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What do Little Saigon’s Vietnamese residents expect from new Rep. Derek Tran?

By Hanna Kang

As Rep. Derek Tran took his oath in Washington, D.C., last week alongside dozens of other new legislators, Orange County’s Vietnamese community celebrated a milestone moment.

For Garden Grove resident Khoa Le and his family, this moment carries historic weight. While Le, a Democrat, often finds himself at odds politically with his Republican mother and brother, he says the three agree on one thing: This milestone has been a long time coming.

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Prop. 47-funded programs are working to break cycles of crime (OC Register)

Ten years ago, California voters soured on the state’s decades’-long experiment with mass incarceration. After years in which badly thought out, financially devastating and morally corrosive laws such as Three Strikes and You’re Out made California less safe, in 2014 a majority of the electorate opted for a new approach.

In passing Proposition 47, Californians made a bet on a more effective approach to criminal justice. Instead of sending people to prison for minor crimes, more people would be sentenced to jail, and the resulting savings would be invested in proven crime prevention strategies like drug and mental health treatment programs, job training, services and support for crime victims and supportive housing.