Joe Watson: Steller’s ‘repeat offender’ column props up a failed system

At several turns, Tim Steller’s Sept. 7 column, “Repeat offenders, not school case, prosecutor’s real problem,” reads like a press release from the Tucson Police Officers Association (TPOA), the local police union. Because the argument that prosecutors are too lenient and Tucson is less safe thanks to light sentences is a familiar TPOA refrain.

It is also false, and has been proven so again and again.

Arizona has spent decades showing us that longer sentences don’t work. Our state hands down some of the longest prison sentences in the country; in fact, as the Prison Policy Initiative reports, Arizona “locks up a higher percentage of its people than any independent democratic country on earth.”

If harsher punishment created safety, every town in Arizona, including Tucson, would be among the safest cities in America. Because, according to multiple analyses — most recently from ASU’s Academy for Justice — people in Arizona convicted of violent crimes, drug offenses, and property crimes receive sentences that are 25% longer, 40% longer, and twice as long, respectively, as the national average.

So much safety, right? No, in fact, Arizona isn’t safer. Because longer sentences don’t address the underlying conditions — poverty, untreated mental illness, and a lack of stable housing and access to opportunity — that drive people into the criminal justice system in the first place.

That’s the real revolving door. People cycle in and out of jail not because any one prosecutor is too lenient, but because the system was built to punish desperation rather than confront it directly.

Steller leans on the case of Daniel Hollander, who entered a school gym with a gun in the middle of a psychotic episode and ended up with a short sentence. But the real pivot in his column comes when he parrots TPOA’s talking points over so-called “prohibited possessor” cases. He even calls prohibited possessor charges a “useful” way for police to get “gang members and gunslingers off the streets.”

Useful to whom? Not to the Tucsonans whose lives have been shaped by poverty, segregation and systemic, institutional violence. Not to the families destabilized when a parent is repeatedly locked away. And certainly not to a community that wants fewer shootings, not more headlines. “Useful” in this context only applies to a police union that thrives on fear, bigger budgets and political leverage — not on solving the problems that lead people to pick up a gun in the first place.

Steller points to the 572 prohibited possessor cases filed by the Pima County Attorney’s Office (PCAO) last year, noting that around half were dismissed or pled down, treating this data like it’s evidence of leniency. What it actually shows is how shallow the whole model is. Counting prosecutions and racking up prison years has been Arizona’s playbook for decades, and it has failed. If we’re measuring safety by case counts, we’ve already lost the plot.

TPOA’s “revolving door” rhetoric works because it shifts blame away from policing itself and away from political leaders who refuse to deal with root causes. The real reason these stories get repeated is because addressing mental health, housing, wages and opportunity would shift power and resources away from police unions and politicians, and put them in the hands of the community.

And that’s not what TPOA wants.

If Tucson is serious about safety, it won’t come from another round of harsh sentences. It will come from investing in people before they ever enter a courtroom, as one survey of people from all across Tucson begs. It will come in the form of housing security, treatment for those in crisis, real jobs that offer stability and prosperity, and programs that interrupt violence before it starts.

That doesn’t make for an easy headline. But it’s the only path to real safety. Tucson deserves better than recycled talking points about “repeat offenders.” We deserve solutions that actually work — and leadership willing to put community needs ahead of political power.