Liberal District Attorney Boasts ‘I’m Keeping San Francisco Safer by Emptying the Jail’

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is bragging about his city’s jailbreak policies that have been implemented throughout the coronavirus pandemic, claiming in a Los Angeles Times op/ed that he is “keeping San Francisco safer by emptying the jail.”

“In mid-March, I started emptying out our city and county jail because those living and working there face a grave risk of falling ill, dying and spreading COVID-19,” Boudin wrote.

“My sense of urgency about this issue is professional, and it’s also personal: My 75-year-old father lives in a prison cell,” he added.

Because Boudin’s father is a jailbird, that means he wants others who have violated the law to be set free. He is using the mass hysteria from the pandemic as a pretense to set forth these lax criminal justice policies.

“According to the Prison Policy Initiative, almost 2.3 million people are incarcerated in this country. In jails, prisons, juvenile halls and immigration detention centers, they are trapped in close quarters in no way designed to shield them from a deadly virus,” Boudin wrote.

“Social distancing in densely populated cell blocks is impossible. Jail and prison inmates lack basic hygiene items, like sanitizer and masks. The daily churn of detainees and staff creates tremendous risk of an epidemic within the pandemic,” he added.

Boudin’s solution is to take these people who are disproportionately at risk to have coronavirus and free them so they can take their germs to infect the broader community. This is social justice at work, he argues.

“For decades, criminal justice policy has been driven by the sometimes realistic fear that any person released could commit a heinous crime. But data show that allowing such fears to override all other concerns is shortsighted,” he wrote.

“Locking up millions of people destroys families and communities; bankrupts local governments; tends to increase, not decrease, crime rates; and too often provides only cold comfort to victims. The pandemic is further evidence that mass incarceration can be a threat, not a boon, to public safety,” he added.

Last month, it was reported that San Francisco had already freed nearly half of their total inmate population:

The number of incarcerated people in San Francisco County jails has been reduced by nearly 50% since January 21, as non-violent offenders are released to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

San Francisco’s jail population fell to 766 inmates over weekend, down from 1,238 on January 21, according to a tweet by San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin…

San Francisco isn’t the only locale turning to early releases of prisoners in an effort to avoid outbreaks in jails. A mass release of California inmates is being considered as the number of confirmed cases within the state’s prisons reached 13 as of Saturday, as Politico reports.

And New York’s Rikers Island is among the few prisons in the US that are releasing high-risk inmates over the age of 70, with the exception of those charged with domestic violence or sexual offense.

“Balancing the risks and costs of incarceration versus release isn’t just about keeping incarcerated people safe; it is about our mutual survival,” Boudin concluded.

The far-left is not letting the coronavirus pandemic go to waste, and they are exploiting the panic to get potentially dangerous criminals let loose on the streets.

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