The rush to validate — or at least shrug off — anti-social behavior continues. In order to protect illegal aliens from deportation — and homeless people from arrest — Denver has reduced penalties for public defecation and urination to the least possible, short of a parking ticket. From the KUSA story:
Denver City Council voted unanimously Monday night to lessen the punishment for people convicted of certain low-level crimes like lying in a public right-of-way, urinating [and defecating] in public and panhandling. City leaders and immigrant rights advocates argued the changes will protect Denver’s immigrant community from facing unintended consequences.
“Many times it becomes a deportable offense if you’ve been convicted of even a minor ordinance violation that’s punishable by a year in jail,” Mark Silverstein said, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.
Public defecation will now be a “Class 2″ infraction, carrying no fine and a theoretical maximum of six months in jail. (Yeah, that will happen.)
Even that isn’t enough for homeless advocates:
Mark Silverstein acknowledged that Denver’s sentencing reform was a good first step, but suggested more work could be done to protect vulnerable communities. “I think the number of crimes that are treated with that kind of leniency can certainly be extended beyond the handful that Denver has so far changed the penalties on,”
Silverstein said. Homeless advocates have argued that “quality of life” offenses should not be considered crimes and should carry no punishment.
Good grief. Public defecation is dangerous to the public’s health.
This shrugging at city-soiling actions is a mirror reversal of Rudy Giuliani’s enforcing so-called quality of life crimes that did so much to improve New York City. And the results are likely to be just as pronounced.
The point of this reduced concern — evidenced by Silverstein’s comment — is to make it okay to do these filthy things. San Francisco has pursued a similar course — and it has gotten to the point now that police don’t even bother to arrest quality of life offenders since the DAs won’t prosecute.
Having just moved from there, I can tell you that as a result, SF — which is a world class city — has become a disgrace, filthy and stinking.
The Left seems determined to validate dysfunction and dissipation. This shrugging at awful and anti-social public behavior furthers our devolutionary cultural decline.