(Daily Signal)—Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is fighting against what he calls a “criminal-first, victim-last mindset” that has swept through the commonwealth’s justice system under previous Democrat administrations.
As he campaigns for reelection, Miyares is armed with alarming statistics: Over 9,600 inmates were released early in fiscal year 2023 alone, with roughly 50% being rearrested—resulting in more than 4,500 new victims of crime.
In our candid interview, Miyares pulls no punches as he dissects the policy decisions that have undermined Virginia’s once-impressive public safety record. We also discussed local police chiefs who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and Miyares’ defense of parents’ rights in schools.
As Virginians turn their attention to this November’s election, Miyares argues that voters face a clear choice between the “social justice reforms” championed by his opponent and the proven policies that could make Virginia one of the safest states in the nation.
Listen to the full interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast” or read a lightly edited transcript below.
Joe Thomas: The attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Jason Miyares, taking a little time out from trying to keep the laws enforced in Virginia and then run for reelection as well. Talk about your role as the guy who’s been through this now as summer begins, and all the fairs and all the sweaty door knocking.
Jason Miyares: I get the great joy for the next couple months of asking Virginians to rehire me … to protect them as attorney general.
I like to say, “We’re the people’s protector.” We’ve had an incredible record of protecting Virginians, not just from criminal misconduct but corporate misconduct as well.
We’re proud of the work that we’ve done. Where we were in Virginia when we took office versus where we are today is really night and day. So, we’re proud of our record and it’s a great joy now to just be able to share that with Virginians.
Thomas: Talk about why people need to understand that it is important for criminals to serve out their term in prison for crimes they committed.
Miyares: Let me tell your listeners where Virginia was before we got into truth in sentencing.
Prior to George Allen, a great governor of Virginia in the 1990s, taking office, you had a revolving door in our criminal justice system where on average you served about one fourth or one fifth of your sentence.
So, if you were sentenced to 20 years for rape, you would actually be getting out in four or five years. That’s the world Virginia was in prior to him taking office.
A lot of hard lessons were learned, and he implemented truth in the sentencing, which says if you get 20 years, you have to serve at least 85% of that sentence.
In other words, if you do the crime, then you’re going to do the time. Our public safety record showed that, at the time, the crime rate plummeted.
Then they say, “The only thing you learn from history is nobody learns from history.”
You had a lot of these social justice warriors that got power under the previous governor, Ralph Northam, and they decided—even though Virginia was, at the time, one of the safest states of its size in the country—they wanted to change a lot of the hard progress we had made in keeping Virginia safe.
They decided they wanted to get rid of truth in sentencing and they brought back something called the Enhanced Earned Sentence Credit—I just call it the early-release program under Ralph Northam—and essentially allowed you to get up to 50% off your sentence depending on the category of crime.
It became what Virginia was before, where people were getting out with years upon years on their sentence. The worse the crime is, the more time potentially you could get off your sentence.
We opposed it, we warned them. This bill got passed in 2021 and went into effect in 2022. Now we’re starting to see the data of the Northam early release program, which my opponent Jay Jones was a champion of.
This is what we’ve seen: Just in fiscal year 2023, over 9,600 inmates were released early and roughly 50% of them were rearrested.
That’s over 4,500 new victims in Virginia that would not be victims of crime but for the foolish policies of this criminal-first, victim-last mindset that decided to ignore the victims and to care more about felons than about the safety of Virginians.
They put them back on the street where they promptly had to be rearrested. And we’re seeing similar disturbing numbers of coming up in 2024.
Thomas: It seems like it’s closely related to what [former Virginia governor] Terry McAuliffe did when he gave mass restoration of voting rights to some people who were on the FBI’s most-wanted list, some people who were back in jail when he did it because there was no due process to it. Nobody looked and said, “Hey, has this guy earned early release or not?”
Miyares: In the case of McAuliffe, you had somebody who was literally arrested for capital murder [who was] sitting in a prison in West Virginia [when he] was notified that his rights had been restored to vote in the Commonwealth of Virginia. That’s how absurd it was.
They never even bothered to see if these people were actually incarcerated. Again, this is a criminal-first, victim-last mindset.
The great irony of all this is that there is nothing new under the sun, as Scripture says. There’s not a single “social justice reform” they’re advocating for that was not already tried with disastrous results in the 1970s: cashless bail, early release of violent offenders, no truth in sentencing.
That was all part of the so-called enlightened reforms of the 1970s that had grappled so many people’s minds in the criminal justice system. They implemented it and the result was a crime explosion in the 1980s.
In the 1990s, we pushed back, brought back truth in sentencing, brought back common sense, and these people have all forgotten those hard lessons.
That’s part of my frustration: This is not new or novel. These reforms have already been tried. They don’t work, but these individuals are in a left-wing, ideological straitjacket they cannot get out of.
When we pointed out at a press conference the number of Virginians that have been hurt by these people getting out early, including a mom whose daughter was killed. Somebody got out early and he turned his car into a two-ton weapon and had tragically taken her daughter’s life, the Democratic leader in the state Senate just said, “Well, that’s just a one-off.”
Fifty percent rearrest means there are thousands of Virginians that have been revictimized by this dishonest, lenient early-release program that’s hurting Virginians.
Thomas: Gov. Youngkin just was in Chesterfield with state police talking about working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I really wanted to ask you about this as Virginia’s lawyer and the “top cop” in Virginia, but also as the child of an immigrant. Your mom immigrated here from Cuba, escaping Castro, but you are out here saying, “No, we need to have the rule of law.” Explain all that for folks who don’t see the difference.
Miyares: America’s an incredibly generous country. We allow 1 million legal immigrants a year, but what we don’t like is to feel like we’re being taken advantage of.
Prior to [my mother] being allowed to get her green card, she had to produce an affidavit that she would not be a ward of the state. She would not cost taxpayers money. She had to do a full medical and criminal background check.
That is very different than the individuals that decide to cut in line and decide to basically break the law when they come here. That’s why you’ve seen the greatest shift toward the GOP on illegal immigration are new Americans, those that have done it the right way.
I know the folks at CNN are always shocked at these numbers, but not if you actually talk to those in so many of our different immigrant communities that have come here legally.
When you do that citizenship oath, that is a moment where you take an oath of allegiance to the United States, to our Constitution and you swear off any foreign allegiance to another prince or king or government. It is an incredibly powerful, moving moment.
Those that have come here illegally never do that. They never do a background check. They never do a medical history. They never have to supply an affidavit saying they’re not going to be a ward of the state, and they sure don’t take that oath of allegiance to this country.
There is an absolutely Grand Canyon difference between those that have done it the right way and played by the rules and those that decide to come over our border in a lawless manner and come to this country.
Under Joe Biden, you had 8.2 million illegal immigrants that crossed that southern border while he was president. That is larger than the population of 32 U.S. states. That is not sustainable. It was absolutely a foreign invasion that had happened in our country.
Thomas: What do you say to the Charlottesville police chief who, all of a sudden, takes all the camera data and secures it so … only Charlottesville police can access it so that no illegal [alien] winds up getting caught in Charlottesville on a surveillance camera?
Miyares: It shows misplaced priorities and horrible judgment. Your first job as a public servant is to make sure your citizens are safe. The actions you described do not make your citizens any safer. It makes them less safe.
When you decide that you’re not going to cooperate with federal authorities for particularly those that are violent offenders that are here illegally that commit another crime, you are making your citizens less safe. The idea that they are less concerned about their citizens’ safety than those that have broken the law by coming here illegally, I think says a lot more about them and their misplaced priorities.
Thomas: I also want to see if we have an update on the Loudoun school situation. Can this school division just be more of a mess or is this the best thing that could happen leading into another gubernatorial election?
Miyares: Tragically, when we ran in 2021, our theme was parents’ matter. Virginia kind of became the epicenter of the parents’ matter movement because so many parents are told either through their school principals or through their school boards to sit down, be quiet, and you shouldn’t have a voice.
That was never our attitude here. We have fought for parents’ rights. One of our first lawsuits in Virginia that we had to litigate—and won—was simply this idea that parents could decide whether their child has to wear a mask in school, not an unelected bureaucracy.
We had to fight that all the way through the court system to be able to win that. We are proud of our work on the Parents Matter movement. We’re proud to stand with parents and the fight is never ending.
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