By Dean Maddox, Public Safety & Crime Reporter

California is broke. Families are crushed by sky-high costs for gas, groceries, and rent. Small businesses are shutting down. Crime is through the roof, and people don’t even feel safe walking their own neighborhoods.

So what are Sacramento Democrats focused on? Cutting criminals a bigger paycheck.

Assembly Bill 248 just advanced in the Legislature. After clearing the Assembly, it’s now on the Senate floor awaiting a final vote. This bill scraps the old $2 cap for an eight-hour day and lets county boards of supervisors hand out whatever “wages” they want to jail inmates. In liberal counties like Los Angeles and San Francisco, that means taxpayers will be forced to bankroll criminals while the rest of the state sinks further into debt.

And here’s the insult: voters already rejected this idea. Proposition 6—the so-called “anti-slavery” measure—was shot down at the ballot box. The people said no. Democrats didn’t care. They just went around the voters and rammed it through anyway.

These are the same politicians who screamed “defund the police,” cut law enforcement budgets, and then watched crime explode. The same ones who get on camera acting “tough” about smash-and-grabs while quietly pushing bills that reward the very criminals tearing California apart.

Law enforcement leaders know exactly what this is. The California Police Chiefs Association came out against AB 248 because they’ve seen this game before. Every time Sacramento makes prison more expensive, the next line out of the Democrats’ mouths is: “Prisons are too costly—we need to close more.”

That’s the real play here. Jack up the cost of incarceration on purpose, then use it as an excuse to shut prisons down and dump more felons back on the street. It’s a cycle: reward criminals, punish taxpayers, release more offenders, repeat.

Meanwhile, the state is billions in the red. Businesses are getting robbed blind. Families are packing up and fleeing California. And the Democrats running Sacramento think the answer is to turn criminals into a protected class and send you the bill.

That isn’t justice. That isn’t reform. That’s betrayal—of voters, of victims, and of every working Californian who just wants safe streets and honest government.