"County can't afford to prosecute minor crooks"? Hmm, we could try the all-purpose GOP solution: more tax cuts!

Justice is supposed to be blind, but broke? Not so much.

I think this one's going to get passed along a lot. It comes from the blog The Economic Populist, based on an SF Gate report, and calls for no further comment from me. Here it is in case you haven't seen it. -- Ken

County can't afford to prosecute minor crooks
Submitted by midtowng on Wed, 04/22/2009 - 13:43.

Someone better check the canary in this coal mine. I think it's dead.

Misdemeanors such as assaults, thefts and burglaries will no longer be prosecuted in Contra Costa County because of budget cuts, the county's top prosecutor said Tuesday.

District Attorney Robert Kochly also said that beginning May 4, his office will no longer prosecute felony drug cases involving smaller amounts of narcotics. That means anyone caught with less than a gram of methamphetamine or cocaine, less than 0.5 grams of heroin and fewer than five pills of ecstasy, OxyContin or Vicodin won't be charged.

People who are suspected of misdemeanor drug crimes, break minor traffic laws, shoplift, trespass or commit misdemeanor vandalism will also be in the clear. Those crimes won't be prosecuted, either.

"We had to make very, very difficult choices, and we had to try to prioritize things. There are no good choices to be made here," said Kochly, a 35-year veteran prosecutor. "It's trying to choose the lesser of certain evils in deciding what we can and cannot do."

Very 3rd world-ish.

Contra Costa County isn't the Mississippi delta. It contains some very wealthy suburbs.

Well, one added note: There is, actually, an interesting comment on-site from reader Robert Oak, who explains that in Contra Costa County, as an "outlier" of Silicon Valley, "Many bought way overpriced homes there...because the way overpriced homes in Silicon valley they couldn't buy...and ended up commuting, which can take anywhere from an hour to 3 one way." He describes Contra Costa as "beyond stratified" between its prosperous Silicon Valley commuters and an "underground economy" built on illegal labor from a "huge" immigrant population.

Seriously, it's the haves and the have nots and even worse is people just "step over" the have nots even when it's "one of their own" that is now a have not.

It has to be one of the most hypocritical, stratified, "numb" social oblivion areas to me...

Driving by 3 million dollar homes when the next neighborhood looks like something from the 3rd world and you're stepping over homeless people just to get into your building door.

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