There were good reasons for the groundswell of support for criminal justice reform in recent years. People accused of low-level crimes found themselves stuck in jail solely because of their inability to make an arbitrarily decided bail amount. The deaths of unarmed Black men in encounters with police demanded accountability. So, too, did racial disparities in drug sentencing.

We think Dallas in general has tried to deal with criminal justice issues thoughtfully if imperfectly, seeking a balance between maintaining public safety and treating defendants fairly. Still, the political blowback felt on the West Coast in this year’s elections offers lessons on what happens when leaders of major cities — even progressive ones — take criminal justice reform too far.

Take Los Angeles County, where a new district attorney took office last week. His predecessor, George Gascón, who saw his mission as fighting mass incarceration, pushed for more lenient treatment of criminals, including gang members and juveniles accused of serious crimes like murder. His office dropped the number of misdemeanor prosecutions for offenses like trespassing and drug possession, frustrating residents who saw their quality of life affected. Gascón paid dearly for his policies, booted from office in November after a reelection bid that he lost by 20 points.

In the San Francisco Bay area, Alameda County recalled its district attorney, Pamela Price, for her resistance to tougher charges even against defendants involved in violent cases. According to CBS News, she refused to seek enhancements for jail sentences that she said disproportionately affected people of color.

San Francisco and Oakland voters, unhappy with homelessness, ousted their mayors in 2024. So did Portland voters, who also replaced their district attorney.

The election winners weren’t right-wingers. They were candidates who styled themselves as left-leaning moderates interested in a middle ground.

Notably, both California and Oregon voters this year reversed propositions that had loosened criminal offenses. Oregon recriminalized hard drugs after an experiment gone awry that saw its number of overdose deaths spike and its streets turned into open-air drug markets. California restored felony punishments for certain theft and drug crimes.

These developments are worth paying attention to after the successful passage in Dallas of Proposition R, an activist-led measure that strictly limits the city’s ability to police the possession of up to 4 ounces of marijuana. We worry this is part of a broader agenda to erase lines in the social contract that should balance individual rights with our collective interest in public safety.

We should also remember passed propositions to hire more police and to make it easier to sue the city for not enforcing its laws.

Prop R might embolden some politicians and activists to go further. But California’s and Oregon’s rightward shift shows that even liberal communities sour on lax drug enforcement and tolerance of homeless encampments.

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