Posted on 12/01/2016 6:32:41 AM PST by mandaladon
Since we’re talking about California in general and San Francisco in particular it’s probably difficult to surprise us anymore when some crazytown news crops up, but this item from the San Francisco Gate should still raise a few eyebrows. A Superior Court judge out there found himself explaining why he had tossed out more than 66,000 arrest warrants last year and essentially stopped issuing new ones for what are frequently described as “quality of life crimes.”
San Francisco’s chief judge says he and his colleagues discarded 66,000 arrest warrants issued over five years for quality-of-life crimes, like sleeping on the sidewalk, because it made no sense to lock people up for fines they couldn’t afford.
The crimes, which also include urinating on sidewalks and being drunk in public, are infractions punishable only by fines. But when those who were cited failed to show up in court, judges in the past have issued bench warrants ordering them to appear, with a sentence of five days in jail for failing to show up.
But San Francisco Superior Court judges stopped issuing the warrants a year ago and recently disposed of about 66,000 bench warrants issued since January 2011. The city’s police union and some members of the public have protested, but Presiding Judge John Stewart defended the court’s action Tuesday in a meeting with The Chronicle’s editorial board.
These are primarily crimes involving vagrancy, public intoxication and other low level crimes which nonetheless tend to detract from the quality of life in the community. And that’s why the generic description is so ironic here. The actual “quality of life” issue under discussion isn’t that of the defendants who were found to be urinating in front of the diner or sleeping on a park bench.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
The problem is not the peeing or the laws about it. There are some sensible points on both sides but they all fail to address the core issue.
The peeing is the symptom. Unless you address the root problem, you are merely trying to put band-aids on a sucking chest wound.
Salmon everywhere are concerned.
“Don’t let them catch you smoking, though!”
I was walking down the street at Union Square in the late 1980s, and some woman took a cigarette right out of my mouth and threw it down.
I was so astonished that I didn’t even smash her in the mouth with my fist. I still regret that.
I don’t smoke any more, but I still hate tobacco Nazis.
What about defecation? If they legalize that also there will be no real need for sewage treatment plants. Think of the savings.
Well to be fair, this is a judge ruling in opposition of existing ordinances, thus ruling against the will of the people.
Typical judicial activism.
You can thank the ACLU for some of this problem.
They forced Reagan to close the mental hospitals & let those who had such problems roam in the general population of America.
When we had the mental hospitals, the problems were CONTAINED. Now the problem is NOT CONTAINED—anymore than a bee swarm is contained.
See your Federal funds dry up, SF, and see how this also affects your ability to keep drawing tourists.
I can see it now-—COME VISIT DISNEYLAND—or BRANSON—or The Dells—or Mt Rushmore—and avoid the urine on the sidewalks in San Francisco!!!!
It’s called Shipping Containers, effective housing for minimal costs.
All though most of the homeless I have met are young, healthy, lazy, worthless, pieces of human sh!t who should be driven into the ocean with whips and chains.
There used to be such a thing as Poor Farms, Vagrancy Laws, Pan Handling Laws and Visible Means of Support Laws.
who wants to go there?....
give me the small town mountain towns any day of the week....the colder the better because then the hobos and trash will stay away....
“give me the small town mountain towns any day of the week...the colder the better because then the hobos and trash will stay away...”
I live in a town where the bums usually leave when it gets cold. This year they seem to be staying.
My son has been to two work conferences in SF in the past few months. He said it smelled like piss and twice he saw people taking a dump up against buildings abutting the sidewalk.
He’s refusing to attend anymore conferences there.
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