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I, and many others I’m sure, are extremely frustrated over the City’s inability to get criminals off the streets. I don’t know why there is so little cooperation or oversight over the various city/county agencies, but the net result is a revolving door down at 850 Bryant. Someone commits a crime and is arrested by the police. The police don’t arrest someone unless they have probable cause, so there is a pretty good chance the arrestee is guilty.
The arrestee then goes into the care of the Sheriff and at that point the cops lose ownership. Now the Sheriff’s office can hang onto the arrestee or let him go. Why they are authorized to release people who have been arrested I don’t know, but they are and they do. This means that a fair percentage of criminals are released without the District Attorney’s office even knowing they were arrested. By the time the cop is back on the beat, the criminal is back on the streets.
Assuming the Sheriff deigns to hang onto the culprit, the DA’s office eventually gets the arrestee and can charge him. The DA can recommend bail, but it’s the judge that sets bail, and a huge number of career criminals just bail out and consider the bail fee to be the cost of doing business. Best case is that the career criminal has spent 48 hours or so off the street. Also, some of these guys are arrested and it’s discovered they have multiple outstanding bench warrants which seems to have no impact on whether they are held in custody without bail.
Oh and treating the cost of bail as a business expense is only part of it. Let’s say a judge actually gives a high bail; does that mean that the career criminal has to fork out 10% for a get out of jail card? Noooo. Some of these mopes are arrested so often that the bail Bonds folks give them a discount rate for repeat business. So a judge can set bail at $50,000 and the arrestee may not need to come up with 10% - maybe only 5% or even less if he can work a deal.
To make all this more frustrating, none of these folks in the justice system seem to maintain good communication among their departments, so the career criminals have learned how to work the system.
Most frustrating of all is that it is difficult for the public and taxpayers like me - to identify where to place the blame. I would like to know whether I should vote against The DA. The Sheriff, or The Judges.
Do something. I don’t care what is done or who actually does it, but do something to stop the revolving door! If it is a shortage of staff in the Sheriffs department or the DA’s office, hire more staff. If more jail space is needed, build more jails or send them out of the city to San Bruno or someplace. But allowing these repeat offenders to be turned loose again and again to prey on our citizens has got to stop!
Name Withheld
- : 10.0
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September 27th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Whoops - This is my post and I must have forgotten to check the box to include my name. I always provide attribution - sorry I goofed.
Gretchen Cotter