Here's a thought experiment: what happens if you release criminals, a lot of them, from jail?

If you asked a liberal in California, he would tell you these criminals were unjustly jailed in the first place (think racism on the part of liberal inner-city judges, juries, and prosecutors) and that these unjustly imprisoned would return to become productive parts of society.

Imagine their surprise to learn, then, that after reducing or eliminating sentences for certain property crimes, the rate of property crimes has only increased!

California voters' decision to reduce penalties for drug and property crimes in 2014 contributed to a jump in car burglaries, shoplifting and other theft, researchers reported.

Larcenies increased about 9% by 2016, or about 135 more thefts per 100,000 residents than if tougher penalties had remained, according to results of a study by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California released Tuesday.

Thefts from motor vehicles accounted for about three-quarters of the increase.  San Francisco alone recorded more than 30,000 auto burglaries last year, which authorities largely blamed on gangs.

Proposition 47 lowered criminal sentences for drug possession, theft, shoplifting, identity theft, receiving stolen property, writing bad checks and check forgery from felonies that can carry prison terms to misdemeanors that often bring minimal jail sentences.

Do you think liberals have learned anything from this?  Think again:

California still has historically low crime rates despite recent changes in the criminal justice system aimed at reducing mass incarceration and increasing rehabilitation and treatment programs, said Lenore Anderson, the executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice and a leader in the drive to pass Proposition 47.

"This report shows we are making progress," she said in a statement calling for less spending on prisons and more on programs to help reduce the cycle of crime.

The ballot measure led to the lowest arrest rate in state history in 2015 as experts said police frequently ignored crimes that brought minimal punishment.

They say a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.  If that's true, then it must also be true in California that a liberal is a liberal who has had his car or home broken into.  Indeed, people in San Francisco have had their cars broken into so frequently that they think this is the "new normal," and people talk laughingly to each other about how often their cars have been broken into, as if it's a subject of conversation as common as the doings of the local sports team.

Reality will never intrude on a liberal's ideology.  An illegal alien could shoot a woman dead on Fisherman's Wharf, and liberals would still never see a problem with sanctuary cities.  Homeless people can roam the streets like swarms of giant rats, leaving fetid excrement and bloody hypodermic needles in their wake, and people would accept it, because it is part of their ideology.

That's how they can call this abomination "progress."

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.

Image via Flickr.