Criminal Justice Reform Done Wrong
A potentially seminal moment in the tug-of-war between Defund-The-Police and Law-and-Order types occurred on Tuesday, when progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was recalled by the city's voters. Rather overwhelmingly (60% voted to recall), at that.
Boudin didn't take this gracefully, nor did he acknowledge that his policies weren't working. He blamed "right wing billionaires and police officers," and lamented that they "outspent us 3 to 1" (CBS News puts it at 2:1).
The mayor, London Breed, will appoint an interim replacement ahead of an election to fill the seat this November, and I'm curious to see if she heeds the voters' message or simply picks another progressive with similar proclivities.
"Reformers" such as Boudin are correct in believing that policing needs improvement. But, their remedies are spectacularly wrong. You don't resolve over-policing by allowing lawlessness to prevail. San Francisco has become notorious for risk-free shoplifting. A referendum that reduced the penalty for stealing goods less than $950 was reduced from felony to misdemeanor status, coupled with an obvious message that shoplifters would not be prosecuted vigorously was essentially an open invitation to anyone without a moral compass to simply help himself or herself to retail goods and walk out. It got so bad that Walgreens closed several of its locations in the city and many other stores started closing early.
That's just one of the many "reforms" that are essentially 'we won't prosecute low level crimes.' "Catch-and-release" has become the norm, with repeat offenders back on the street within hours of being arrested, and even violent criminals being released without bail. Dozens of attorneys have quit the AG's office since he was elected, citing his lack of commitment to prosecuting crimes.
Here's how it all went wrong.
"Reform" is not the prosecutor's job. Public safety and protection of citizens' rights via prosecution of those who break the law is. The law is where reform needs to start, and that is the legislators' job.
We incarcerate far more people per capita (715/100K) than any other nation in the world (the G7 average is 196, and the average in the Former Soviet Republics is 288). This number alone tells us we have an incarceration problem.
Thing is, government has as a fundamental role the protection of individuals' rights, both personal and property, and abandoning that role, as Boudin did, is an absolute dereliction of duty. Government exists in no small part to protect and serve, and when it breaks that contract, it invites social disorder and decay.
What's the answer?
The crux can be found in the description of the role. The State is obligated to prosecute those who commit crimes against others. Where it goes wrong is in victimless crimes.
The first such that come to mind are things like drug possession, prostitution, and other "morals" crimes, but the reality goes much deeper than that. Millions of people are charged for trivial misdemeanors such as jaywalking, sitting on sidewalks, and the like. A quarter of our jail and prison population traces to misdemeanors. Millions more who are charged with civil offenses, such as messy yards or unkempt trash bins, but who cannot afford the money to pay or the time to contest, see their unpaid fines escalate to jailable levels, with bench warrants issued, and people spending their lives fearful of any interaction with police. A simple infraction often escalates to punishment that far exceeds the magnitude of the offense.
The ripple effect of this mass incarceration for low-level, victimless offenses cannot be ignored, either. Get a criminal record, your life prospects instantly diminish. This report is well worth reading.
What's the remedy here? First, we must recognize that there are many laws on the books whose primary purpose is adding money to government coffers. Police officers are supposed to improve public safety, not serve as revenuers. Eric Garner died because he was selling untaxed "loosie" cigarettes. L&O types will argue that he shouldn't have resisted arrest, but if the bullshit "we want this money" tax wasn't on the books and the politicians who order cops to go get it weren't so greedy, the incident wouldn't have happened. So, step one has to be scrubbing victimless, revenue-seeking laws from the books, and that has to be done by legislators, not prosecutors.
Second, police resources, even if these 'quality-of-life' rules remain on the books, should be focused on crimes-against-others. That does include shoplifting, by the way - a shoplifter not only harms the store owner, he increases prices and reduces access for all who frequent the store. Sending cops out with unspoken, "nod and a wink" ticket quotas that are just about adding to the government's bank account needs to stop.
Third, sort out the important from the picayune. Many low level offenders are corralled into probation sentences, but then face the risk of probation violations getting them tossed in jail. Worse, many who are innocent or have a good chance at winning in court are often pressured into taking deals, so that prosecutors can keep their stats up without overwhelming the system.
Finally, we really do need to have a conversation about the futility of the War on Drugs. That's a huge and complex topic, so I'll save the depth for another day.
You get the idea. There are crimes and there are "crimes." The government should indeed continue to prosecute the former, where the victim is other than the government's bank account. It must stop treating the criminal justice system as a cash flow, and that must start with legislators.
Unfortunately it's legislators, and especially blue state legislators, who are so hungry for Other People’s Money (it’s always OPM) that such reforms don't get talked about. Instead, they rewrite criminal codes and bail laws, making no distinction between crimes-against-others and crime-against-the-treasury, absolve actual criminals of culpability, and leave many victims with no recourse and no protection.
There are more topics to discuss, including excesses in juvenile incarceration, but as I noted, you get the idea.
Criminal justice reforms are indeed warranted, no matter what hard-liners may claim. But, they're being done very wrong at the moment, and the reformers need to wipe their idea board clean and start anew, if they're serious about remedying this problem. That these reformers are also of a big-spending mindset is the biggest obstacle our society faces in addressing this serious issue.
A footnote: Don't think I didn't notice the seven point star that Boudin is wearing on his lapel. Reportedly first used by the San Francisco Police Department, the seven points represent the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Virtue, Divinity, Prudence, Fortitude, Honor, Glory and Praising God, and worn on the left to symbolically protect the heart. Whether or not Boudin knows this history, is religious, or embraces any of these qualities, it remains that the star is a symbol of protective service, a role he abandoned even as he took the top protector's job in the city. He deserved the recall, and anyone who follows in his footsteps deserves the same.
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Yours in liberty,
Peter.
