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By Gavin Newsom and Kamala D. Harris
San Francisco Chronicle
Originally Published May 13, 2007
On any given day, take a walk in the Tenderloin, Civic Center or South of Market, and you will see the same problems that have plagued our neighborhoods for decades: drugs, theft, prostitution, auto break-ins and aggressive panhandling. Has the justice system forgotten about these neighborhoods? No. But the fact is that low-level offenders cycle through the system, at a cost to the city of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The result? Offenders don’t get the life-saving help they need, victims lose faith in the justice system, and neighbors have to live in a dangerous and frightening environment.
The time has come to break away from the status quo. We owe it to the community, to the victims — and to the offenders. Many people who are living on the streets are suffering from addiction and mental illness and receiving no treatment. Turning a blind eye and doing nothing is not compassionate — not for those individuals, and not for our neighborhoods. That’s why the two of us are partnering to launch the Community Justice Center, a collaborative, problem-solving service center with a court on site.
The center is one promising way to begin to break the cycle and make a difference in our neighborhoods. The center will provide accountability for lower-level criminal behavior, and at the same time address the root issues associated with this behavior, such as substance abuse, mental illness or lack of shelter. The center is based on the principle of immediacy — immediacy of consequences and immediacy of services. The key is to have everything under one roof: criminal justice agencies, service providers and members of the bench. It’s a simple but effective model.
Right now, a police officer who sees someone breaking into a car would arrest the offender, who later would be released and told to come back to court on a future date. Too many never make it back to court. In the model we envision, that same police officer can immediately bring the offender to the new, comprehensive service center.
Once at the center, the offender will meet with a public defender, have his or her case reviewed by a prosecutor, appear before a judge and start getting needed services right away. A case manager will meet with the offender, determine his or her most pressing needs and connect them to psychiatric care, substance abuse treatment and other help. It’s a carrot-and-stick approach that balances services with consequences for anyone who refuses treatment and continues to commit crime.
Recognizing that progress takes time, the court will use graduated sanctions for offenders who stumble on the road to recovery — steadily growing in seriousness if the offender refuses to comply with treatment and re-offends. The proposed Community Justice Center builds upon the good work already being done by existing neighborhood-based community courts here in the city, where residents have a say in arbitrating neighborhood-specific offenses. That program — which does not have a judge, a prosecutor or a public defender — is much narrower in scope than the proposed Community Justice Center.
At the center, prosecutors, police, public defenders and treatment providers and community organizations will work together to get offenders back on the road to recovery. The center will make justice speedier and more visible to the community and enforcement stronger and more certain. There’s substantial evidence that this type of model works. It’s working in New York City, where the Midtown Community Court is credited with reducing lower-level crime throughout Manhattan and cleaning up Times Square. In New York, this approach has saved money, improved public safety and streamlined the process of connecting offenders with treatment. Today, more than 30 cities in the United States have a version of a community court and 20 countries are developing their own models.
We believe San Francisco has a unique infrastructure and need for the Community Justice Center. That’s why we are proposing to pilot this initiative in the Tenderloin and South of Market area, where more than a third of the city’s quality-of-life offenses occur. Drawing upon the richness of our services, the commitment of our community partners, and the compassion of our residents, the center promises to give relief to the neighborhoods most affected by quality of life crimes.
The entire city is victimized when we accept business as usual. The time has come to try something new — a method that has been proven to work in other cities. We owe it to the community, to the victims — and to the offenders.
- : 5.4
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May 15th, 2007 at 9:35 am
This is against homeless people. It will only hurt them.
May 15th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
What we have been doing is obviously not working so I am all for trying something new. It gets old stepping over human waste everyday on the way to work and finding your car with broken windows.
May 15th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I don’t really see how this would hurt homeless people, but at the same time I’ve heard a lot of promises about what’s being done to combat the problem yet it seems to be as bad as ever. It seems like a great IDEA, what I don’t understand is how and when it will be implemented, and at who’s expense.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Good job, Mr. Newsom. No, this does not hurt the homeless. I’ve seen bums in the street, same guys, for literally years. They are there in the first place due to Reagan policies from the 1980s. Good job on tackling this problem. May I suggest too to connect up with Criminon. www.criminon.org will give you all the info. I know that they’re starting some programs with the SFPD, but their technology along with your idea would get guys off the streets and get them to be ethical and respectible again. Well done.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
I wonder whether Gavin and/or Kamala would be supportive of ending the Sanctuary Policy of the City. There is a lawsuit now in Superior Court challenging the legality of those sanctuary policies. I’d like to know what City Attorney Dennis Herera intends to do; whether to vigorously defend these outdated policies, or give in and let them go into the dustbin of history along with many other unsuccessful ideas.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:53 am
At least this is a proactive step to doing something. My Mother was a drug addict who lived on the streets. I know first hand that she was in no condition to make decisions for herself or simply ask for the help she desperately needed. It was only when help was forced on her that she led herself back. Today she is doing very well, had we left her on her own I have no doubt she would be dead today.
You can’t expect these people to seek the help they need on their own. Making it easier for them to simply live on the streets is not only wrong, it’s inhuman. I applaud Mayor Newsom for trying to do something; to simply sit back and stay the status quo as many of Supervisors would want is shameful and quite frankly disrespectful to those who need help.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
First I am not sure which way the rating scale goes, but I give this a 10 assuming that is the highest approval rating for the plan.
Mr Newsom is the first SF mayor in almost 30 years (and after millions and millions of dollars) who really seems determine to end the blight of drunks that is destroying large areas of our city. But we can’t blame just past mayors. After all, many people on the Board of Supervisors have been there for most or all of those years also. And though they are quick enough to try to curtail the right of, say, Christian teenagers to assemble and exercise their free speech rights in this city, they seem not to care at all about lawless, unsavory, unsanitary behavior that goes on in our streets.
Chris Daly, in whose district most of the problem exists, is certainly one of the problems. Who can forget the contemptuous comment from his campaign about Rob Black trying to win the election with “pictures of poop”. Kind of sums up his distain and scorn for those of us who are sick of the poop on our doorsteps.
Bravo Mr. Mayor - I hope that the city rallies in spport of this. I believe many will, with the exception of the 9000 people out of the hundreds of thousands of qualified voters who elected Daly.
As for Muni, though it is not as bad as during Brown’s tenure (you remember Willie Brown, the mayor who said there was nothing wrong with Muni), it is still a sick culture. There are some good polite drivers, of course, but most of them seem bored with having to do any part of their jobs. Many of them do not even bother to look at passes or transfers let alone doing anything about fare jumpers.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:40 am
The homeless issue goes hand in hand with the impossible cost of living in this City. Without the help and support of family, my own kids would be in sad shape trying to survive here, they’d have to leave or would get so overwhelmed they’d end up destitute. Is that anyway for any city to expect healthy happy citizens? I think the worst homeless are the one’s who are addicts, alcoholics, or insane or all of the above, and to just let it go on and on and on without any intervention has been the worst thing about San Francisco. The cost of housing is depressing, the un-controled crime is depressing, the homeless and their plight is depressing. For such a beautiful location with such great promise, why can’t there be a way to make it work? I’m sick of seeing one bedroom houses go for nearly a million dollars? How crazy is that? That happens because investors, not families, are buying and holding the property. Let them buy apartment buildings and leave single family homes to the people who work and live here. There ought to be a law! Homeless people need shelter and if that means institutional care, what’s wrong with that? Keep them off the street and give them a safe place to try to turn their lives around. Muni drivers? how many of them actually live in San Francisco? Most of them probably commute from way outside the City to a job that takes them past homes they can’t ever expect to afford. Why would they have any interest in their jobs or the people? Same thing for the police and firemen. And if we have another emergency, where’s that going to leave the citizens of San Francisco when the fire department and police department is unable to provide personnel? We have too many outside investors driving the home prices and rents outside the affordability range and leaving the workers completely at a disadvantage. City government should sit up and take notice and do something about it. And teachers, let’s not forget them. How many of our teachers in the future will be able to afford to live in the same city they work in on the salaries they get? How will that impact the schools, and the children?
May 17th, 2007 at 11:54 am
The May 13 article and Community Court idea certainly sounds like someone is recognizing part of the problem in San Francisco. A quote that is equally applicable to this city with regards to crime including the issue of sanctuary status: “A nation which WILL not enforce its laws soon finds it has few it CAN enforce, and then it ceases to be a nation.” by M. McLemore, Pike Road, AL. I’ve watched the young black faces gradually leave the staff of the Fillmore McDonalds only to be replaced by employees with limited English-language ability. Illegal aliens? I’ve watched the escalating crime in that neighborhood as more young African-Americans hang out during the day and sell bootlegged CDs/DVDs out of the trunks of cars in Webster Plaza. A Community Court is of little value if enforcement of local and federal laws is not upheld. What lesson does this city provide on the rule of law? When criminals receive more social services and support than citizens there is something very wrong. Here’s hoping that the crisis in this city will truly be addressed and the grandstanding on international issues will stop.
May 21st, 2007 at 12:41 pm
What I have to say it BRAVO, BRAVO to the Mayor and D.A. Kamala Harris that they are taking steps for progess. I am a resident of SOMA and it has been a suffering time for me living in this neighborhood. I am grateful to the Mayor and D.A. Harris that they are working together on this project it has been long overdue.
THANK YOU MAYOR ALONG WITH MY BLESSING
THANK YOU D.A. HARRIS
Sincerely,
Gloria
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:24 am
It would be great if this works, but given that homelessness has gotten worse and drug crimes and the murder rate have skyrocketed under the watch of mayor Newsom and Ms. Harris, you can’t blame us for having doubts.
Political ploys don’t solve problems.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:56 am
here is some food for thought for the law enforcement community out there — it may be arcanely connected to the subject at hand, but still connected nonetheless —
check out these links:
http://www.patriotpoliticiansleadwars.com/
http://www.yourchristianpresident.com/
http://www.jackmclamb.com/
www.likroper.com
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:41 am
sometimes people are so far gone that it is nearly impossible to bring them back because their bodies and brains have been so damaged by the lack of proper nutrition and alcohol…
i have a guitar player friend who has been assisted by countless friends (including me) but he won’t let up on his hard liquor drinking (etc?)…
and the governments’ answer of incarcerating him just screwed him up even worse after he allegedly got raped by gang members, so…
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:52 am
as for comment #11 above; “homelessness has gotten worse and drug crimes and the murder rate have skyrocketed under the watch of mayor Newsom”…ahem! how about “under the watch of the bush administration!?” it IS a top down country, you know!…
it’s all about this; when you spend $500 zillion dollars to rebuild a military that al gore just nicely downsized; then allow 911 to happen a few days after diane fienstein came to dick cheney just days before warning of an imminent attack — only to be turned away until “next month”; let’s just say everything tends to go to sh#t, and that is clearly not gavin’s fault…
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:05 pm
I think the concept is in theory a good one, but unfortunately I think it addresses the symptoms, not the causes, which is the general MO for SAn Francisco politics since it’s the easiest route, and the one least likely to raise the ire of the politically correct extremists who have an imposed a “tyranny of tolerance” on all SAn Franciscans.
Why doesn’t any politician have the back bone to refuse assuming the social and financial costs for homeless, mentally ill and drug-addicted individuals who have been sent to San Francisco on one-way tickets by their respective cities?
Oh no….that would be too cruel! No we, as kind-hearted, generous San Franciscans should pay the social and financial bills to “help” these people, whose problems originated in other cities, caused by other cities’ social issues . WE either need to send these people back or send a bill to the cities who literally ship their problems to us. I’m sorry to sound harsh, but the result IS problems for San Franciscans.
This will not only improve the lives of hard-working San Franciscans- whose rights to safety, hygiene, and a sense of well-being are constantly being stomped on, but also force the respective exporting cities to evaluate their social inadequacies aas well as force them to be held accountable for them. Perhaps this will catalyze changes in these towns that should have materialized many years ago.
June 7th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Punishment for the crime of being poor.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:08 am
In response to comment #16 — I find “Punishment for the crime of being poor” an offensive statement. Community court is not about punishment as much as it is about leading people to get along better in the community.
I grew up very poor, and I find Carly’s statement offensive. It implies that poor people as criminal slobs. We came here with nothing. Yet my family always taught us respect for the community. We did not poop on the streets, or throw trash in the streets, or break car windows, or spray graffiti — my mom would actually sweep up out in front of our apartment and keep things neat and tidy even after working all day. It’s not an issue of poverty — it’s an issue of education and respect. The whole idea of community court is to help people better get along in society without sending them to jail. The state of San Francisco today in this regard is dismal and unacceptable.