Ex-Cons in San Francisco May Soon Enjoy ‘Protected Class’ Status
When I grow weary of being a lonely conservative in Los Angeles, when I get frustrated at living in one of the bluest of cities in the bluest of states, when I begin to despair of being represented by a liberal at every last level of local, state, and federal government . . .
I remind myself it could always be worse in San Francisco.
And indeed it is worse. San Francisco is a city of abundant beauty and charm, but it is governed by people so far out on the left fringe that they make their counterparts in Los Angeles look like pikers. For proof of this, I refer you to this story in the July 13 San Francisco Chronicle, in which it is reported that the city’s ex-convicts may soon enjoy “protected class” status, joining blacks, Latinos, homosexuals, the transgendered, pregnant women, and the disabled. Yes, you read that correctly: the city may soon adopt a law that will make it illegal to discriminate against criminals. The proposed law would bar landlords and business owners from inquiring about the criminal past of any prospective tenant or employee. As if to show they haven’t completely lost their minds, the law’s proponents say sex offenders and those convicted of “some violent crimes” would not be covered.
Some violent crimes? Dare one ask where the line might be drawn? First-degree murder and, sorry, you’re out of luck, but second-degree or manslaughter gets you the third-floor walk-up in Pacific Heights with the view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Or how about this scenario: a burglar sneaks into the home of some luckless landlord and relieves him of his television set, DVD player, jewelry, and some cash, but by some miracle is arrested, prosecuted, and sent to prison. But when he walks out of the big house with his parole papers in hand, he goes right back to the same landlord and applies to rent an apartment. Can the landlord object? No, the proposed law would not allow it. Our unfortunate landlord would have little recourse, even if his new tenant asked for his help in carrying the television set that once belonged to him up the stairs.
Ex-cons in San Francisco already enjoy protected class status when applying for city jobs or for public housing, but the city’s “Reentry Council,” made up of representatives of the mayor’s office, the Police Department, the district attorney’s office, the Sheriff’s Department, the Adult Probation Department, and ex-convicts, now urge the city to apply these protections to private businesses as well.
Caen was a left wing hack, albeit a funny one. He would have morphed along with the rest of them, and would have fully supported the insanity that has become San Francisco.
“…”
This is just more Critical Pedagogy nonsense which, when it comes to gerrymandering laws to accommodate race, is the latest darling cause of the Left in America. It states that black prisoners, according to authors like Michelle Alexander and activists like hip hop mogul Russel Simmons among practically the entire community of the black American elite, are part of a New Jim Crow because our justice system from Maine to Florida is racist.
Black prisoners are therefore affected out of proportion to their numbers not only when it comes to convictions but also when it comes to reintegration into society. Next on the list will be voting, mark my words.
Nothing is obvious to the Left and crime by blacks and Latinos, if out of whack statistically, therefore is the fault of everyday whites who bask in unaware skin privilege and continuing advantages from slavery and Jim Crow.
If you think I’m making this up, you’re not visiting the YWCA websites and the White Privilege and Seeing Whiteness conferences they and colleges and universities across America sponsor. In the minds of these people, criminals aren’t the problem but the victims of social injustice and the real problem is privileged and historically advantaged whites and more specifically, white men.
Marxist theorists like Ira Shor, Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux say so. Nothing is ever what it seems.
“Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse.” – Ira Shor
good insight
C-Span’s House coverage this morning had some of the Dems moaning about how expecting people to show an ‘i.d.’ to ‘vote’ is a throwback to ‘Jim Crowe’. Erm, I don’t think getting an ‘i.d.’ is a hard/expensive/impossible thing to do.
Of course, voting more than once should be a ‘right’ for blacks since they are a ‘minority’ and should get at least twice the vote to ‘make up’ for the racial disparity. /sarc
The New Jim Crow will be followed by Jim Crow 2,0, neo-Jim Crow, post-modern Jim Crow, Jim Crow; Deep Space 9, Indoor Arena Jim Crow and it’ll go on and on forever.
What it all amounts to is the eternal conspiracy and using these values, black Americans will come into their own about the time some fishermen proudly display the dead carcass of “Nessie” in Loch Ness.
The idea of Occam’s Razor is totally lost on morons who believe that, in terms of societal construction, white people all have each other’s phone numbers and always will.
I live in a state where you have to show I.D. to vote and that’s been the case for a number of years. You know what? There’s been no problems. The black voters in my precinct just show their driver’s license like I do. It’s actually quite simple.
Wow.
That’s really weird.
And the Left’s war against society continues…
Landlords will simply take their buildings off the rental market and turn them into expensive condos or coops. If the convict can come up with anywhere from $200,000 up to $1 million for a condo, then either he’s a very successful criminal or a Democratic City Councilman. Either way, they would have enough funds to at least not be stealing (although for the Democratic Councilman, that’s probably debatable). So this law will only succeed in hurting the people it is supposed to help. Unless, of course, the people of San Francisco are simply trying to force their convicts to live in nearby Oakland. Then it would be a great success.
“Unless, of course, the people of San Francisco are simply trying to force their convicts to live in nearby Oakland.”
I thought that was the idea with the new Bay Area Bridge?
Mr. Dunphy, I disagree, in principle.
IF (now folks, please note the big “IF” here!) we had a healthy criminal justice system, where bad guys were properly punished (yes, lefties, I use that word with NO apology!) for their crimes, once that sentence has been carried out, that should be the end of it as far as the rest of us are concerned.
We are WRONG to make people felons for life.
I recently lost the chance to have a good man work for me, because of my employer’s strict policies on background checks. This man came highly recommended by some people I trust. He was a thoroughly changed man, now in his mid 40s, struggling to support his family, and will CONTINUE to struggle, because as a kid of 20 (yes, at 20 you are still a kid) he did something wrong. He sold drugs. I don’t condone that – not in the least. But neither do I condone punishing him for the rest of his life.
IF we had a healthy criminal justice system, we would have VERY few repeat offenders. IF we had a healthy criminal justice system we would not need to worry about where to relocate child molesters, because there’s plenty of space in the oceans for their cremated remains. IF we had a healthy criminal justice system, we wouldn’t need to worry about hard-corp violent gang members, because there’s plenty of space in the oceans for their cremated remains.
IF we had a healthy criminal justice system the dangerous criminals wouldn’t be back on the streets. We’d publicly flog a few, execute a few, and put a good many more to work to make restitution for their non-violent crimes.
And we’d save a lot of money on background checks.
Oh, and we’d have almost nobody in prison. “Penitentiaries” are AT BEST a stupid idea, foisted on us by the touchy-feely Quakers. The idea was that, separated from polite society, they would think about their crimes, and in reflecting on their errant ways, would become penitent. That’s where the word comes from. Penitentiaries are a place for people to become penitent.
In reality, they are criminal factories.
As to this new policy, the loony lefties (but I repeat myself) have actually got this one right, in principle. It’s wrong to give a life sentence for every crime.
But these are the same people who have ruined our criminal justice system, and created a situation where their current proposal is nothing short of lunacy.
You have to hand it to the left – they are really creative people.
They create chaos.
Yes, but the chaos will be in San Francisco. They will reap what they sow. San Francisco is a beautiful city, but I wouldn’t live there. When the people of San Francisco decide they’ve had enough, they can change their government and get rid of laws that don’t work.
According to my family (those still in the Bay Area) San Francisco is no longer a beautiful city. It used to be a shining jewel on the Bay. Now (according to my brother) it looks like someone took a bucket of filth and just dumped it on the city. He said illegals will drop trow in the middle of the sidewalk and take a crap – the liberals celebrate this diversity.
MarkD I beg to disagree with you, take a look at my old home town, Detroit. I now live in Idaho and haven’t been back in thirty years and I have no desire too, error go San Francisco.
Mark – Um – wrong. It is not about making people felons for life. It is simply having reasonable information available to use to make reasonable decisions. The most reliable predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Look at credit – if you have a 450 credit score because you are delinquent in a bunch of bills – and then you pay them all off at once – you do not get an 800 credit score overnight. It is completely reasonable for a potential creditor to STILL assume that you will continue your long term pattern of behavior. It takes a new pattern of behavior – demonstrated over a period of time – to restore your credit.
The same is true of criminal behavior. A criminal whose pattern of behavior has resulted in prison is far more likely to continue that pattern than the general population. I would not rent an apartment to someone who has a pattern of braking into apartments (any more than I would rent an apartment to someone who has a pattern of not paying their rent). Whether or not this person has “done their time” is completely irrelevant. It is simply prudent decision making based on reasonable data.
I knew someone was going to miss The Big IF.
IF we had a healthy criminal justice system, we would not HAVE criminals with a pattern of criminal behavior because IF we had a healthy criminal justice system we would not HAVE an entire class of repeat offenders to worry about.
Given that we do NOT have a healthy criminal justice system, we are forced to consider these “patterns of criminal behavior”, and of course we must protect ourselves by doing background checks, etc.
In this way, the liberal destruction of our criminal justice system contributes to the misery of the criminal class by making it necessary for us to do these background checks, which keeps these people out of jobs, etc.
But we DO make people felons for life. Once a person is convicted of a felony, even ONE, they lose their voting rights and 2nd Amendment rights for LIFE (barring reinstatement under court order), and can rarely find a decent job.
THAT is wrong in principle. The wrong of our current system does not make that wrong, right.
If they wanted to be successful in life and have the right to vote, they shouldn’t have committed a felony.
Now, it’s arguable that there are too many felony crimes. But any of the violent crimes, any form of theft, of fraud? No sympathy for the criminal from me. They made their choices, they gets to live in misery.
(I’m borderline on that attitude with drug crimes, but could be talked out of it. So long as I’m not expected, again, to pay for other people wrecking their lives with drugs.)
Betting that any human being is ‘completely changed’ is like betting on Double Zero at roulette — statistically possible, but in any long run you’ll lose, with a probablity of 100%. Plus, whose business is it that an employer should be forced to hire ex-cons? Tomorrow, they’ll be privileged under Affirmative Action over law-abiding applicants. Nixon is roasting in Hell because of AA programs if for nothihng else. SF is the Leftist City on a Hill — lunatics running the asylum; freaks running the side-show; prisoners running the prison; pedophiles running the schools. If you’re a normal white person, you should just be grateful that you’re allowed to own property in SAF at all (I guess).
@ Mark v. If. It’s also true that if we had some ham we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs.
Point is valid but until the system somehow becomes “healthy” you are simply dreaming. Don’t even think of changing how we treat ex-con until the other part of it is really, truly fixed. We should have learned that lesson from “Amnesty 1.0″ and a few years later repeated it with “2.0″.
Agreed, Bill, except for this point: I’m not “dreaming”. I’m facing reality, including the reality that ALL of what we are currently doing is WRONG. Wrong in principle, and (necessarily) wrong in practice.
It is unfair to the law-abiding, who must live in fear of the lawless, and it is unfair to the lawbreakers. Most of THEM don’t get what they DO deserve, and some DO get what they do NOT deserve.
I fully agree that we cannot afford to be more fair with how we treat the EX-cons until we are FIRST more fair with how we treat the cons. The order here is necessary to protect the law-abiding from the lawless.
The fruits of a healthy (fair!) criminal justice system would be the almost total eradication of such a thing as a criminal class, either by their choice to not be part of it, or by their just execution at the hands of the state. Once we have reaped some (or most?) of the fruits of that effort we can then address the wrong of making people felons for life.
What’s terribly wrong in practice with this nonsense in SF is that they’ve got the cart before the horse.
The ONLY thing wrong with it in principle is the use of government edicts to force employers to hire particular groups of people. Government (local, state, or federal) has no right to dictate who must be hired.
Your points might be valid, but……
The best crime deterrent nationwide has proven to be standard citizen “carry” laws. “An armed society is a polite society,” etc. But just the suggestion of enacting those in blue states causes panic and “the vapors” among so-called political intelligentsia.
The second best crime deterrent, and the fairest way of treating cons, is by providing a thorough, fast and accurate justice system. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” etc. But that implies judges and lawyers have the best interests of society AND the criminal at heart. That’s not always the case. So we have a system where less than 5% of crimes committed are cataloged and of that lot less than 20% are charged against the perpetrator, and of that lot less than 40% are convicted, and of that lot less than 50% are incarcerated, [and of that lot less than 40% are appropriately sentenced]. That means currently anyone committing a crime has about two tenths of one percent of a chance of going to prison, [but more than half will be unfairly jailed]. Those are pretty good odds if your career path is “Criminal”.
I’m glad you want to fix things. But you need to understand how all the pieces fit and whose oxen will be gored when/if you do. Good luck with it.
You’re preaching to the choir, Bill. I understand very well how the pieces fit together. I do expert witness work, typically for capital cases, and I see the garbage from both sides, defense AND prosecution.
It’s a sick system. It can’t be reformed by tinkering around the edges. It needs to be jacked up and have a new one put under it.
Good post, Mark. And I’m in agreement with you. Common sense and reason have been replaced by zero tolerance just about everywhere in society. What sort of society is it that would hold the nonviolent actions of a 19 year old kid against him for the rest of his life? A damned petty and vindictive one! We seem to be at the point where it’s part of a class struggle. Those who make the laws and those who already have their privileges want to keep their little clubs as unique and exclusionary as possible. Maintaining a sizable ‘criminal class’ is financially profitable and morally reassuring for too many people. One surefire way to keep up the ‘criminal class’ numbers is to deny them the ability to rejoin society after their debt has been paid. It’s neither Christian nor moral to keep treating nonviolent offenders the way we do now.
Hell, if we’re going to forever deny them a chance at a decent job or decent place to live, why bother incarcerating them to begin with? Just mark their record showing they were convicted and let society punish them for the rest of their lives.
I know most of the ‘law and order’ crowd here won’t agree but I’ve become convinced most of them are full of crap anyway. When they or one of their own run afoul of one or two of the thousands of laws we’ve been blessed with, their tune will likely change.
Thank you, Joe. Exactly my point.
Though I bat for the red team, your suggestion would have some merit…IF the criminals were serving their ENTIRE sentence, every time….But since you can get caught with a loaded, stolen gun….and get 36 months probation (sentence suspended)…as is the norm….The whole idea is just garbage. There’s idiots running around on probation for car theft and on parole for sales of dope, simultaneously…this is California for you….As a society, we have learned the hard way and have no choice but to scrutinize ALL criminals and keep those with criminal tendencies away from our neighborhoods, schools, work, etc…So be it.
/sigh/
Yeah.
And how many times do I have to put “IF” in big bold letters before people actually read what I wrote?
And we wonder why we can’t turn Congress around!
SanFran plays a vital role as the national guinea pig. The lunatic coalition there has inherited large assets and their experiments can continue bit-by-bit until the final results become visible to all. And who can doubt the outcome?
Down with law-abiding, non-handicapped straight white males and take away everything they have… they’re to blame for everything! (That’s where we’re going. How ’bout that “social justice,” eh?)
What next? I’ll tell you. As rents go up (more people, fewer rental units means higher rents), attention will turn to the 31,000 vacant units being withheld from the market. That will lead to “squatters,” folks who gain access to these vacant properties and begin to “live” there. The wise city fathers (“, mothers and others,”) of San Francisco will then grant protected status to these squatters, encouraging many, e.g., criminals from Oakland, to break into vacant housing to live free of charge until the owner can remove them. When this was a problem (it may still be) in London, England, it could take up to two years to remove a squatter and, sometimes, it was impossible.
Come on Jack, buck up, get a grip man. This could turn out OK. Eventually a felon(s) will get hired and go back to their old ways and someone will get destroyed financially or killed. You just have to hope it is a socialist SF liberal in a gated community that goes down. Direct hits on themselves is the only way to get the attention of the colletivists, otherwise it’s just some other person with problems for them to fix. If it happens to them, sometimes their eyes get big and they have a come to Jesus meeting with the Lord. Well and then again sometimes not. Still it’s worth the risk, dont’ you think?
I’m thinking that SF is a great place to run the experiment and see if it works.
Come on man, this could be good.
I happen to agree with it.
The purpose of putting someone in jail is “to pay his debt to society.” Once that debt is paid off, it should NOT be used as a permanent Mark of Cain that he carries for the rest of his life.
In fact, I wouldn’t make any politically-correct exceptions for sex crimes. The penalty for rape is a very long time in jail. When he gets out of jail, he’s likely to be an old man and needs a place to live.
If they’re afraid that the guy will commit more crimes, then the criminal justice system didn’t handle him properly in the first place.
And that’s the best part of this: It shines a light on the futility of revolving-door recidivism, where they sentence someone to jail for a short sentence and then he does another crime, gets another short sentence, on and on. In reality, the so-called “Department of Corrections” doesn’t actually “correct” anything. And reforms are badly needed.
Employers should have access to this info otherwise you end up with drunk drivers who killed someone driving limos and peds in child care.
>>I wouldn’t make any politically-correct exceptions for sex crimes.
Got to jump in here. You are mistaken to call the outcry against released sex criminals “politically correct.” Rapists and molesters (who continue their odious pursuits into old age) are not one-off guys who simply need be obliged to “pay their debts” to society. Their deep, destructive, evil desires are not changed by time behind bars. Once they’re out, they need to be isolated and watched like hawks.
Agreed. The only ‘cure’ for these people is death.
The problem is, the majority of those released criminals will in fact not have “paid” their debt to society.
They are being released on parole.
They have not completed their sentences.
They are merely being allowed out of detention, on a pledge not to commit further crimes, with certain continuing restrictions on their behavior other than full time detention.
Likewise one must question the various circumstances of early release for “good” behavior, or other causes, especially the pending grand release California faces.
Again, these people have hardly “paid” their debt to society in full, they are merely being released from custody early, and concern for their future conduct during the remainder of their term is far from outrageous.
When the system parses sentences, it is only reasonable that others parse the qualifications of those released.
What about the criminals who are being released early because the jails are full? These people didn’t do their full time in the slammer.
The next question is will they become protected tenants? At present, it is very difficult for a landlord to evict tenants that are members of certain groups – disabled, the elderly, etc. Normally this isn’t a problem except SF has rent control, so a 66 year old can live in an rent-controlled aparment for 30 additional years with nly small escalation in the nominal cost, greatly reducing the value of rental property. Will it soon be impossible to evict a felon?
Attention: All criminals in the U.S. Move to San Francisco and take advantage of this law. The politicians who invited you deserve you.
Hey, we got some cop-killing illegals here in Houston you guys can have. And we’ll throw in Quanell X, our resident black racist.
Well, if you’ve ‘paid your debt to society,’ shouldn’t you be treated like any other job applicant? Currently, ex-cons, most of whom have committed no violent acts against others, are treated as second clas citizens, at best. Their past is held against them and they have trouble finding jobs and becoming productive citizens. If any other group of Americans (such as a conseravtive Republican, for example) were treated in such an unfair -and ultimately irresponsible fashion- you’d be screaming bloody murder.
The manner in which the left is addresing this problem may be questionable. The idea, itself? Not so much.
Oh come on San Francisco:
Hear us loud and clear one more time from AZ.
Enforce your laws in CA.
Fire your Police Dept Captains that tell your police to, ‘stand down.’
Fire top Sheriff Hennessesy that has flatly refused to comply with the Federal Program Safe Communitys’, further telling ICE, he won’t comply. AS predicted he uses the Sanctuary race card one more time because all are lining their pockets from your law enforcers, judges, court sys and lawyers and the beat go on.
We’re all so tired of hearing the wailing coming from poor, misunderstood CA. Albeit your businesses are moving here and to other states like TX. Thank you for stimulating our economy after your Buss Boycotts.
And golly gee what’s a few more million supported on your welfare rolls? You have over 60,000 homeless now living on the streets in L.A.
Have your bothered to look-up what the stats are in your city?
But out of the wilderness in CA are a few standouts like Orange County, and the recent news that parts of CA want to cut the corruption cord from the rabid L.A., San F., and San D. leadership. Certainly a brave now world .
…
I think it is a great idea for a great city. Maybe those repetitive offenders from my city will move to San Francisco.
Let ‘em invade Snob Hill.
Yes! Embezzlement is not a violent crime! Get those boys and girls into the tellers’ cages with all that money! Have them running the cash drawers at Tiffany’s and Sachs! Yes! Yes! Yes!
“Pregnant women” as a protected status? In San Fran? Surely you mean “pregnant non-white women,” right?
What happens in San Fran stays in San Fran. Yes? Please?
I think this is an extremely good idea. For San Francisco. I live an hour or so south of “the city” and will certainly pass word of it to recently paroled ex-cons coming back to my neck of the woods. I’m sure they’ll find more of a welcome there than here. Thanks for the tip, Jack. It’ll make Neighborhood Watch much easier.
This sick and twisted policy created by the SF politicians is a clear example of why San Francisco should be avoided for businesses, tourists, and residents thinking of spending their hard earned money to invest in anything that has to do with this city. Embracing liberal values holds its function in a society on the fringes of extremist behavior. Unfortunately, the lack of empathy for those who hold a job and struggle to make a middle class living while simply hoping to be away from convicted felons and sex offenders are what make the Left look purely ignorant and smug. This element has taken a solid footing in SF politics. I feel for those who proudly call that town home. It is sad and makes the people with common sense and good hearts (no matter what their political views may be) look bad because of the city they live in. The political structure of SF is rotting from the inside out and taking many good hardworking people down with them. I do not see a reason to reward this sick mentality with commerce and jobs. I imagine many share this point of view.
Can anyone explain to me the reasons for staying on the right side of the law, staying employed, etc?
As far as I can tell, the people who work hard — who have worked hard all their lives — are considered little more than livestock to be harvested, while the criminals are considered special, almost Nietzschean super-race.
Why don’t all you guys do what that Norwegian fella did yesterday? He owned guns, was anti-immigrant and hated the left socialists. Probably a Reagan lovin’ conservative with pictures of Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Amy Winehouse in bikinis w/ their husbands in the background calling the shots.
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