Memo to San Francisco Board of Supervisors: What About the “Justice-Deprived” Persons?

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has transformed a convicted felon into a “justice-involved individual,” which could describe someone studying for the bar, or applying for a job as a public defender or district attorney. The board also pronounced those convicted felons who were formerly incarcerated as “returning residents,” which would also apply to someone moving back to the Bay Area from Detroit or Sioux Falls.

The board is attempting to make crime disappear, and wants the convicted felons and parolees of San Francisco to feel good about themselves. On the other hand, not much diversity is going on here. 

As Debra Heine notes at American Greatness, the San Francisco supervisors did not come up with a new name for the victims of crime. These would be the people who suffer theft of catalytic converters and any other item worth less than $950, the crime wave touched off by Proposition 47. These would be the family members of those recently murdered in Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton. These would be people like Nicole Clavo, who son was shot dead in 2015, and whose murderer will be freed at the age of 23. That was due to Senate Bill 1391, signed by Jerry Brown, which forbids the prosecution of those under 16 as adults, whatever the gravity of their crime. Call it the Murderer Empowerment Act. 

Crime victims and their families qualify as “justice-deprived individuals,” but not in San Francisco. Crime victims, residents and taxpayers might have a go at renaming that city, where as Jerry Brown said of the new Bay Bridge, “I mean, look, shit happens.” Similar conditions prevail on the streets of the state capital, which could be renamed “Excremento,” a nod to unhygienic reality and Spanish colonialism alike. For its part, Los Angeles could become “Mickey Mouse City.” 

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is free to call a chicken a duck. People everywhere are free to ignore them.