Improving Quality of Life

By Kamala Harris

For the past eight years, the current District Attorney has not lived up to his responsibility to prosecute the crimes that impact the quality of life of all San Franciscans. Instead, he has veered back and forth between grand pronouncements regarding his intention to vigorously prosecute quality of life crimes and complete indifference to teen-age prostitution, gang violence, aggressive panhandling and drug-dealing that is destroying quality of life in many San Francisco neighborhoods.

I don't believe it is "compassionate" to ignore quality of life crimes + for those who commit them, or those who suffer from them. Many of these crimes involve substance abuse. For example, in the year 2000 over 15,000 citations were written for quality of life crimes, and 80% involved substance abuse. But the District Attorney's office handled only 300 cases, and only 1% resulted in any kind of drug treatment.

While the criminal justice system cannot single-handedly solve our quality of life problems, I believe that the District Attorney has an important role to play. Specifically, as the next District Attorney, I will:

• Vigorously prosecute repeat offenders who sell crack and heroin.
• Prosecute the pimps and johns of teenage prostitutes as sex offenders and child abusers.
• Convene a community-wide alliance modeled on Boston's "operation ceasefire" to sharply reduce gang violence.
• Re-invigorate mentor programs aimed at steering at-risk juveniles away from a life of crime.
• Use the power of the office to move repeat offenders of "quality of life" crimes into compassionate and effective treatment.