California has seen seven years of transformative justice system reforms: AB109, enacted in 2011, lowered the prison population; Proposition 47, approved by voters in 2014, reduced certain nonviolent crimes to misdemeanors; Prop. 57, passed in 2016, gave more people a chance at parole and reduced prosecutors’ power to try children in adult court; and, in March, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on the death penalty.

California’s crime rate, meanwhile, is near historic lows.

But to listen to the politicians and law enforcement officials leading the charge against California’s recent reforms, the state is in crisis. Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood claims that reform will inevitably drive up crime; Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer asserts that California voters are “uninformed” and that “weak laws” will drive up violence; and Assemblyman Jim Cooper, a Sacramento County Democrat and Sheriff’s Department veteran, says law enforcement is under attack. This doom-and-gloom chorus calls for a return to the era of tough-on-crime, dumb-on-safety policymaking.

But the singers are no choirboys. Dyer has been investigated on suspicion of having sex with a minor, questioned about his right-hand man running a drug trafficking ring, and accused of singing a racist song in reference to minority officers. Youngblood’s department, meanwhile, is known for a series of killings and landmark settlements over police dog bites and sexual assaults, and has commented that it’s cheaper for police to kill suspects than to wound them.

Then there’s Cooper. Before he was a state assemblyman, he was the head of the Sacramento County Jail when it was embroiled in a scandal over officers strip-searching women and allegedly making them dance; in 2005, he allegedly grabbed his crotch and told a newly engaged subordinate she needed “jungle love” before she got married. The same year, a grand jury found he violated conflict-of-interest rules as a member of the Elk Grove City Council by taking part in decisions about the city’s contract with his employer, the Sheriff’s Department.

What puts such men in positions of power and prominence? Law enforcement special interests, namely police unions and the bail industry. Such groups are fighting to prevent the public from gaining access to police misconduct records, keep abusive cops on the streets and protect their own livelihoods by preserving mass incarceration. The bail industry in particular has been pouring money into efforts to stop reformers from ending their industry. Since 2014, the Peace Officers Research Association of California has given $41,500 to Cooper.

California law enforcement interests are battling an existential threat. They know they can’t continue to justify the enormous cost of mass incarceration given a shrinking justice system, declining crime rates and a voting public that is increasingly supportive of reform. So they seize on the false narrative that violent crime is rampant due to reforms.

It isn’t just the police and some legislators; it’s prosecutors, too. San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos trafficked in these tropes for years before losing his bid for a fourth term to a relative unknown. Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert narrowly won re-election after failing to bring charges in the police killing of Stephon Clark, aided by substantial campaign donations from law enforcement in the immediate aftermath of the killing (and nearly half a million dollars from law enforcement groups to date).

But California is getting safer and more progressive every day. No, we’re not perfect, but we have been leading by example, and our innovations are shaping the national conversation about criminal justice. We can’t continue to let extremist critics go unchallenged or they will succeed in setting us back.

Lara Bazelon is a professor and the director of the Criminal Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice Clinical Programs at the University of San Francisco School of Law.