Category Archives: Victimless Crimes

Dear Editor,

Crime permeates our society. We are bombarded daily with a series of blue collar and white collar crimes. However, we seldom hear of those in the white collar bracket being confined to prison. Their crimes are often premeditated, thus more heinous than those committed by people jailed for crimes other than murder, rape, violent crime and battery. There are also victimless crimes such as prostitution, pornographic dissemination, illegal drug use, and mandatory seatbelt and motorcycle helmet laws. These crimes should be regulated or taxed. Property crimes and violent crimes are the rule of the day. This development is depressing and makes one sad to see that we have been seeing a decline in crime prevention and reduction with the passing years. Creative and tested deterrents to crime should be utilized. Community policing, video surveillance established by the State, longer sentences, rapid responses to calls from citizens requiring police presence (probably all calls) and drug treatment are some of the primary methods which should be employed. The police need to have a cooperative relationship with the populace as this will help us all to combat crime. Citizens need to be provided with data which reveals the number of criminals apprehended. The donations of large quantities of vehicles to the police force by foreign governments has not improved the polices responses. Most of the time when citizens call the police stations they are told that there isnt a vehicle available.

The government, Mayor and local government need to play a pivotal role in their expenditure, public presentations and advocacy for legislation to address and reduce crime. Citizens need to make demands on their officials, legislators, judges and the police to conform to public opinion on crimes. Judges are important and should be given more autonomy and the assistance of legislation to set more severe sentences. Prosecutors obviously lack the skills or resources to convict offenders. It appears that the majority of people charged with serious crimes are released due to lack of evidence. A survey or statistic would confirm or reject that. It is appalling that such cases presented for prosecution are approved for trial. There are three main goals of the correctional system: punish, rehabilitate and separate criminals from the general population. Offenders see incarceration as punishment and their confinement removes these undesirable characters from society. Hence, two of the goals are fulfilled but rehabilitation poses a bigger challenge. The condition of our prisons and the treatment of the inmates imperil any chances of rehabilitation. Undoubtedly, within those walls, prisoners are developing more violent, incorrigible behaviour.

In the absence of capital punishment and early release programmes, more prisons will have to be built, which is a dire and overdue necessity. Many people feel that imprisonment provides a breeding ground for creating hardened criminals and an increase in crimes. It is surprising that the overcrowding of our prisons has not led to lawsuits. Maybe it is the result of prisoners having no representation and it is of little or no financial gain to lawyers to work on their behalf. Why is the Human Rights Committee not intervening? To cope with overcrowding at prisons there are methods which could be employed. These are job-related skills training, placement services and drug and alcohol counselling. Electronic monitors could also be used to maintain a form of house arrest. An example of a waste of police resources can be seen at Regent and Cummings Streets where a group of police using bicycles assemble, jovially conversing and mainly idling but occasionally swooping down harshly on motorists. There are many more accident and crime prone junctions and areas around the town and beyond where traffic police and other police could be deployed.

In Guyana we need to start with more selective recruitment of police based on both background and academic qualifications. These will merit at least a living wage for a family of four. These methods will help to eliminate the brusque and boorish behaviour of some police. Imme-diate and rigorous training courses should be a part of recruitment and subject to oversight by responsible and respected members of the public. Last but not the least, we need an active and rapid response from the police when citizens call for help. This would include a functional and effective 911 telephone number facility in order to obtain a rapid police response.

Sincerely,

Conrad Barrow

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Combating crime requires major reforms between police, a cooperative public and the correctional system - Stabroek News

Its striking that some of todays advocates for abolishing or defunding the police echo Mr. Vollmers views. Mariame Kaba, an anti-criminalization activist and grass-roots organizer, recently argued that one way to abolish the police would be to redirect the billions that now go to police departments toward providing health care, housing, education and good jobs. She proposed that trained community care workers could do mental-health checks if someone needs help.

Mr. Vollmers 1936 textbook makes a similar suggestion, though more as an approach to reducing crime than Ms. Kabas goal of creating a cooperative society in which police are obsolete. Mr. Vollmer asserted that school, welfare, health, and recreation were more likely to prevent crime than jails. In a movement which aims at the reduction of crime, he wrote, there simply is no place for slums, malnutrition, physical want or disease. He added that victimless crimes like drug use and sex work should be handled by nonpolice agencies, just as mental health crises should be.

And like todays advocates for criminal justice reform, Mr. Vollmer wanted police officers to be accountable, hence his emphasis on keeping careful records of all arrests and investigations. Almost single-handedly, he ushered in the age of data analysis in police work. There is a direct line between his strategies in the 1920s and the use of body cams today.

There is also a direct line between his work and racial profiling. Like many white men of his day, Mr. Vollmer was infatuated with scientific racism, or the constellation of ideas that suggest there is a biological basis for racial hierarchies. In a section of his proposed police training curriculum, he listed eugenics, the origin of races and race degeneration as part of a section on criminological anthropology and heredity. Despite hiring Berkeleys first Black police officer the renowned Walter Gordon, who later was the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands Mr. Vollmer suggested in some of his writings that Black people were predisposed to crime. Khalil Gibran Muhammads book The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America explores how the violent injustices of Jim Crow policing were bolstered by ideas like the ones Mr. Vollmer promoted.

A veteran of the Philippine-American War, Mr. Vollmer based the Berkeley Police Departments centralized command structure on what he had experienced in the military. And in 1906 he established mobile bicycle patrols (yes, he was an early champion of bicycle cops, too), based on tactics he learned while crushing resistance fighters outside Manila.

In the last century, Mr. Vollmers emphasis on mandating education and a professionalized police force has largely fallen by the wayside. While some police departments set minimum college education levels for their officers, many dont, despite research indicating that officers who have graduated from college are almost 40 percent less likely to use any form of force. His notion of a liberal college education for police was supplanted by models that are closer to technical training programs, according to the criminal justice professor Lawrence W. Sherman. Instead of serving as a resource for changing the role of the police, Mr. Sherman wrote in the late 1970s, college programs for police officers have been subverted to help maintain the status quo in policing.

While some of this shift had to do with the growing conservatism of police departments, it was also rooted in a theory of community policing. Critics pointed out that working-class people couldnt always afford to attend universities. If police departments wanted to hire officers who could patrol their own low-income neighborhoods, the argument went, it was elitist to demand four-year degrees.

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Opinion | August Vollmer 'Abolished' the Police in 1905 - The New York Times

The photo, posted on an Instagram account called @driftershoots, shows a man standing precariously close to the ledge of a building in New York City, higher even than the famous spire of the Chrysler Building, gazing down in contemplation. But the message below it is a positive one.

Picking up a camera was lifesaving for me, it showed me all the beautiful things in life after my life was falling apart, the caption reads. After losing a friend to deployment, two others to suicide and my partner of four years all in the span of six months. Im forever thankful for this new life and for the privilege of serving.

The arresting image is just one of many that Isaac Wright, a US Army veteran, captured as he explored buildings and bridges around the country as a way to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder. Now, his high-flying exploits have earned him criminal charges across the country and he could go to prison for 25 years.

Mr Wright was a paratrooper and chaplains assistant with the Army for six years, before retired in 2020 with an honorable discharge after an ankle injury.

His time in the armed services, while rewarding, often took a toll on him, as his job required supervising a hundreds of troops often suffering from serious mental health challengeseven as he had PTSD and depression himself. After leaving the Army last year, the pandemic made it hard for him to access psychotherapy treatments at a veterans hospital, and he soon turned to urban exploration as a way to calm his mind and find joy and fulfillment.

Using a small medical pension, he traveled around the country, using his wits and military training to scale buildings, bridges, and construction sites in New York, Texas, Michigan and Louisiana, racking up more than 20,000 Instagram followers for his striking aerial photos.

One day, however, after scaling the Great American Tower in Cincinnati, Ohio, and leaving a sticker with his Instagram handle, authorities began catching up with him, putting out a nationwide warrant for his arrest and warning that his military experience made him armed and volatile, when the reality was more like it made him depressed and seeking fulfillment.

In December, state troopers in Arizona shut down a highway to catch him, with more than 20 officers descending on his car with assault rifles, dogs, and a helicopter circling above. He came to find out he had also picked up criminal charges in Louisiana, Philadelphia, and Michigan, some including felonies for breaking into buildings to take photos, even though most urban explorers are fined or charged with low-level misdemeanors.

You could put me through years of therapy, give me all the meds in the world, and it would not help me the way that my art helps me, he told The New York Times, which first reported his story, adding, Not everything thats illegal is immoral. What if it is a victimless crime that is bringing something wonderful into the world and inspiring and helping people?

He has been offered a plea deal to avoid prison time if he pleads guilty to a felony, agrees to therapy, and ceases climbing, which he says he already has.

Police officials told the Times they took such a strong line against the veteran because of the extent of his activities and how dangerous they were.

The level of sophistication this guy is using and the magnitude of his crimes is pretty scary, captain Doug Wiesman of the Cincinnati police said. The pictures are beautiful, Im not going to deny that, but he leaves a wake of destruction.

In another post from this Friday, featuring in image atop the Queensborough Bridge in New York City amid a flurry of snow, Mr Wright vowed to fight the charges against him.

This fight is just beginning but we will get there, he said.

Continue reading here:

Veteran faces criminal charges after using urban exploration to treat his PTSD - The Independent

More than 15m cigarettes and four and a halftonnes of tobacco have been seized in two separate operations.

f the smuggling attempts had not been detected, it would have cost the Treasury approximately 7.2m in unpaid duty and VAT, officials said.

In the first operation, Border Force officers detected 4.44 tonnes of tobacco that arrived into Northern Ireland from Germany. The container was shipped from Rotterdam to Belfast and was destined for an address in Co Down. The revenue and VAT evaded would have been approximately 1.44m.

In the second operation, 15,120,000 cigarettes were detected at Belfast Docks after two containers were examined after arriving from Vietnam via Rotterdam. The containers appeared to be wooden furniture and were destined for an address in Belfast. The revenue and VAT evaded would have been 5.8m.

Both seizures were referred to HMRC for investigation.

Justice Minister Naomi Long said: Revenue and VAT evasion are not victimless crimes: this is the money we use to pay for our health service, education and infrastructure being stolen to fund all manner of illegal activity.

Get quick and easy access to the latest Northern Ireland news, sport, business and opinion with the Belfast Telegraph App.

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More than 15m cigarettes confiscated in Northern Ireland - Belfast Telegraph

Is there such a thing as a victimless crime? Yes. Criminal justice laws are created by the government to restrict unwanted behavior and actions. Many of these criminal laws are meant to protect others, such as laws against assault or abuse. However, a number of laws criminalize consensual behavior or actions where there are no victims. This may include laws against recreational drug use or prostitution.

Unfortunately, the courts and judges do not always take into account whether a crime is victimless when enforcing laws. However, your criminal defense attorney may be able to negotiate a reduced sentence or lesser penalties by showing the court that there was no identifiable victim. Talk to an experienced criminal defense lawyer for legal advice in your case.

A victimless crime is generally an illegal criminal act that does not have an identifiable victim. This generally includes actions that only involve the perpetrator or something voluntary between consenting adults. Victimless crimes are also known as crimes against the state that do not harm society.

The police may claim that there is no such thing as a victimless crime, but is that really true? There are laws in other countries that prohibit criticism of the government, which criminalizes free speech. Other countries criminalize consensual behavior like same-sex relationships or drinking alcohol. Many of the laws that criminalize harmless behavior are based on opinions about morality.

There is no set definition of a victimless crime, and each person may have a different opinion about whether a criminal offense is actually victimless. Some of the common examples of actions that may be called victimless crimes include:

There is often a fine line between what is considered a crime or not. For example, going to Las Vegas and playing poker for money is legal. However, playing a poker game for money in another state may be illegal gambling. Smoking recreational marijuana is legal in states like California andOregon, but doing the same thing in Alabama could get you thrown in jail. State criminal laws and regional attitudes can make a big difference in whether victimless activities are against the law or permissible.

Prostitution is legal in many countries. Its even legal in parts of Nevada. However, in the rest of the U.S.,solicitationof sexual acts in exchange for money is against the law. Criminalizing sex work does not eliminate the act but drives it underground. When treated as a crime, sex workers may be less willing to come forward to report more serious offenses, like violence or sexual assault.

There are many terminal diseases or debilitating conditions that leave patients suffering needlessly. For many of these people, suicide may be the best way to die with dignity. In states with assisted suicide laws, these people can make the decision to die on their own terms instead of continuing to suffer. However, in most states, suicide and assisted suicide is against the law. Prohibition of end-of-life care decisions can end up victimizing the person the laws are meant to protect.

The attitudes toward drug use are changing in the U.S. Not long ago, drugs like marijuana were illegal in all forms in all states. Now, a majority of states havemedical marijuanalaws, and a number of states are also legalizing marijuana for recreational use. More states are beginning to decriminalize drug possession, treating drug offenses as a substance abuse problem rather than a crime. Categorizing drugs as medically useful or harmful is not always based on science. However, in some states, the victimless crime of marijuana possession can still lead to a prison sentence.

Gambling is one of the most common criminal activities that people do not consider a crime. Betting on a March Madness bracket or Super Bowl pool at work may technically be against the law. A poker game between friends seems harmless, but it may violate state anti-gambling laws. However, state-sanctioned gambling may be totally legal, including the buying of lottery tickets. Many states have exceptions for charitable gaming or tribal casinos.

Homelessness is a major concern in many states. The simple response for many states is to criminalize the actions associated with homelessness instead of addressing the underlying issues. This includes laws against:

Homelessness may be the result of substance abuse, mental health conditions, domestic violence, or even an unexpected medical emergency. Criminalizing homelessness is a temporary measure that does not do anything to help those in need.

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Examples of Victimless Crimes | LawInfo

There are some laws on the books that dont seem to harm anyone, but violating those laws is still illegal. Some people consider credit card fraud or insurance fraud to be victimless because the only real victims are big corporations. However, other crimes seem to leave no victims behind because everyone involved is consenting. While you may think of these as victimless crimes, the courts disagree.

A victimless crime is an illegal criminal act that only involves participants who consent to the activity. The views on these crimes are often based on social standards or community standards of what should or should not be against the law. However, the fact that no one was harmed against their will is not generally a legal defense.

Who is the victim when someone grows their own marijuana, never sells or shares it with anyone, and only consumes it at home? Who is the victim when two consenting adults agree to have sex in exchange for some money? The police and prosecutor may argue that society is somehow the victim or there are indirect victims of the crime. Even if the offense does not seem to harm anyone, the law allows for the arrest and prosecution of the offender.

Also known as complaintless crimes, police officers still crack down on minor offenses that do not have any direct or identifiable victims. Some examples of victimless or complaintless crimes include:

Historically, many acts were illegal because they were considered immoral. Past laws considered immoral included criminal laws against homosexuality or interracial marriage. These victimless crimes only changed after legal challenges and a change in social attitudes. However, the laws vary by state, and some states allow activities that other states still consider illegal. This includes criminal law regarding:

Some states may selectively criminalize unlawful acts, based on the situation or setting. For example, a group of friends playing a poker game may be committing illegal gambling, but the state may allow gambling as a commercial enterprise in a casino or through the state lottery.

Many people in the U.S. still consider some of these victimless offenses to be wrong or immoral. It is much the same in other countries, where it also seems clear that politicians create these laws to criminalize behavior without real consideration of justice or whether anyone was being harmed. In other countries, it may be a criminal offense to:

In most cases, you can not put forward the defense that there were no other victims of the crime. However, entrapment may be a defense if police enticed you into participating in criminal activity and you would not have done so otherwise. Entrapment is an often misunderstood legal defense, so it is important to understand how it works before relying on thisdefense strategy. Talk to your criminal defense attorney for advice on the best legal defense in your case.

Entrapment occurs when a law-abiding person is convinced to commit a crime they would otherwise not have committed. Entrapment can occur through threats, coercion, harassment, or fraud. However, an undercover officer offering the opportunity to commit a crime is generally not considered entrapment.

For example, if an undercover officer tells you that they knew where to get drugs and you gave the officer money to buy drugs, this is not entrapment. However, if the officer told you to sell drugs for them or the officer would harm your family, that could be considered entrapment.

Another criminal defense may include a defendants lack of knowledge about the criminal activity or victims. For example, receiving stolen goods is generally only against the law if you know or reasonably should have known the goods were stolen. If you did not know the goods were stolen, you never would have thought whether there might be a victim.

It may not seem fair that you are being punished for something that didnt cause anyone any harm. Even if it involves a victimless crime, you may still face serious consequences. You may have several criminal defense options to help you avoid a criminal conviction, however. Contact acriminal defense lawyerfor legal advice and assistance.

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Does Victimless Crime Exist? | LawInfo

A Calgary man wanted on more than 100 warrants has been arrested and charged with crimes dating back three years.

Six days after he was released from jail, Justin Taylor Hartland, 38, was suspected in a downtown break-and-enter.

Hartland is accused of breaking into a lockbox to steal the master keys to a downtown apartment building on March24. The keys were then used to break into the mailroom.

At the time, Hartland was also wanted on more than 100 outstanding warrants.

On May 22, Hartland was arrested and charged with the break and enter.

Police also added more than 100 other charges related to fraud, property offences and breaches of court-imposed conditions.

"Property crime offences are not victimless crimes;they affect our citizens' sense of safety in our communities," Staff Sgt. Kurt Jacobs said in a release.

"Our analysts work hard to identify property-crime trends and associated suspects that can then be located and charged."

The Calgary Police Service says its offender management unit works closely with parole officers to identify the city's most prolific offenders who can then be monitored to ensure they're obeying their court-ordered release conditions.

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Calgary man wanted on 100 warrants arrested and charged with 3 years' worth of crimes - CBC.ca

A paedophile had so many indecent images of children on his phones that police stopped counting.

The images - mainly of girls aged one to 15 - were only discovered after Stuart Roy Kearn, 47, failed to tell police about a new relationship he was having with a woman and that he stayed with her some nights.

A previous court order obliged him to do so, Caernarfon Crown Court heard.

Officers swooped and found his two phones with the 1, 279 indecent images and movies on them.

Kearn, of Bath Road, Wrexham, was found guilty of possessing indecent images of children, and admitted breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and also failing to comply with notification requirements.

A judge jailed him for a total of three years and four months.

The prosecution said Kearn and the woman began a relationship and he would stay with her every other evening.

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But he didnt tell police about his change in circumstances.

He had been given an 18-month jail term and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) in June 2016.

Caernarfon Crown Court heard Kearn had only given his new partner a sanitised version of his crimes and had not told her about the SHPO.

When police arrived at his own home in 2019, they found a black Samsung smartphone - which they knew about - but also a white Samsung smartphone which they didnt.

Police analysed the devices and found 1,279 indecent images and movies of children.

The prosecutor said they stopped counting after that but there were many thousands more.

Andrew Green, defending, said his client has yet to take full responsibility for his actions.

But he said: The life he was starting to build in a settled relationship, with a woman he was very fond of - that life is now in tatters. That relationship has finished.

He added: Since his convictions for these offences hes lived in a hotel. Hes back to square one.

Judge Nicola Jones said there had been a large number of different victims in the images, with some "in discernible pain".

She told Kearn: These are not victimless crimes. Children are abused, raped and tortured.

She jailed Kearn for two years and six months for possessing indecent images in Category A, the most serious.

He also got 16 months and four months imprisonment for possessing indecent images of children in Category B and C, respectively. Both those terms are to run concurrently with the main sentence.

Kearn was jailed for a further ten months for failing to comply with notification requirements - to run consecutively - plus a concurrent, seven-month term behind bars for breaching the SHPO.

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Paedophile had so many indecent images that police stopped counting - North Wales Live

If you thought that you can upload anything on cloud storage services without having to worry about the content and whether anyone will bother to check if it violates the usage terms, heres a story that proves this notion wrong. A 52-year-old man in South Australia has uploaded 156 media files containing child abuse material onto Google Photos and Google Drive. Soon, he was arrested and charged for possession of material that violates section 474.22A of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).

This means the man is now facing a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, which is to be decided by the Port Pirie Magistrates Court. As Detective Superintendent Gail McClure stated, this arrest is another warning that law enforcement can reach online resources that users consider private and safe and that the power that comes from international law enforcement collaborations is enough to aid them in locating anyone involved in devastating crimes. In this case, the report came from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Indeed, Google doesnt have the capacity to thoroughly check every possible term infringement on services like Photos and Drive, as users upload huge volumes of files there every day. We discussed this problem again in January when Google Drive was apparently turning into an atypical pirate haven, freely offering or selling access to movies, porn videos, personal images, software, etc. These repositories were also being indexed by Google Search, so finding them isnt hard, neither for users nor for the police as it seems.

During the arrest, the South Australia Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team (SA JACET) also seized a laptop, two desktop computers, a mobile phone, and a notebook containing handwritten passwords. By using these credentials to access the devices and other online accounts of the charged man, the investigators found a significant amount of additional abuse material.

Even if one is not producing this material yourself but merely buying or downloading and sharing it, it is not a victimless crime, and one is by no means innocent. Every piece of child abuse image or video that is out there amplifies the trauma for the child, and as long as abusers see demand for this material, they continue to have the incentive to produce more.

Read more here:

Man Charged With Possession of Child Abuse Material After Uploading It to Google Drive - TechNadu

In 1960, the U.S. violent crime rate started rising, and for three decades this was one of the most vexing and discussed problems in America.

By the early 1990s, policy makers had mostly lost hope. And then violent crime started falling. And it kept falling.

Meanwhile, the number of incarcerated Americans continued to climb.

It was the crime decline that made possible a bipartisan movement to reckon with the injustice of mass incarceration and the failure of the war on drugs.

But last year, the United States experienced the largest rise in homicides in decades, and violent crime rose particularly sharply in big cities, which could bring the return of tough-on-crime rhetoric and undermine the criminal justice reform movement.

Critics say a recently elected group of district attorneys in elite coastal cities, who are dismissing routine property crimes and failing to jail potentially dangerous individuals, are exacerbating the problem.

This backlash underscores why it's so important to distinguish between worthwhile criminal justice reform and simply failing to enforce the rule of law.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is among this new crop of progressive prosecutors. He was raised by two famous left-wing radicals of the 1960s, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, and his biological parents were imprisoned on felony murder charges when he was a baby, stemming from their involvement with the Weather Underground, a radical left militant organization.

Since Boudin took office in January 2020, burglary, arson, and murder have all spiked in San Francisco, though rape and assault rates have fallen, and most of his term has taken place during the COVID-19 pandemica time when life in the Bay Area has been far from normal.

Boudin is facing possible recall for failing to prosecute and jail a man accused of committing several burglaries and then drunkenly running over and killing two women, and a man twice accused of domestic abuse who then murdered an infant.

But can other progressive district attorneys strike a better balance as they reform the system?

"I think that the big lie was, basicallythat overincarceration, more police presence, and more prosecutions actually [were] leading to greater safety. When, in fact, it has probably led to greater insecurity," says George Gascn, who took office this year as Los Angeles County's new district attorney. He's a former Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer and once held the same job as Boudin in San Francisco.

Gascn defeated the more conservative incumbent Jackie Lacey with his radical reform agenda, pledging to release up to 20,000 "low-risk" offenders. He immediately ended cash bail for misdemeanors and what he calls "low-level, nonserious crimes."

"We saw people that were being held in pretrial incarceration for weeks or months, simply because they couldn't afford a very low dollar a month to bail," says Gascn. "They were not necessarily dangerous. So the reality is, there is no connection between how much money you have in your bank account and whether you're dangerous or not."

Since taking office, Gascn has made good on his promise not to prosecute victimless crimes like low-level drug possession and sex work. But he's also declining to prosecute actual property crimes like trespassing.

"Data is continuing to flow, and more so recently, that shows that deemphasizing the criminal process when it comes to low-level nonviolent offenses, actually increases the safety in general, not just for those types of crimes, but even for more serious crimes," says Gascn.

But the property crime rate jumped nearly 40 percent during Gascn's almost nine-year tenure as San Francisco's D.A., a fact Gascn attributes to local police retaliating against him for co-authoring California's Prop 47, which reclassified many felonies as misdemeanors.

"A lot of cops said, you know, basically we're not going to enforce any of this stuff anymore. They were against [Prop 47]. They wanted to basically teach me a lesson," says Gascn.

But Gascn's critics in Los Angeles believe he's stripping law enforcement of the ability to keep the city safe.

"Quality of life crimes are not something that you want to prosecute on every instance, but you also don't want to have a blanket policy that prohibits you from ever prosecuting them as well," says Eric Siddall, vice president of the L.A. Association of Deputy District Attorneys, the prosecutors union that sued Gascn for directing the D.A.'s office not to pursue extra harsh sentences for repeat felons or for crimes involving gang members. A judge recently ruled partially in their favor.

Siddall says that the Los Angeles D.A.'s office has been making positive reforms for years and that Gascn is disregarding public safety

"There has to be a middle ground," says Siddall. "And I think that's what our office was trying to do prior to Mr. Gascn. But when you have a blanket policy that completely ignores quality-of-life crimes, then expect the quality of life to decrease in those neighborhoods."

Seven municipalities including the Beverly Hills, Whittier, and Pico Rivera city councils have issued votes of "no confidence" against Gascn. The L.A. sheriff has publicly supported a recall.

Siddall worries that stripping prosecutors of the ability to pursue harsher sentences against gang members will set back the decades-long effort to stem gang violence in a city once plagued by it.

"He basically destroyed most components of our office and our ability to effectively prosecute cases," says Siddall. "He pretty much dismantled [the gang prosecution unit] and redirected resources to other projects.So it's very clear from his policies, his words, and his actions that he is not terribly interested in dealing with violent criminals here in Los Angeles."

But in recent years, problems with L.A.'s gang database have emerged after LAPD officers were charged with fabricating gang affiliations of individuals they pulled over, forcing prosecutors to review hundreds of possibly tainted cases.

Gascnhas also opposed long prison sentences even for the perpetrators of violent crimes.

"Data indicates thatas we get older, there's a less likelihood that we're going to re-offend," says Gascn, who points out that California houses many senior citizen inmates at a great cost to taxpayers.

While it's true that people are less likely to commit crimes as they grow older, the data on the effectiveness of long sentences on deterring and preventing violent crime is mixed. One study of California's "three strikes" law found that the policy "significantly reduces felony arrest rates." Another study from the Public Policy Institute of California that examined the state's resentencing reforms, which saw the early release of thousands of inmates, found "little evidence of a relationship between more severe sanctions and better recidivism," partially bolstering Gascn's argument. The researchers unsurprisingly discovered a significant drop in drug re-offenders as the state deprioritized drug offenses but a slight rise in repeat offenders in more serious categories like crimes against persons.

"This data and science argument that he uses is baloney," says Siddall. "You're not going to have less crime by letting violent criminals out of prison. You're not going to have less crime by not punishing people appropriately. You're not going to have less crime by not penalizing someone from using a gun. You're not going to have less crime by basically saying, 'We're going to give a pass to the gangs.' That's just not going to work."

Despite his stated commitment to following the data, Gascn isn't immune to political pressure. He repealed his own order not to seek long sentences for criminals who victimize children or the elderly or commit hate crimes, claiming that because former President Donald Trump had so poisoned the country with hate, he had no choice.

"Enhancements and your larger periods of incarceration do not work, even for hate crimes," says Gascn. "HoweverI had a lot of people that came to me and say, 'You know, hate crimes are on the increase. And we are wary that given the posture of the national administration at the timethe message you're sending might be that hate crimes are OK.'"

While Boudin's time in San Francisco may test the limits of criminal justice reform, it's Gascn's tenure in one of the world's largest cities that could test the very concept of the progressive prosecutor: that social services can fix most or all urban dysfunction and that withholding police and prosecutorial resources can force the adoption of those alternatives.

While he faces resistance from law enforcement, city governments, his own team of prosecutors, and the legal system itself, Gascnremains committed to the idea that broad, systemic change is needed for safety and justice.

"We are a country that has increasingly become a country of have and have-nots," says Gascn. "The successful democracies in the world are the ones where you shrink thatdifference between those that have incredible wealth and those that do not.And in those societies, you see not only greater levels of security and public safety, but you see a greater level of satisfaction across the board, both for those that are affluent and those that are not."

Produced by Zach Weissmueller; opening graphics by Isaac Reese

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Will the Spike in Murder and Violence Undermine Criminal Justice Reform? - Reason