We occasionally hear what are heralded as “groundbreaking” announcements of a new, more humane approach to crime. The problem is that they’re anything but new — they’re just same the old Sixties and Seventies stuff warmed over in fancier language — and they’re not humane either, at least if one thinks that the proliferating number of crime victims we get as a result isn’t particularly humane.

After the results start coming in, then, with a much quieter announcement, the people who were originally so enthusiastic take a step, or quite a few steps, back. Hence, in the Mercury News (a local Bay Area paper) — and conspicuously not on CNN or MSNBC or any of the biggies — we see this story:

OAKLAND — Days after ordering 120 California Highway Patrol officers to the East Bay, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced plans to also send state attorneys to Alameda County to beef up prosecutions of numerous “serious and complex crimes.”