{"id":9042,"date":"2023-06-02T11:30:01","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T18:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=9042"},"modified":"2023-06-02T14:16:02","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T21:16:02","slug":"taking-a-bite-out-of-homelessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=9042","title":{"rendered":"Taking a Bite Out of Homelessness"},"content":{"rendered":"

An article<\/a> in today’s Wall Street Journal notes that California has spent $17 billion on programs to end homelessness and the problem has only gotten worse.\u00a0 California is home to more than 171,000 homeless individuals, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a 6.2% increase since 2020.\u00a0 Roughly 67%, or more than 115,000 are unsheltered, meaning that they\u2019re living outside.\u00a0 While liberal politicians often characterize homelessness as a housing problem, with some even calling the homeless “guests,”\u00a0 in reality the homeless population is primarily made up of drug addicts and the mentally ill, along with some vagrants who actually prefer living on the streets.\u00a0 An OpEd<\/a> in the California Globe by four law enforcement professionals suggest that there is a proven way for the state to eliminate homelessness in one year.<\/p>\n

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Because the proposal by Yolo County DA Jeff Resing, Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, California DA’s Association President Greg Totten, and former Sacramento County DA Anne Marie Schubert targets drug addicts, it is unlikely that it would take all of the homeless off the streets.\u00a0 But it would remove a large segment.\u00a0 The magic bullet: restore consequences for the possession of hard drugs.\u00a0 Since the 2014 adoption of Proposition 47, there have been no consequences in California for the possession of any hard drug.\u00a0 The authors cite laws in New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan and Illinois that have strict penalties for people caught with drugs like heroin, crack and fentanyl.\u00a0 All of these democrat-controlled states have homeless rates that are 4 and 6 times lower than\u00a0 California. \u00a0 Here’s what they are suggesting:<\/p>\n

Treatment Mandated Felony<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, prosecutors would have the discretion to charge hard drug possession as a new class of crime called a \u201ctreatment mandated felony.\u201d The judge would have the final say on whether the defendant should be charged in this manner. The factors that the prosecutor and judge would consider in the decision would include:<\/p>\n