One thing I will say about George Gascon. His policy pronouncements have been consistent with his campaign promises, and his leadership style has put his detractors into an ugly alliance with Alex Villainueva, one of the most corrupt politicians in Los Angeles history.

Gascon's predecessor buried her head in the sand when it came to police corruption. It's impossible to understand criticism of Gascon without reckoning with the impunity and comfort Lacey had enshrouded the police agencies of LA County.

This is why a lot of the daily newspaper reporting on Gascon is so frustrating. Newspaper journalists have to follow certain rules that can result in the eclipse of deeper truths. The tough on crime types know this, and use their power to drive crime narratives, wagging the dog.

The seemingly endless reactionary backlash to Gascon's reforms never really address fundamental questions about how reforms will address crime and prosecution. They simply play into the "common sense" imposed by decades in which the US was the world's largest incarcerator.

Those decades turned the idea of courts into a kind of theater of "justice" wherein the performance of the punitive hardass DA served a cultural purpose of making people feel safe, while the institution was safeguarded from answering critical questions about its efficacy.

Deterrence theory proves draconian punishment has a marginal effect on behavior. And yet hardass DAs continue to call for it. Why? Because reforms jeopardize the existence of a lucrative prison-industrial complex built on "common sense" ideas about punishment that are false.

Anyway, this ties into a thread I did earlier in the day about Gascon's apparent plans to dismantle the harcore gang unit, and @JamesQueallyLAT's reference to this shift as "seismic." James is really great at what he does, which is why I nitpick. https://twitter.com/CarpendiCacoeth/status/1380527425633755139?s=20