Posted on 12/04/2020 5:06:17 AM PST by karpov
In October, the Seattle City Council floated legislation to provide an exemption from prosecution for misdemeanor crimes for any citizen who suffers from poverty, homelessness, addiction, or mental illness. Under the proposed ordinance, courts would have to dismiss all so-called “crimes of poverty”—which, according to the city’s former public-safety advisor, would cover more than 90 percent of all misdemeanor cases citywide. In effect, the legislation would create a new class of “untouchables,” protected from consequences by the city’s powerbrokers.
This is the latest and most brazen effort in the city’s campaign to establish what might be called a “reverse hierarchy of oppression.” The underlying theory is that society has condemned the lower class to a life of poverty and stigma, which leads to addiction, madness, and indigence. The poor, in the logic of Seattle’s progressive elites, are thus forced to commit crimes—including violent crimes—to secure their very existence. Therefore, as society is the perpetrator of this inequality, the crimes of the poor must be forgiven. The crimes are transformed into an expression of social justice.
On a practical level, if this ordinance becomes law, it will effectively legalize an entire spectrum of misdemeanor crimes, including theft, assault, harassment, drug possession, property destruction, and indecent exposure. Criminals must simply establish that they have an addiction, mental-health disorder, or low income in order to evade justice. The impact of this measure would be enormous. In 2019, the Seattle Police Department reported 25,993 thefts, 8,442 assaults, 6,430 property offenses, 4,194 frauds, 3,910 trespasses, and 1,640 narcotics violations—representing 72 percent of all reported crimes. If the ordinance passes, nearly all these crimes would be permitted under law.
The courts, for their part, would be eviscerated.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
I eagerly await news of the first Seattle council member who has the living sh*t beaten out of he/she/it/whatever - followed by complete jury nullification of the perp.
This will end only when those Democrat fear going out at night, in the day, or in between.
Get to it, Seattle. You will only return to civilized life when Demorats fear the light.
Wait. I just answered my own question.
Never mind.
This will do wonders for the commercial insurance rates for small business in the area...If the commercial carriers are even willing to continue to write policies.
These people are so cray cray, they give the Iranian mullahs a run for the money. Any injuries Seattle council member suffer will just affirm their white privileged guilt and be taken in stride.
Indeed. But must remember, the ‘decline’ in misdemeanor crime statistics this policy will result in (by definition, but of course not in fact) will be taken as evidence of ‘success’ by the leftist leadership herd. Pointing to the raging ‘success’ of this policy, leftists will push it everywhere.
I hear the clerks in the self checkout section talk about that almost every week.
The store strategy now is to identify the thieves on video and ban them from the store. If they come in again, store security calls the cops, and the cops arrest the perp for trespassing.
That is the theory, anyway. Not sure how well it works.
They’re creating a caste society where laws only apply to white males.
The city council could easily just... strike the laws from the books but they won’t do THAT.
Their actions are unconstitutional and un-American and they need to be dragged out of office and tarred and feathered.
Communism is here. We are at war.
These geniuses make yet another brilliant move! If only the rest of were so smart. What could possibly go wrong???
Mad Max revisited.
“My upscale QFC (Kroger) grocery store in the Seattle suburbs already gives Black people a free pass for shoplifting.”
If it gets too bad, they will just close the grocery stores. They are doing that already in San Francisco. What else can they do?
Seattle like Los Angeles is a dead zone they can never recover or be trusted.
Democrat ran states put them at risk of riots and destruction of all types.
Try as they might, Seattle (or any other Leftist city for that matter) will never out-San Francisco San Francisco for sheer lunacy of politicians and unelected bureaucrats ... that’s not to say they won’t try!
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