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So all those crimes Rollins wouldn't prosecute? Turns out they already mostly aren't prosecuted
By adamg on Thu, 09/13/2018 - 9:27am
The Globe follows up on the Herald's recent report on lesser crimes Democratic DA candidate Rachel Rollins says she would mostly have prosecutors not prosecute, and includes this nugget:
Many of the crimes on the list, including trespassing, shoplifting, and drug possession, typically lead to probation, rather than jail time, even if a defendant is charged multiple times, prosecutors and defense attorneys agree. Under Rollins’s plan, the offenses would be treated as civil infractions or dismissed outright.
Rollins is running against independent Michael Maloney in November.
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Comments
Herald
The Herald was just playing to their racist readership base. Anyone who follows criminal justice already knew this. The reason Rollins' decision to not prosecute at all is important is that even probation for a petty crime can show up on a CORI and screw someone out of getting a job or apartment. Then, the person is much more likely to get back into crime and probably serious crime then. Her approach makes complete sense unless you're an aggrieved white Herald reader (who probably lives in the suburbs anyway)
Did she say she wouldn't prosecute or not?
How is reporting what she said racist? And what does race have to do with it? Did she say she wouldn't prosecute a certain race of people? Is everything racist?
The Herald leans conservative
The Herald leans conservative. Conservatives voted for someone for president with a 40+ year history of being racist. If you support a racist then you can't act offended when someone calls you a racist.
Unfortunately race is a factor in anything to do with police, jail sentences etc. Black people are, on average, given longer jail sentences than white people who commit the same crime. That is just one example of many.
Sorry Charlie
The Herald has been a Republican paper back when our current President was a Democrat, so using that logic is faulty to the core.
Heck, they've been Republican since Abe Lincoln was on the ballot. If anything, they are consistent.
Got it
Reporting what a candidate said is racist. because we all know only minorities get arrested for these crimes. The Herald was just stirring up racial hatred ....or something.
My God
Why can't people read? Read what Rollins actually said. Not what the Herald reports that the BPPA said or what anonymous officers have concerns about.
The Herald articles are dripping with fear while also removing any nuance in what the proposal actually states.
Not hard to read between the
Not hard to read between the lines of what the Herald was getting at unless you willfully choose not to. They could have written a balanced story like the Globe did instead of multiple pieces at once blasting on the front page, all fear mongering about the new black DA. Get real.
I hate to burst your bubble
But the DA before Conley was black, and the Herald had no issue with him. Of course, he was also a Republican. Just throwing it out there, but do you think that ideology might have something to do with the coverage?
It seems like the right fix
It seems like the right fix would be changing the law so minor convictions don't show up on a CORI, or can't be used to deny housing or employment.
100% agree
I'd love to see that on the ballot in 2020, because I honestly don't think the legislature will ever move on it--wouldn't want to be smeared as "soft on crime."
In the meantime, though, refusing to prosecute minor crimes is a reasonable half-step.
You got it wrong
I love when folks on the EXTREME left assume those who disagree with them must be Herald readers, or worse, Fox New viewers.
It never occurs to them there exist liberal and educated and even Hilary Clinton voters who read the Globe, Huffington Post, Vox, etc. and still disagree. We can see through the bias and flawed arguments.
Rollins proposals aren't reform, rather they are reckless.
Reckless
No.
Jailing a sizeable percentage of your population for non violent crime is reckless.
This is entirely fact driven - which is why people like you have a problem with it.
Still
A huge difference from having them outright dismissed vs placing the offenders on probation.
If someone on probation is caught shoplifting they will be punished appropriately. If someone is caught shoplifting a second time in say 6 months under Rollins nothing happens.
Your little nugget is actually fools gold.
You still get arrested
And spend time in jail until you can post bail or they drop the charges. So that could be a couple of days or months. Usually the merchant gets the merchandise back. And what is, as you say, punished appropriately? How do you know if the offender was punished appropriately? If they never still again was the punishment appropriate? That could certainly happen without going to jail. But I think appropriate to you means months or years in prison- how much time should a human being spend in a cage for violating probation with petty theft?
Finally, I'm sure if Frank and Joe are out there committing petty theft every other week the DA may decide to put them in prison for a month after they've done it enough times. Or maybe they will decide that another punishment is better than a month in prison, but the last thing they will do is let Frank and Joe keep doing petty crimes without addressing the issue. Nobody is proposing lawlessness.
Yup
And anyone who doesn't have half their brain dedicated to kneejerk racist misogyny overreactions knows that because they went and looked it up.
Earplugs
It doesn't matter how much you explain it to some people -- they choose not to understand.
Luckily 40% of Suffolk County voters did, and we'll be moving forward with a new perspective in criminal justice that doesn't use a one-size-fits-all approach to crime.
I read that article very differently
The Globe did do a good job reaching out to the Rollins campaign, but they also note the worries on the part of police officers and retailers which in turn are the worries of the voters. Gross seemed to be noncommittal on her proposals, opting instead to wait until the commissioner and DA have a meeting before commenting.
The article is worth a read. It's very balanced, which I will up and say is better than your spin on the article.
I thought the same thing, and
I thought the same thing, and wondered if me and Adam read the same article. Clearly he likes Rollins and will push her on his readers to no end. You’d think he would at least know a little better than the average voter since he listens to the police radios nightly.
Let me ask you Adam, in your experience from listening while the police bravely put their lives on the line nightly, do you hear think shoplifting is really this much of a concern to the police? Don’t you think it’s more the violence and the opiates flooding certain neighborhoods? If you listen to BPD radios from Area B and C (Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury), then you know how incredibly busy those officers are, with you know, stuff that actually matters.
Convenience store clerks bravely put their lives on the line
So do tree trimmers. So do electrical workers and firefighters and people who harvest your seafood.
Cops don't even break the top 10 in terms of dangerous occupations. Most of their mortality is car wrecks, not direct criminal intention.
Maybe you should stop romanticizing crime and start looking at statistics. Like Rollins is looking at statistics.
Are we purposefully trying to
Are we purposefully trying to make those other jobs more dangerous and difficult though?
With an administration with a
With an administration with a hard-on for rolling back regulation? I don't think it's too far off.
Headline
I'm not sure your current headline is accurate ("So all those crimes Rollins wouldn't prosecute? Turns out they already mostly aren't prosecuted"). Probation is not "not prosecuting." The defendant is still charged with a crime and prosecuted -- the sentence just happens to be probation. It is just a different outcome or disposition than jail or prison.
Good point
I was thinking "prosecution" as in "going to trial on charges that could bring a jail sentence."
Headline remains misleading
Words carry specific meanings in the legal context, and the words in the headline are incorrect.
Not Prosecuting
It really is a sad state of affairs when this is how crime is handled. The fact that so little is expected of parents not raising children properly. There are such low expectations for some communities. How about teaching kids how to behave and not commit crimes. Pretty sad.
Please
You are an expert on these things? Like a District Attorney is an expert?
If you spent more time reading about the reality of how the US is a penal fiesta and less time reacting or dreaming up romantic tales out of Dickens, you would understand better.
Who will teach them?
If their parents are in cages for petty theft? I think one of Rollin's ideas is to keep people out of cages for non-violent crimes and then those people can be around for their kids more. Then they will be around to raise their "children properly" as you say. If they get help and learn a better way, maybe they can teach it to their children. If they're in a cage, then there are no parents around to raise their children. So maybe we agree that parents shouldn't be locked up for petty crimes? Pretty cool.
No one cares
About petty theft, but she's refusing to prosecute drug dealers. I don't know about you, but I see that as a huge problem.
Define Drug Dealer
I sold some weed in my day. If you sell some fentanyl does that make you a drug dealer? How about if you're an addict and you sell to make money and feed your habit? Is that a drug dealer? Are the big pharma companies drug dealers? If you have multiple working for you and a contact with a big supply of opiates that you have been pumping into Boston, that's probably a drug dealer. But definition and discretion are key.
Just a hunch, but I don’t
Just a hunch, but I don’t think the new BPD Commisiner and her are going to get along very well.
Willie grew up in Dorchester, the son of a single mother, and wasn’t coddled like Rollins wants to coddle some. He is a beacon of hope to the officers of the BPD, and she wants to basically legalize resisting arrest.
Just a hunch though.
Nothing is legalized
You still get arrested for resisting arrest. You still go to a jail at the station. You may still spend days or weeks there. Even months. Cops may be upset that some people aren't be convicted in a court for resisting arrest or that they can't basically force people to plead guilty for a lesser sentence. But I'm not sure even police officers want people to spend months in a cage for resisting arrest - seems draconian.
Jesus christ you people
Read the damned article. "Will not prosecute" means "will not file an indictment solely for this charge." If you rob a bank and then fight back when they arrest you for it, you get the extra charge tacked onto the original one. If they find a gun in your glove compartment, next to half a kilo of heroin, you also get the drug charge. However, if you're arrested for resisting arrest (AKA the #1 excuse for cops to arrest someone they don't like but can't otherwise find an excuse to arrest), you don't get prosecuted for it.
In other words, we give our overtaxed court system a break by funneling fewer nonviolent offenders through it, and we stop arresting and prosecuting so many minorities for the same "crimes" that white people get away with every day.
Find me a single instance of
Find me a single instance of a person being strictly charged with resisting arrest and we will stop and give her a chance.
You won’t.
Because it doesn’t happen.
It’s about the message this sends.
Same, but one small difference.
So she's the same as the other DAs, but she talks publicly about what she won't prosecute? So you'd be fine with her doing all of the things she said as long as she doesn't talk about them? Ignorance is bliss I guess.