soros DAs — are long overdue. Cash bail does criminalize poverty; mass incarceration, thanks to an ill-conceived war on drugs, has decimated communities of color; the death penalty is disproportionately applied based on race and class. All true. But one has to wonder if Krasner — even more than the other Soros-funded reformers — has over-corrected, and laid the groundwork for an existential assault on law enforcement from within that, by extension, could amount to a jihad on public safety itself.

The piece, like others that have followed through his tenure, diagnosed what was already apparent: Krasner’s inexperience and incompetence as a manager, his unwillingness to work with others, and his tone deafness (like when he showed up for his first meeting with the then-Council president with a documentary camera crew in tow) — all of it jeopardized even then the most righteous aspects of his cause. You know what happened next. His “best and brightest” ADA recruits came and promptly fled in droves, fed up with the mismanagement and ideology. They wanted to be reformers, yes, but most didn’t sign up to be refuseniks when it came to, say, actually prosecuting gun crimes.

“Consider how Philadelphia has fared in the years since progressive prosecutor Larry Krasner was elected in 2017,” Penn Law’s Paul Robinson and Joshua Crawford, Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at the Georgia Center for Opportunity wrote last year in Newsweek. “Krasner has filed the fewest cases in his city’s modern history and reduced sentencings by an astounding 70 percent. Meanwhile, homicides are skyrocketing.”

Read the full article here

The Alan Nathan Show

by Josh Crawford | Mar 14, 2024

The Alan Nathan Show

Josh Crawford, as a guest on The Alan Nathan Show, engaged in a thoughtful discussion about pragmatic approaches to reforming policies that negatively affect the criminal justice system. His expertise in criminal justice reform was evident as he highlighted key issues such as overcriminalization, sentencing disparities, and the need for better rehabilitation programs. Crawford emphasized the importance of evidence-based policies that ensure public safety while also offering second chances to those who have served their time. He argued for a balanced approach that respects the rights of victims and communities, yet also addresses the root causes of criminal behavior to reduce recidivism. Through his dialogue with Alan Nathan, Crawford shed light on the complexities of the criminal justice system and presented realistic solutions aimed at fostering a more just and equitable society.

Listen to the full conversation

Want to reduce crime in DC? Ramp up enforcement and sentences

by Josh Crawford | Mar 8, 2024

Want to reduce crime in DC? Ramp up enforcement and sentences

By Joshua Crawford, Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives

What a difference a year makes.

Around this time last year, the Council of the District of Columbia overrode Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of a criminal code reform bill that, among other things, lowered penalties for carjacking, robbery, and burglary.

At the time of the bill’s passage, Washington was already in the midst of a dramatic increase in carjackings that began in June 2020. From January 2018 until May 2020, the city averaged 12.3 carjackings a month. That number increased to 39.7 carjackings a month between June 2020 and January 2023, when the council overrode the mayor’s veto.

And, for the record, carjackings in the district have not been restricted to “that” part of town. In August 2022, Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. was shot in the leg during an attempted carjacking in broad daylight.

When she vetoed the criminal code reform bill, Bowser, a Democrat, said, “This bill does not make us safer. … Any time there’s a policy that reduces penalties, I think it sends the wrong message.” No one would doubt the mayor’s progressive credentials, but the D.C. Council had her sounding like former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese, who served during the Reagan administration.

Read the full article here

U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney’s ‘One Door’ bill would allow states to integrate social safety net with workforce development

by David Bass | Feb 29, 2024

U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney’s ‘One Door’ bill would allow states to integrate social safety net with workforce development

PEACHTREE CORNERS, GA—U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has introduced a bill that would free up the 50 states to implement a “One Door” safety-net reform strategy similar to the very successful model created in Utah. As part of the Alliance for Opportunity, a coalition of groups seeking to drive state-level change in the safety-net system, the Georgia Center for Opportunity is in full support of the bill.

U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, has previously introduced a “One Door” bill in the House, a version of which passed out of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in December.

Despite a historically low unemployment rate across the country, states are still facing a workforce crisis with millions of able-bodied Americans on the economic sidelines. Our nation’s workforce participation rate has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of 2023, 41 million Americans relied on food stamps to make ends meet and nearly 90 million Americans were enrolled in Medicaid.

Many of these Americans remain stuck in a safety-net system that simply doesn’t work. The One Door to Work Act, introduced by Sen. Romney on Feb. 28, would allow states the flexibility to implement Utah’s consolidation of federal workforce development and social safety-net programs into a single state entity. The end goal is to help work-capable recipients reintegrate more quickly into the workforce, empowering them to achieve the independence, stability, and purpose that are crucial to human well-being.

“Every state should have the flexibility to design an integrated workforce and safety-net model that enables people to succeed,” said Randy Hicks, president and CEO of the Georgia Center for Opportunity. “Every hour a safety-net recipient spends finding their way through the system is an hour they can’t spend working their way into opportunity. The One Door to Work Act allows states to create a system that works for people.”

The dozens of programs that make up the system have different and, at times, competing goals, inconsistent rules, and overlapping groups of recipients. Often, recipients must resubmit the same information multiple times for multiple programs with the aid of multiple caseworkers. This disconnect fosters despair and keeps recipients in a cycle of poverty—as every hour spent navigating the system is an hour not spent pursuing a path out of it.

What’s more, there is often a disconnect between safety-net programs and welfare-to-work initiatives. The end result is that people stay mired in generational poverty rather than receiving a helping hand to live a better life. The One Door to Work Act would free up state governments to explore ways to create a safety net that works for all citizens and doesn’t cause generational poverty.

“There are 8.7 million open jobs in this country, and the workforce participation rate has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. States need the flexibility in the One Door to Work Act to use our workforce dollars to move our people off the sidelines,” said Greg Sindelar, executive director and chief operating officer of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is a member of the Alliance for Opportunity.

“A robust workforce is not only integral to a thriving state economy, but also to its social fabric,” added Daniel Erspamer, CEO of the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, also a member of the Alliance. “When a person is unemployed for longer than six months, it is associated with decreased well-being, even measurably affecting mortality. The One Door to Work Act gives workers, employers, and taxpayers the system that they deserve.”

Learn more about the “One Door” policy here.

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Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) is independent, non-partisan, and solutions-focused. Our team is dedicated to creating opportunities for a quality education, fulfilling work, and a healthy family life for all Georgians. To achieve our mission, we research ways to help remove barriers to opportunity in each of these pathways, promote our solutions to policymakers and the public, and help effective and innovative social enterprises deliver results in their communities.

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