George Gascon, Los Angeles County's new head prosecutor, unveiled an agenda Monday that will usher in changes to the local criminal justice system by his refusal to prosecute certain crimes on top of other sweeping changes. Gascon, a former San Francisco District Attorney and former Los Angeles police officer, announced in a series of policy directives that many misdemeanor cases will be dismissed, saying that nearly half of those incarcerated on pre-trial misdemeanor offenses suffer from mental illness.
Gascon belongs to a wave of well-funded left-wing prosecutors who have come to office promising to eliminate racial disparities in the criminal-justice system. They are doing so by eliminating key components of the criminal-justice system itself. Gascon’s office will no longer prosecute a wide range of misdemeanor offenses.
Los Angeles streets, in all but its wealthiest neighborhoods, are
already overrun by squalid encampments. Business owners who have managed
so far to survive the lockdown regularly have to sweep vagrants off
their property in the morning, along with feces and drug paraphernalia.
The vagrant won’t leave? Don’t bother calling the police. Any arrest an
officer makes will simply be dismissed. If a homeowner sees a vagrant
climbing the fence to his house, he will have to deal with it himself. Ending such low-level public-order enforcement has long been a goal of
anti-cop activists, who allege that it is racist. But polls consistently
show support for such “broken-windows” policing in minority
neighborhoods.
Gascon’s most stunning exemption from prosecution is the directive not to charge suspects with resisting arrest. The vast majority of police shootings, however, could be eliminated tomorrow, if all suspects complied with officers’ commands. Resisting arrest is the biggest predictor of officer use of force. Decriminalizing such resistance is a recipe for more police shootings, of black as well as of white suspects.
As of Tuesday, many misdemeanor cases will be declined or dismissed prior to arraignment unless "factors for considerations" exist. The list of offenses includes trespassing, disturbing the peace, a minor in possession of alcohol, driving without a license, driving with a suspended license, making criminal threats, drug and paraphernalia possession, being under the influence of a controlled substance, public intoxication, loitering to commit prostitution and resisting arrest. In addition, prosecutors will not seek the death penalty and those accused of misdemeanors and low-level felonies will be referred to community-based programs. For juveniles, those accused of misdemeanors will no longer be prosecuted. Gascon's office will also decline to seek bail for anyone charged with a misdemeanor or non-violent crime and will end the use of sentencing enhancements.
So someone who is arrested for beating someone up could be allowed to walk free regardless of anything else as soon as the paperwork is completed. This means, in theory, that same suspect could walk out of the jail and commit the same crime on the same day.
One of the things cash bail enables is to keep those in jail that need to be there…but, also affords them an opportunity to be released upon certain conditions which is designed to keep them ‘honest’ until their next court date. Say, for example, you are arrested for any crime, and you are given a $100,000 bond by a judge. That means that you have to find a bondsman that is willing to take the risk for you not to escape or commit further crimes while you are out. It also means that you have to put a minimum of 10% cash down on the bond or turn over something worth $100,000. If the person who is bonded walks away, commits another crime, or runs, the money they put toward the bail and whatever they put up as collateral is forfeit to the bondsman. Now, bonds do not always work and often times people out on bond continue to commit crimes or try to flee. However, it works enough to keep the people that may be salvageable on the straight and narrow until their court case is heard. A growing number of prosecutors also are seeking to uncover and reverse wrongful convictions, which occur in a small percentage of cases, the move to release those who were correctly convicted but have now served decades in prison could have a far wider impact. More than 2 million Americans are in jail or prison, which is believed to be the highest incarceration rate in the world.
When police know that a crime is not going to be prosecuted, they are understandably less inclined to arrest that person. And when your local leadership doesn’t have your back as the “defund the police” mentality infuses city leadership, why would an officer put him or herself at risk? When police know that a crime is not going to be prosecuted, they are understandably less inclined to arrest that person. And when your local leadership doesn’t have your back as the “defund the police” mentality infuses city leadership, why would an officer put him or herself at risk?
Gascon has said in the past that he wanted to incorporate two different forms of the justice system in Los Angeles. One for the American citizens and one for those illegally in the country. His office released a plan that would work to help illegal aliens who had been arrested avoid jail time and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Gascon’s idea proposed factoring in “severe collateral consequences in charging decisions, plea negotiations, and use of diversion programs.” The hope was that by utilizing this scheme, it would keep illegal aliens from any jail time or deportation risks. Gascon also has proposed recently that he plans on reducing “prosecution of low-level, ‘quality of life’ offenses.” Those may include drug possession, driving without a license, and public urination. The rationale behind this is that illegal aliens that are arrested for these crimes, face what he believes are unfair immigration laws. The State of California is termed a “sanctuary” state. The local governments do their best to prevent illegal aliens, regardless of reason, from being deported or having any official dealings with ICE. One of those local jurisdictions, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, has a very strict policy in which their deputies are forbidden to turn criminal illegal aliens over to ICE regardless of reason.
While essentially decriminalizing a slew of crimes and eliminating bail requirements, Mr. Gascon is creating a crime soup that will further make living in Los Angeles a genuine hellscape where no one wins, crime rises, tourism suffers, lives are destroyed and businesses fail. We’ve seen the results in great American cities where so-called progressives tell citizens policing is racist, business owners are tyrants, and the successful are thieves.
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