The left is bad at crime and punishment: New Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon

[JohnCommode]

Extremists like Gascon, Newsom, Cuomo, and de Blasio are the kind of Dems that I have little use for. They also usually windup bringing about the election of more and more Republicans, even with the moribund Republican Parties of California and New York.

As for his opponent, I'm rarely comfortable with a D.A. who gets such strong support from police unions as it often indicates someone who too easily accepts police excesses. That appears to have been the case with Lacey. Had she been as tough on the police as she was on criminals, maybe she could have survived what was a difficult election environment for urban law and order candidates.

[Dan Druff]

So packing the courts with BS charges is just fine for some random perceived greater good. I mean at least since it doesn't affect any one you know. Cool cool. Not that it's a revelation how much of hypocrite you are.

Who's talking about BS charges?

I'm talking about charging criminals with actual violations of the law they committed, for purposes of extracting either a guilty plea or a sufficient sentence. Most criminal cases never go to trial. Typically there's either a plea bargain, or charges get dropped. That's because most arrests are for actual crimes committed, where the person being charged knows he did it, and there's a good chance he will lose at trial. It becomes a negotiation session at that point, where the accused accepts a punishment which is substantially less than he'd receive if he were to lose at trial. That's a function of number of charges, likelihood of conviction, and time possibly to serve if convicted. My shoplifting example in a previous post provides a good example of this.

Drug & Paraphernalia Possession, Minor in Possession of Alcohol, Drinking in Public, Under the Influence of Controlled Substance, Public Intoxication, Loitering and Loitering To Commit Prostitution. Definitely not the type of charges that are very selectively enforced. Clearly it's for the greater good that the public doesn't know if you get charged with any of the above. Who doesn't love a legal system that's vague as fuck.

Why do you keep focusing upon the least serious of the crimes they're not charging? The DA's office exists specifically to review charges for minor charges such as "loitering" and "public intoxication", and separate the difference between a chargeable criminal act and a frivolous charge/arrest. That's literally what the DA's office is supposed to do. They are NOT supposed to make or modify law, or unilaterally decriminalize things. That's for the state legislature.

Oh and this phrase, "You don't need the DA's office informing the criminal population which crimes they can commit and never be prosecuted", is on a whole other level of retardation. Yea let's not tell the population what are the legal ramifications of their actions beforehand. Please defend that.

I'm sorry that you have such a hard time understanding this. I've already explain this a number of times, but I'll try again using even simpler language.

If you want to know the legal ramifications for committing crimes, you can look up these crimes in the state penal code, and the possible penalties are listed right there in black and white.

What the DA's office actually charges, and the penalties they seek against you, are based upon a variety of factors. You don't get to find out in advance whether your crime is going to be harshly charged or leniently charged. That's not how criminal justice has ever worked in this country, and only a complete drooling mong would advocate a system like this.

[gimmick]

What the DA's office actually charges, and the penalties they seek against you, are based upon a variety of factors. You don't get to find out in advance whether your crime is going to be harshly charged or leniently charged. That's not how criminal justice has ever worked in this country, and only a complete drooling mong would advocate a system like this.

Oh my bad. That's how the civilized world functions.

[Dan Druff]

Let me see if I can put this another way, to where our babbling Nordic friend can better understand my points being raised.

Let's say gimmick decides to get away from the Finnish cold and moves to Los Angeles in January 2021.

Upon learning this, I say to myself, "Oh good! That Euroleftist babbler has always annoyed the fuck out of me with his contrarian political posts. I'm going to track him down and intimidate him into quitting this crap."

So I look up gimmick's phone number and address.

<ring>

gimmick: Hello?

Me: Hey gimmick, it's Dan Druff. I heard you moved to LA. Now I get to finally confront you face-to-face about your endless Eurobabble. I'm coming over, and we're going to talk face to face about this.

gimmick: I don't have a desire to do this. Please don't come over. If you do, I'm calling the police.

Me: Fuck off, Eurotard. I'm coming over anyway.

<click>


At this point, I realize that perhaps this isn't worth it. Do I really want to come over, trespass on his property, and possibly get arrested and charged for it? I have to make a decision if I'm angry enough about his forum posts to take this chance. Do I really want to risk a criminal record and jail time over this? Probably not.

Now, let's say I decide to take the chance and do it anyway. Let's say he tells me to leave, but instead I go into his backyard and keep yelling at him to come out, including threats about what I'll do if he doesn't let me in. He calls the police, and they arrest me. It's very possible that, given my otherwise law-abiding record, and the fact that nobody was actually hurt, they'll not end up charging me.

But I won't know this in advance. The inability to know beforehand whether I'll be charged would be a huge deterrent from trying this in the first place.



Now let's go to the same example, except where I know in advance that I definitely WON'T be charged for trespassing or threats. At that point, the decision is easy. There's a zero point zero chance I will suffer any legal consequence for going down there, trespassing, shouting threats, and refusing to leave. I know this because the Los Angeles DA told me that they won't charge cases like these. Thus, no such deterrent exists, and I can go harass gimmick at his home without a care.


See the difference? Imagine how helpless you'd feel if you're gimmick in this situation, and you know that some psycho can come over and harass you, and threats to call the police will have no teeth and no consequence.

None of this is good for society. Criminal law is on the books for a reason, and it's definitely not there so a bleeding heart activist can unilaterally undo it.

[gimmick]

The reason why i'm focusing on the "minor" offences is because that is what this particular DA policy is about. Sure he probably is milking it for random woke points or whatever.

But the pragmatic effect is reducing jail population and court time. Oh and those two are also quite connected because swift justice part hasn't been thing for a minute.

[Dan Druff]

What the DA's office actually charges, and the penalties they seek against you, are based upon a variety of factors. You don't get to find out in advance whether your crime is going to be harshly charged or leniently charged. That's not how criminal justice has ever worked in this country, and only a complete drooling mong would advocate a system like this.

Oh my bad. That's how the civilized world functions.

Really?

So all European countries tell criminals exactly how (and if) they'll be charged before they commit their crimes?

You realize that criminal law itself exists to lay out what is and isn't a crime, and what the penalties are for those crimes, right?

Does one guy in Finland unilaterally decide criminal law?

[Dan Druff]

The reason why i'm focusing on the "minor" offences is because that is what this particular DA policy is about. Sure he probably is milking it for random woke points or whatever.

But the pragmatic effect is reducing jail population and court time. Oh and those two are also quite connected because swift justice part hasn't been thing for a minute.

There's lots of ways to reduce the jail population and court time. You don't need one activist unilaterally decriminalizing various offenses because he's a leftist asshole with a power complex.

Again, this isn't his place to do. This is an issue for the state legislature to handle. Since the state is controlled by Democrats (and has been for a long time), he should have plenty of friendly parties who can work with him to accomplish this.

Announcing, "Hey, y'all! Here's some crimes you can commit now, and you can totally get away with it, guaranteed! Look how woke I am, guyz!!!"... isn't going to accomplish anything except create chaos and increase crime in the area.

Criminal law exists for a reason, including law involving minor crimes. You have to be a complete dunce not to understand that laws pertaining to minor crimes are also important, and shouldn't be tossed away. Most crimes are minor, and they tend to cause quality of life issues for society as a whole. In some cases, such as driving on a suspended license, they can end up with devastating major consequences if not enforced.

This idiot woke DA has dumbed it all down to nonsensical left-wing talking points, to where he's using his office for activism instead of justice and the protection of society.

[Wiganer]

Yes, the law is vital to protect society. Lock Trump up!

[gimmick]

Let me see if I can put this another way, to where our babbling Nordic friend can better understand my points being raised.

Let's say gimmick decides to get away from the Finnish cold and moves to Los Angeles in January 2021.

Upon learning this, I say to myself, "Oh good! That Euroleftist babbler has always annoyed the fuck out of me with his contrarian political posts. I'm going to track him down and intimidate him into quitting this crap."

So I look up gimmick's phone number and address.

<ring>

gimmick: Hello?

Me: Hey gimmick, it's Dan Druff. I heard you moved to LA. Now I get to finally confront you face-to-face about your endless Eurobabble. I'm coming over, and we're going to talk face to face about this.

gimmick: I don't have a desire to do this. Please don't come over. If you do, I'm calling the police.

Lol. Why the fuck would i care or call the police. Why don't you just keep playing with your domestic liberal friends.

Here's the thing. I'm not a liberal. I'm not a democrat. I've never been either.

I'm fairly pragmatic about everything. Either i don't care what you do or i do. If i do care, i don't need state to do my dirt. I don't mind blood on my hands. Quite the contrary. I don't think how i go about my business as very good public policy, but i'm also not looking for the state to quench my blood thirst. At a cheap cheap cost of fucking over thousands of strangers, just so i can have state take care of retribution if i'd ever need them to.

[Dan Druff]

Extremists like Gascon, Newsom, Cuomo, and de Blasio are the kind of Dems that I have little use for. They also usually windup bringing about the election of more and more Republicans, even with the moribund Republican Parties of California and New York.

As for his opponent, I'm rarely comfortable with a D.A. who gets such strong support from police unions as it often indicates someone who too easily accepts police excesses. That appears to have been the case with Lacey. Had she been as tough on the police as she was on criminals, maybe she could have survived what was a difficult election environment for urban law and order candidates.

The police union matter is the elephant in the room which neither party wants to touch, unfortunately. Weaken police unions, and a lot of the brutality problems go away.

The left doesn't want to weaken the police unions because they don't want to ever oppose labor unions. That's why the left's solution to the brutality issue is a bunch of meaningless blather about "eliminating racism" (how?) and a lot of reform ideas which avoid touching the union.

The right doesn't want to weaken the police unions because they want to be perceived as pro-police, and most police officers would oppose weakening the unions. Therefore, in order to remain the party which is friendly to the police, they can't touch the precious union.

I agree with you. They need to weaken the union and make it far easier to get rid of problem officers (and also make sure those officers can't gain employment in other departments).

That's a whole different discussion for a whole different time, though. But truthfully, we're not going to see any meaningful police brutality reform until we see the police unions weakened.

[gimmick]

Oh my bad. That's how the civilized world functions.

Really?

So all European countries tell criminals exactly how (and if) they'll be charged before they commit their crimes?

You realize that criminal law itself exists to lay out what is and isn't a crime, and what the penalties are for those crimes, right?

Does one guy in Finland unilaterally decide criminal law?

So did the one guy get to decide criminal law for US, California, LA? I'm sure you know the answer. No.

Unincorporated areas of LA county. Nothing but a handful of misdemeanors charging policy. Probation violations, arrests and the fucking laws all are exactly the same as they were before.

None of this is even remotely decriminalizing fuck all.

[gimmick]

The reason why i'm focusing on the "minor" offences is because that is what this particular DA policy is about. Sure he probably is milking it for random woke points or whatever.

But the pragmatic effect is reducing jail population and court time. Oh and those two are also quite connected because swift justice part hasn't been thing for a minute.

There's lots of ways to reduce the jail population and court time. You don't need one activist unilaterally decriminalizing various offenses because he's a leftist asshole with a power complex.

Again, this isn't his place to do. This is an issue for the state legislature to handle. Since the state is controlled by Democrats (and has been for a long time), he should have plenty of friendly parties who can work with him to accomplish this.

Announcing, "Hey, y'all! Here's some crimes you can commit now, and you can totally get away with it, guaranteed! Look how woke I am, guyz!!!"... isn't going to accomplish anything except create chaos and increase crime in the area.

Criminal law exists for a reason, including law involving minor crimes. You have to be a complete dunce not to understand that laws pertaining to minor crimes are also important, and shouldn't be tossed away. Most crimes are minor, and they tend to cause quality of life issues for society as a whole. In some cases, such as driving on a suspended license, they can end up with devastating major consequences if not enforced.

This idiot woke DA has dumbed it all down to nonsensical left-wing talking points, to where he's using his office for activism instead of justice and the protection of society.

Nothing is decriminalized. You don't live in the world where you have time, space and funding to keep packing your jails, prisons and courts.

Your reality is that since the 90s you've been handing out more probations for felonies than misdemeanors. You don't think maybe you should do something about it.

While we're at i live in the world where we could invent a 100 new crimes and enforce them to their full extent without overstraining the justice system.

The US justice system is a disgrace to the free world and California has been one of the worst states for the last 5 decades. Home of the fucking Brand, Mexican Mafia and Black Guerrilla Family. California exported MS13 and 18th street to South America. Fuck you're playing great.

[Rick Sanchez]

The police union matter is the elephant in the room which neither party wants to touch, unfortunately. Weaken police unions, and a lot of the brutality problems go away.

The left doesn't want to weaken the police unions because they don't want to ever oppose labor unions. That's why the left's solution to the brutality issue is a bunch of meaningless blather about "eliminating racism" (how?) and a lot of reform ideas which avoid touching the union.

The right doesn't want to weaken the police unions because they want to be perceived as pro-police, and most police officers would oppose weakening the unions. Therefore, in order to remain the party which is friendly to the police, they can't touch the precious union.

I agree with you. They need to weaken the union and make it far easier to get rid of problem officers (and also make sure those officers can't gain employment in other departments).

That's a whole different discussion for a whole different time, though. But truthfully, we're not going to see any meaningful police brutality reform until we see the police unions weakened.

If only the rallying cry had been "bust police unions" instead of "defund the police". That might actually have had popular support.

[adamantium]

all kidding aside this Gascon sounds like a fucking moron

[Dan Druff]

There's lots of ways to reduce the jail population and court time. You don't need one activist unilaterally decriminalizing various offenses because he's a leftist asshole with a power complex.

Again, this isn't his place to do. This is an issue for the state legislature to handle. Since the state is controlled by Democrats (and has been for a long time), he should have plenty of friendly parties who can work with him to accomplish this.

Announcing, "Hey, y'all! Here's some crimes you can commit now, and you can totally get away with it, guaranteed! Look how woke I am, guyz!!!"... isn't going to accomplish anything except create chaos and increase crime in the area.

Criminal law exists for a reason, including law involving minor crimes. You have to be a complete dunce not to understand that laws pertaining to minor crimes are also important, and shouldn't be tossed away. Most crimes are minor, and they tend to cause quality of life issues for society as a whole. In some cases, such as driving on a suspended license, they can end up with devastating major consequences if not enforced.

This idiot woke DA has dumbed it all down to nonsensical left-wing talking points, to where he's using his office for activism instead of justice and the protection of society.

Nothing is decriminalized. You don't live in the world where you have time, space and funding to keep packing your jails, prisons and courts.

Your reality is that since the 90s you've been handing out more probations for felonies than misdemeanors. You don't think maybe you should do something about it.

While we're at i live in the world where we could invent a 100 new crimes and enforce them to their full extent without overstraining the justice system.

The US justice system is a disgrace to the free world and California has been one of the worst states for the last 5 decades. Home of the fucking Brand, Mexican Mafia and Black Guerrilla Family. California exported MS13 and 18th street to South America. Fuck you're playing great.

Indeed! Nothing is decriminalized, so the DA shouldn't treat these crimes like they're decriminalized. His office should review each charge and take the appropriate action in each case for each individual. I don't know why this is a tough concept for you to understand. That's what DA offices have done everywhere in the US since long before either of us were born.

I'm glad to see that you are for more prison time and less probation for felonies. So am I.

I'm also glad to see that you are advocating tougher action against dangerous street gangs in California. So am I.

Nice to see we found common ground! Unfortunately, the Democrats in California, including this DA, are constantly finding ways to get these horrible criminals out of prison sooner. Maybe you should move to California, get naturalized, and vote Republican, so we can help change that!

[gimmick]

Nothing is decriminalized. You don't live in the world where you have time, space and funding to keep packing your jails, prisons and courts.

Your reality is that since the 90s you've been handing out more probations for felonies than misdemeanors. You don't think maybe you should do something about it.

While we're at i live in the world where we could invent a 100 new crimes and enforce them to their full extent without overstraining the justice system.

The US justice system is a disgrace to the free world and California has been one of the worst states for the last 5 decades. Home of the fucking Brand, Mexican Mafia and Black Guerrilla Family. California exported MS13 and 18th street to South America. Fuck you're playing great.

Indeed! Nothing is decriminalized, so the DA shouldn't treat these crimes like they're decriminalized. His office should review each charge and take the appropriate action in each case for each individual. I don't know why this is a tough concept for you to understand. That's what DA offices have done everywhere in the US since long before either of us were born.

I'm glad to see that you are for more prison time and less probation for felonies. So am I.

I'm also glad to see that you are advocating tougher action against dangerous street gangs in California. So am I.

Nice to see we found common ground! Unfortunately, the Democrats in California, including this DA, are constantly finding ways to get these horrible criminals out of prison sooner. Maybe you should move to California, get naturalized, and vote Republican, so we can help change that!

Your prisons and jails are already full. So you actually need ways to get some of the old "customers" out. Expediting court appointments is just one way to do it. Tossing out the least disruptive crimes out of court is the "cheapest" way to do it in the short term.

And you're right, i think it's an awful idea to hand out probations for felons just to make room in jails/prisons. That is what you've been literally doing since the 90s. You can compare that to dropping charges for intoxicants and loitering. Oh and the repeat 10mph speeding offender. Can't forget that guy.

Other "conservative" things i've never heard a single conservative say about prison reform would be to never let lifers anywhere near general population. Fixing the corruption so a few thousand lifers can't run statewide criminal organizations for decades. And the single biggest thing, stop subsidizing street gangs in the form of "drug war".

[desertrunner]

Extremists like Gascon, Newsom, Cuomo, and de Blasio are the kind of Dems that I have little use for. They also usually windup bringing about the election of more and more Republicans, even with the moribund Republican Parties of California and New York.

As for his opponent, I'm rarely comfortable with a D.A. who gets such strong support from police unions as it often indicates someone who too easily accepts police excesses. That appears to have been the case with Lacey. Had she been as tough on the police as she was on criminals, maybe she could have survived what was a difficult election environment for urban law and order candidates.

The police union matter is the elephant in the room which neither party wants to touch, unfortunately. Weaken police unions, and a lot of the brutality problems go away.

The left doesn't want to weaken the police unions because they don't want to ever oppose labor unions. That's why the left's solution to the brutality issue is a bunch of meaningless blather about "eliminating racism" (how?) and a lot of reform ideas which avoid touching the union.

The right doesn't want to weaken the police unions because they want to be perceived as pro-police, and most police officers would oppose weakening the unions. Therefore, in order to remain the party which is friendly to the police, they can't touch the precious union.

I agree with you. They need to weaken the union and make it far easier to get rid of problem officers (and also make sure those officers can't gain employment in other departments).

That's a whole different discussion for a whole different time, though. But truthfully, we're not going to see any meaningful police brutality reform until we see the police unions weakened.

As a former member of a few unions (IAFF and CSLEA), I need to jump in here. There is one thing the union busters never get, its important protection, an insurance policy if you will. I always inform people that a union is good as it fixes little problems internally so they get squashed and do not lead to expensive court action, which costs the taxpayers money. If it wasnt for unions, the firefighters and cops would get the screw from upper management, typically the problem is a personality conflict where a mid-level supervisor wants to flex over the low level worker bee. If it wasnt for a union, that worker bee would get ran over every time and really have no defense.

To use maybe a better example that might relate....Recently Druff hired a lawyer to defend him in a lawsuit. Hiring a lawyer to defend himself was really his only defense in this case. In my opinion, this is the same as using a union, youre hiring (or pre-paying) someone to defend you. If the worker bee didnt have a union, then he/she must hire a lawyer out of pocket and that can be expensive. Its all about defending yourself and assets and middle management and upper management is not always right.

I know "unions" is a bad word in the conservative world, but they are always broad brushed in a certain negative connotation. I dont always see them as bad, rather insurance. If you look at the states of Arizona and Utah, they are anti union and guess what, the entry level cops and firefighters typically leave for California and then Nevada. Firefighter/Paramedics at the AZ boarder (Fort Mojave Mesa) are constantly going to LVFD and CCFD for double the pay and benefits. Most firefighters want better pay and the LAFD, LACo FD and OCFA offer that. Its a constant cycle that rarely gets fixed and the agency loses up to 25% productivity by constantly adverting to hire, interview, outfit, train and then just to lose the new employee to another better paying employer. Its the whole Walmart and/or fast food worker cycle and its expensive.

Speaking of Walmart, here is where YOU the taxpayer really lose out because of a non union operation- Walmart. This article is from 2014 and I am sure the number have gone up more 6 years later-Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance

Where is the rub- If the Walmart employees would finally unionize, they could fill the gap with higher wages by their employer and NOT the taxpayers. As a taxpayer, its not my job to float benefits to Walmart's employees, its THEIR job. All that needs to be done is fill that gap and then the employee goes off taxpayer assistance, your wallet and mine. But the employees are scared and wont unionize. So I always tell any conservative, you can be anti union all you want, but the Walmart employee is soaking you at the tune of 6.4 Billion a year, like it or not. I rather see Walmart employees just union and get off the taxpayer's tit as we dont see the Costco employees doing this, right?