Governor Newsom Educates Trump on High Homicide Rates in Red States

Homelessness and the New Mayor of San Francisco

New San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has conceded the election to Daniel Lurie. Breed’s failure to adequately deal with San Francisco’s homeless problem and the associated atmosphere of crime related to it was clearly the principal cause for her defeat.  

Right wing media relentlessly used the homeless encampments in San Francisco and in California in general as propaganda to illustrate the failure of the Democratic party-- which helped to elect Trump and the Republicans.

But unless the new Democratic mayor of San Francisco--  bans people from camping out  anywhere they desire on the streets of San Francisco-- he will fail too. And the Democratic brand  will continue to be tarnish amongst America's voters. 

People camping out on the street need to go to-- licensed municipal campsites-- that provide public toilets, free food, policing and social services. Anyone caught sleeping on the streets needs to be immediately transported to such facilities. Such facilities can't simply be places to dump people but have to be routinely cleaned and maintained.

And anyone caught using drugs in public needs to be sent to a State run drug rehab center (outside of the cities) for 30 days for the first offense, 60 days for a second offense, and 90 days for each subsequent offenses. The State also needs to provide free housing in publicly owned hotels--- out side of the cities-- for individuals too mentally disabled to be employable.

Democrats need to show the nation-- that they can get the job done-- by completely clearing the city streets of people sleeping or camping out anywhere they desire. 

But Democrats also need to show compassion by providing homeless individuals with safe and clean municipal and state licensed places to reside.

Marcel F. Williams 

Crime & Punishment

Living facilities in a California State Prison(Credit Wikipedia)

 

by Marcel F. Williams

Per capita, most victims of crimes are people of color. Just check the stats. So simply allowing hardworking people of color to continue to be disproportionately victimized by the anti-social individuals in their communities is obviously no solution to crime and prison overcrowding. And simply dumping former inmates back into the  environments that created them in the first place tends to create a lot more crime rather than reducing it!

Are there too many people in prison? Yes! But that's because prisons now house hundreds of thousands of mentally disturbed individuals   who use to sequestered away in mental institutions for the criminally insane. But America shut down most of those institutions decades ago which is part of the reason why we also have so many homeless people on our streets today. 

America  also abandoned any type of serious rehabilitation in US prisons  decades ago. So we make it very difficult for former inmates to get jobs after they are out. What former inmate wants to tell a potential employer that he use to be in prison? And what employers wants to hire such an individual?

But simply feeling sorry for convicted felons and letting them out of prison early doesn't solve America's high crime problem.

The solution, in my opinion, is the rehabilitate convicted felons in prison and then put them in an environment where they are most likely to be productive citizens and not to return to crime. 

 So, the solution, in my opinion,  is:

1. Prison work programs where prisoners work for private and public institutions for half the state minimum wage with 60% of their income going back to the government  with the inmate only getting payed 40% of half the minimum wage as a salary. The money earned by the prisoner would be placed in a private bank account with the prisoner having absolutely no access to his or her funds-- until they are out of prison. This would allow former felons  to have substantial amounts of money in the bank once they are out of prison making it economically a lot easier for them to financially reintegrate back into society.

2. Private companies that employ former felons should get an annual payroll tax rebate from both the   Federal and State governments for every former felon that they employ.

3. Sentences for convicted felons should be a combination of prison time plus  temporary exile to designated Sanctuary Cities.

A Sanctuary City would be a walled working city within each US state or territory designated to accommodate domestic and foreign refugees (illegal aliens) and former prison inmates transition back into society. Such Sanctuary Cities would be declared by Congress as international territories under the jurisdiction of the Federal government. Anyone with a US passport or US visa would be allowed to visit, depart,  or even live and work within the walls of a Sanctuary City. Former felons would not be given passports to leave the Sanctuary City until they have completed their court mandated time within a Sanctuary City.

Felons who commit non-violent crimes should be given two years of exile within a Sanctuary City after they serve their prison sentences, IMO. Violent criminals would be exiled for five years within a Sanctuary City after serving their prison sentences.

Ex prisoners would also have full access to the money in their bank accounts once they are exiled to a Sanctuary City. This would allow states and the Federal government to shorten prison sentences while still not immediately dumping former prisoners right back into the environments that created their criminal activity in the first place.

Sanctuary cities would specialize in employing former prisoners with full workers rights and pay and would serve as test environments to see if a former prisoner has been truly rehabilitated. But rehabilitation through payed labor, providing tax incentives for employers to hire former felons, and serving the last few years of a felony sentence within the confines of designated Sanctuary Cities should dramatically lower the crime rate in most cities and towns in America, especially in minority neighborhoods, increasing public safety while catalyzing new economic growth and prosperity in America. 

I will elaborate a lot more on my Sanctuary City idea in future post since I believe that this concept would be the best way to  humanely deal with illegal immigration, domestic transients, and US prisoners transitioning back into society! 

 

References and Links

 

Number of murder victims by race in the US in 2020

Racism in Rape

Community Policing in Japan