She was terrible. So angry and emotional the whole time. Not saying it's not serious stuff they're talking about, but the people on the other side would have at least as much right to be emotional or angry. Emotion rarely helps an argument imo.
The main problem is, if you listen to her background, she was part of the think tanks were directly in charge with coming up with the original policies that have led to the crime we're seeing now. It's difficult for anyone to do a self-assessment of failed policies, so it's difficult for her to see the quantitively based arguments Shellenberger brings (for example) and not get overly emotional.
From Seattle, I am having a hard time forgiving Bazleon for saying these concepts are not relevant and that they're somehow disingenuous, fringe or extreme. My entire city council during covid was going to completely remove incarceration- to the point of deciding what to do with the corrections union as guards simply wouldn't be needed.
Could not stand Laura Bazelon. Far too emotional and willing to slander the other side. Saying they were angry, or that they're happy to throw away lives. Ridiculous claims.
The Bazelon family are Democrat Royalty...I'd take what any Bazelon says with a grain of salt. Their heritage demands they see crime through a Dem lens.
I lived in NYC during the broken window theory years and we all watched every day as the policies & actions taken led to the demise of crime. It was like a math equation it was so exact.
Love how the woman argues Louisiana, as a red state, had the highest murder rate while simultaneously ignoring that New Orleans, a blue city, accounts for most of the murders… Lies, damn lies, and statistics… Oh, she also forgot to mention that Washington DC has the highest murder rate, which is amazing be abuse it is the smallest of any jurisdiction measured at the state level and is controlled by the Democrats… If we bring it down to the local municipality, last time I checked all top ten cities with the highest murder rate were Democrat controlled… Funny how that works!
The highest rates of crime, but the highest rates of recidivism; man, it's almost like letting criminals off lightly leads to them committing the same crimes.
"Diversion" programs available in the early 1970s, I participated in one. But for those within in a culture of crime, where lawlessness is incentivized, and spending time in prison is a badge of honor, the solutions are not in police or prison reform, but in the very cultural values and incentives we teach our children.
@nuqwestr We don't have A Crime Problem, We don't have a Drug Problem. We have A Morals problem. ie a Religion Problem. For the last 60+ years we have driven Faith/Religion/God out of the public square, and pushed Secularism. How's That Workin Out?
@@nuqwestr A small question. Are All Religions The Same? I would also point something else out Its not the 16th century. BTW I have spent A Lot Of time reading/studying The Wars of Religion. Also there would be other problems (thee ALWAYS Are) But Not These problems.
@@stevenwiederholt7000 All human aspirations toward transcendence of physical reality are about the same, but expressed in different ways. The 17th and 18th centuries are not ancient in terms of human evolution. The United States is framed in secular fashion for good reason.
"We can do better" is one of those cheapest ad hominem tropes. Only those who live and breathe in cultural bubbles, such as universities, have low enough self-awareness to pull one out on a debate stage.
Laura is an example of why I don’t like far left. Too emotional and idealistic. I was totally convinced by Seneca. I loved his comments about the police.
In Chicago, criminals run rampant in neighborhoods where crime simply never happened until 4-5 years ago. People fleeing gorgeous, idyllic neighborhoods because shootings and armed robberies are happening once a week at this point. People mostly talk about the already-bad neighborhoods. But it's spilling into the nice neighborhoods too. Just this morning, on the 10800 block of South Campbell, 2 "people" tried to jack an off-duty cop's car. The cop fired back. it was literally at like 5:30 this morning. It's out of control. These are neighborhoods that were extremely safe ,where families have lived for generations. It's profoundly depressing. It would appear the mayor would prefer to bring down the best parts of Chicago instead of working to elevate disadvantaged neighborhoods while using the best areas as a goal.
@@egx161 Ask any Chicagoan -- Black, white or Latino -- which are the bad neighborhoods, and they will tell you the same thing. Chicago is the most segregated city in the country. If you don't understand the history of the city, it would be best if you didn't comment.
Former Edgewater resident here. Edgewater isn't a "bad" neighborhood, but I definitely wouldn't characterize it as "idyllic" in the way someone might describe Lincoln Park or Roscoe Village. I lived in Edgewater for 13 years. Some saw it as a place that was a little bit rough around the edges (I would disagree), but I lived there comfortably while I built my career. The year my wife and I left, there was a marked deterioration in safety and general quality of life that I believe stemmed from a degradation of the deterrent of law enforcement. If there is no deterrent, then the volume of law enforcement doesn't matter. It is sad that Chicago gets the one-sided reputation as something of a lawless place, because it is easily my favorite city in America and it has a lot to offer people. But when huge businesses start leaving, when your run of the mill tax payer, like myself, leave, it is the canary in the coal mine.
@@egx161 A good neighborhood is one where children play outside and walk themselves to the school live 3 blocks away from without fear of bullets flying by. Ones where armed robberies and homicides aren't a daily occurrence. Ones where gangs don't run rampant and essentially own the neighborhood. They exist (for now) and the example in my original comment is one of them (again, for now). A bad one is where gangs are in charge and where shootings are a daily occurrence. Sorry you live in an alternate reality.
Criminal Justice Reform (so called) has been a disaster. I live here in the SF-Bay Area. The sooner we can come back to our senses the better (but we won't).
We owned a duplex in South Minneapolis during the riots of 2020. Many of these were Minnesota residents as shown by public records, where 54 were arrested for vandalism and disorderly conduct looted the local Target, liquor store, Walgreens and burned down the Dominos, Holiday station and many other businesses. Gov Walz did nothing for days. You could protest and riot not wearing masks, but you couldn't go to church. I was so happy to get out of the city and sell our property, which is a shame, because my tenants were wonderful people, unfortunately surrounded by a community that is lawless. The city council is full of a bunch of clowns, they are bringing the city to their knees. I wouldn't do business in Minneapolis.
My favorite part of that exchange was where she compared being a police officer in The Tenderloin to her being a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law.
If Lara thinks that Police should get out of the car abd do their jobs, how about she takes an overnight shift. Don't ask someone to do a ugly job and then expect them to never get ugly.
When you decriminalize various crimes like shoplifting and drug use of course you're going to see a drop in crime statistics. It doesn't actually mean criminal acts are down we just don't consider them crimes anymore.
They say listen to your opposition to learn their arguments in order to be better prepared in conversation. However, listening to Laura is a virtual impossibility, argument from anecdote, mischaractering arguments (Strawman) and appeal to emotion are just some of the logical fallacies she engaged in. Yikes.
I also find it funny how Lara calls out Seneca for a straw man, saying that she never said "abolish the police" but in the same breath, goes on to create a straw man saying that they're saying that we need more prisons
How can she defend the current state of San Fran?! The only thing explaining this, is that she lives in a VERY safe and secure place and does not understand how others are suffering.
IT's so crazy. I'm a therapist and while I do mostly armchair therapy, I worked for years in subtance abuse, most notably as the clinical director of a methadone clinic. The federal guidelines per SAMHSA, dictate how and when patients can get "take home medicine". The philosophy being, whe you first come in to treatment, you have to come every day to dose bc you are not stable enough and have not demonstrated abstinence sufficient that you are trusted with a week or a month worth of medication. The risk of diversion (selling/giving to someone else) is too high. Once you demonstrate through continued negative UDS that you are abstinent, you are then allowed take homes. This is the feds saying, we can't just assume people with substance use disorders will do the right thing from day one. This is well established and effective policy. In places like SF we see people advocating crazy shit, like housing first, as though that will solve the problem.
Kmele had a good argument, although it's mostly around how we define "criminal justice reform." Lara was overly emotional and personal, and that made her argument weak.
Seneca crushed it. Kmele crushed it. Lara doesn't seem to understand that crime statistics are not necessarily an accurate reflection of crime. People feeling safe is what matters, not how many people police are able or decide to arrest.
Lara, drug crime was not enforced in the Chesa/pandemic era and turned San Francisco into an OD'ing zombie land, the effects of which are still being felt despite our new "centrist" DA, but I'm sure you knew that.
25:25 my initial thought is that we think that most people who commit crimes can be rehabilitated. I’m just not sure that’s the case. Another thought is that we must balance the right to safety and well being of citizens who do not commit crimes with those who do. It’s a hard balancing act. Many times, someone who should never have been back on the street, causes major harm to a person/people. It’s exactly those times that people are fed up with.
“America has the highest incarceration rate of anywhere in the world,” the first statement in this series is a false statement. I wonder how good this is going to be.
Should the FP decide to have a part 2 criminal justice debate, please invite someone like Rafael Mangual or Charles Lehman. Everyone here is obviously smart and well-spoken, but those two's full-time job is to study and write about criminal justice. And while I've enjoyed hearing Kmele Foster on the Fifth Column, he was mostly useless here: "Let's approach this debate with nuance." Yes, let's. No one who is remotely interested in this topic thinks it should be reduced to slogans. Felt like he was just scoring audience points by trying to inject "nuance" without getting into any nuanced points.
We certainly do not want to give criminals more power than our police officers. And call that criminal justice reform. Criminals should have some form of punishment regardless.
Lara Bazelon opening statement: "...we could safely close 4 prisons in CA right now." Lara Bazelon at 1:14:45 "...we're not here talking about abolishing prisons"🤔
@@jayl271322 The point is you can't say you can "safely close 4 prison is CA right now" unless you want to abolish prisons. CA should be expanding prisons given the crimes actually committed across the state.
LOL...technically not the same, very similar. If you want to be picky, the s in Starbucks (a brand name) is not the same as prisons (plural for prison). Nice try.
So, a NIH report states that 1% of the US population accounts for 63% of all violent crime… As the woman stated, we have the highest incarceration rate at 1% of our population… However, if 1% of our population is responsible for only 63% of our “violent crime”, seems to me we don’t have enough people in prison as the other 27% of violent crime perpetrators and all those committing significant non-violent crime are not in prison… Her argument also apparently ignores the fact that we have better law enforcement than most countries, thus we do have a higher incarceration rate than other countries, but not in relation to our crime rate… Now, while stats are up for debate, China has a much lower crime and incarceration rate but they also have much more severe punishment for crime - not to mention a culture that helps detours crime more than ours…
Bazelon and Foster constantly brushed off actual data and common sense with vague statements about "nuance" and "it's complicated" but they never really went into how it's so nuanced and complicated. Those aren't positions. Those aren't solutions. Meanwhile, the other side actually made sense in pointing out that if there were serious, long-lasting consequences to crime and addiction, those deterrents alone can make a difference. A well-trained, well-funded, and well-organized police force actually can help address rampant addiction and homelessness. Bazelon prattled on about compassion and yet it appears that she's only willing to extend that compassion to criminals and not their victims or potential victims - and there's the question of how compassionate it really is to essentially give up on these people to such a degree that they languish in the streets and die. She did not actually suggest alternatives. She merely insisted that she disagrees with calls for more policing, and then backtracked and claimed that that's not what she said or meant several times after. She kept alluding to an emotionally compelling anecdote about her "client" but didn't offer any practical solutions. And then at the end she tried to paint her opponents' positions as feelings-based! I'm not unsympathetic to her concerns, but I think she was the weakest in this debate.
Do you really think that's true or are you being partisan? Foster went into detail about why "it's complicated" and clearly stated that what flows out of that is the fact that it isn't easy to come up with solutions. It might feel good to just do something but that doesn't mean it's effective. As much as I'm sure everyone on the panel wants to find solutions it's also the case that coming up with the solution isn't really the purpose of a debate.
I agree with you. I'm familiar with all the speaker, except Seneca. Laura is leftist and clearly the most emotional about the topic. Which makes sense because she's a criminal defense attorney. IMO Kmele, tried to reframe the argument in a cynical plot to win, also he loses points for using the word particular too much. Shellenberger and Seneca clearly won.
Or they might not. You’ve just focused on where you *think* they live and made that mean something about whether their ideas are valid or not. Seems like it would make sense but it actually doesn’t.
@@jayl271322That’s a far leap right there. I think OP’s statement is absolutely applicable when talking about crime reform. Experience is important in every conversation. I won’t deem her entire argument worthless, but I’m going to consider the people who live in the area to have a higher level of credibility. It’s pretty much like that in every debate and conversations. And it’s important to have scholars on the floor, but it’s also important to have those who’ve actually experienced it too. Anyways, I think home girl sounded silly because her entire view is coming from a bad faith position of Police Officers who are an integral part of the criminal justice system. She only focuses on bad policing and not good policing. Go ask the people in those neighborhoods if they rather have more police or less. That is the most important evidence to me.
Lara may be speaking from her experience, but that varies from state to state. As someone who has seen the system up close in NYS, there are many times where someone can punch another person, or break their window, or harass them, and they will not see time. In NYS, unless you truly injure someone to the point that they have an impairment of a physical condition, any attack on another person is a violation, which has a maximum jail time of 15 days and requires an appearance ticket, so they are not brought to jail upon arrest, but given a court date. The majority of violations that I've witnessed result in the case being tossed, a fine, or community service. So her viewpoint that people who commit violent crimes will see time is wrong. On another note, the debate for criminal justice usually always leaves out the most important person, the Victim. Seneca talked about it briefly, but who helps the person who had their window smashed in? When a criminal is let free because they damaged property and not a person, no one thinks of the loss of security the victim has. No one thinks about the justice the victim can get. It's only about "how do we make the bad guy feel ok".
Here here! I live and work in the Seattle metropolitan area as a nighttime patrol officer. For the last four years, it’s been an absolute nightmare. People call us wanting us to help them, but we’re not cops. I’ve had hundreds of conversation both in person and on the phone with people who have been victimized by people stealing, catalytic, converters, cars, and smashing windows just so they can search the car for valuables. Women come up to me and ask, sometimes begging, to escort them From their car to their apartment because they’re terrified of being alone after dark. If people don’t feel safe in their own homes, then the system has truly failed. It wasn’t even this bad after 9/11. Even then, people weren’t terrified that terrorists would come barging into their homes to murder them.
Lara is not listening to others points. She is emotional on particular cases. She’s not looking over all. She’s sad for her one client and wants the system burned down. She talks about of both ends.
When all is said and done we can see that we had a system, however imperfect, that worked overall and now, despite our best efforts to improve it, doesn't work as well.
I know I’m late to the show. I can’t help thinking to myself. Why can’t we get these four people together to actually re-create the justice system with these four Talking Heads and these great minds coming together we could definitely come up with some great solutions.
The use of studies and research by the panelists is disconcerting. They routinely conflate correlation and causation, and many of their Statistics seem to be from simple correlation coefficients. It is irresponsible to use simple correlations for obviously multivariate problems. It makes sense that we have more prisoners in our country than in others, we have a lot more freedom. When your society keeps you in lock-down, there is a lot less opportunity for crime and innovation.
Calling Boston safe is a meme. I certainly didn't feel safe when I was in the more metropolitan areas, it becomes just like Nyc/Cali in the right spots and I'm speaking as a new yorker who can tell the difference
But when cops arrest people and then the DAs refuse to prosecute, that makes the cops to be less likely to put their lives in harms way to arrest a criminal.
Framing the issue as addressing "criminal justice reform" probably courted about 20 minutes of defining terms I could have done without, as well as some talking past one-another, and ultimately making one question what the 'vote at the end' was really about. This could have been avoided by limiting the question to a specific policy, like Prop 47, though I understand functional debates don't really get clicks. There were some jaw-dropping moments -- Bazelon's putative reliance on data in the opening only to disclaim statistics as meaningless once challenged by Schellenberger was a bona fide knee-slapper. There's also some false dichotomy here -- its true that broader social forces influence crime more than criminal justice policy, especially within the short times progressive prosecutors have held office (before being booted out like Boundin or resigning in disgrace like Kim Gardner). But its also true that many (not all) CJP is important enough that it shouldn't be badly bungled by ideologues who refuse to face reality. E.g. drug use and petty theft proliferate more when there's no threat of arrest or incarceration. Diversion is a joke 99% of the time, which any criminal defense lawyer (like Bazelon) can tell you if s/he's being honest (unlike Bazelon) -- a last stop before prison, costly to the taxpayer, and dangerous to the community forced to suffer still one more crime from the same habitual offender. The best that can be said of 'progressive prosecutors' is that, despite their rhetoric, it was actually a pretty small gulf between them and their more mainstream Democrat predecessors and successors. Hence people like Bazelon can say the outcomes weren't so different under their regime. The rest of us might just say the rot in the system preceded them, and they were too ineffective to make it much worse. If people steal, they should go to jail. It's really that simple.
Our Penal system (Federal, State) Does Not Work. 70% (according to the FBI) of people release (paroled, time served) are back In Trouble within FIVE YEARS. Think of it this way. You drive by a prison, think of it as College For Crooks. It neither punishes strongly enough to deter nor rehabilitates those who can be. You get a (say) 20 year old goes in for robbing a liquor store (BTW this is Not his 1st rodeo). He get 10 years, gets out at 28 for time served, and 1. He's Pissed, 2. He's more prone to violence, 3. He's a smarter criminal.
@thefreepress You always seem to have a panelist that is arguing that their interpretation of the topic is different than the other panelists. That turns the discussion from debating the question itself to debating the definition of the question. It may be useful in the future to establish some agreed upon definitions of terms being discussed. In this debate you had arguments about the results of recent Justice reform policies, but then the counter to that was to redefine what justice reform means, and ignore the actual implemented policies and the actual results altogether. Those are two very different discussions.
hard to believe some people switched opinions to the pro crime side from the factually incorrect emotional ramble of that side. at least 3/4 still have some common sense
When you try and implement criminal justice reform, what are you doing to the rule of law for law abiding citizens? This effort seems like , in the long run, to be ignoring the rights of law abiding citizens because these advocants will be giving criminals more rights at the expense of putting more fear in law abiding citizens. More talk should be about lawfull peoples justice reform not only criminal justice reform.
Laura is not making a specific argument about what she says thst the cops she is talking about has actually done that she thinks should have some accountability?? It sounded like the.person she talked about dying from an overdose had done something that was illegal. I dont understand that.
How about putting fathers back in the house and not Uncle Sam. Unless of course you like Uncle Sam telling you how to live your life and providing others tax money to make you feel better about yourself.
The fact so few comments. Shows no one cares! Lock them up! My grandson at age 11 was suspended for an entire year for mistake caring his fishing pocket knife to school. Zero tolerance. He was a mild mannered good kid. Who had been at his grandpa house to fish. Forgot to take out of his bag. He was placed in a school with troubled teens to ages to 17. He scared... Well to much to go into. His mother unable to afford attorney. Than at 16 low level went to jail. He later got into trouble. In and out. He has spent MONTHS in solitary. Sometimes for his safety from other inmates. He has totally lost his mind. When he gets out. He I am afraid end up back in. He is not right on the head anymore. He tries to spare me from knowing it all. He has been raped .. list goes on. I do not know the answers. But treatment is in humane. On lockdown most of time due to lack of staff. Over crowding. It cost 130,000 year. Why can we not do better and help these guys early on.
56:45 being victimized doesn’t make you morally good…what a weird implication to weave into your statements here. Yes, being a criminal makes you morally bad, regardless of whether someone else has committed crimes against you in the past or future.
The minute that lady said SF was lead by centrists, I can completely write her off.
She was terrible. So angry and emotional the whole time. Not saying it's not serious stuff they're talking about, but the people on the other side would have at least as much right to be emotional or angry. Emotion rarely helps an argument imo.
The main problem is, if you listen to her background, she was part of the think tanks were directly in charge with coming up with the original policies that have led to the crime we're seeing now. It's difficult for anyone to do a self-assessment of failed policies, so it's difficult for her to see the quantitively based arguments Shellenberger brings (for example) and not get overly emotional.
@@benjaminholm2311people in debates get emotional when they are losing or don’t have a good argument
@@brianmeen2158 Exactly. And she was that way the whole time. You can maybe let it slide temporarily.
From Seattle, I am having a hard time forgiving Bazleon for saying these concepts are not relevant and that they're somehow disingenuous, fringe or extreme. My entire city council during covid was going to completely remove incarceration- to the point of deciding what to do with the corrections union as guards simply wouldn't be needed.
Shellenberger truly mad a difference in my city of Seattle. I also recommend everyone watch "Seattle is dying" documentary. It's excellent.
Could not stand Laura Bazelon. Far too emotional and willing to slander the other side. Saying they were angry, or that they're happy to throw away lives. Ridiculous claims.
The Bazelon family are Democrat Royalty...I'd take what any Bazelon says with a grain of salt. Their heritage demands they see crime through a Dem lens.
Non emotional person was the most emotional person on that stage
Senneca was very articulate and his argument was convincing.
I lived in NYC during the broken window theory years and we all watched every day as the policies & actions taken led to the demise of crime. It was like a math equation it was so exact.
Go figure. It’s almost like law enforcement and ostracization of putrid behavior is a deterrent.
Love how the woman argues Louisiana, as a red state, had the highest murder rate while simultaneously ignoring that New Orleans, a blue city, accounts for most of the murders… Lies, damn lies, and statistics… Oh, she also forgot to mention that Washington DC has the highest murder rate, which is amazing be abuse it is the smallest of any jurisdiction measured at the state level and is controlled by the Democrats… If we bring it down to the local municipality, last time I checked all top ten cities with the highest murder rate were Democrat controlled… Funny how that works!
Seneca won this debate. He was great.
100%. his response at 56:30 to Laura's nonsense was perfect. She had emotion and he brought facts.
@@cedricwilford I especially like Kmele Foster. Intellectual hero for sure. He’s so god damn brilliant he can convincingly litigate either side.
@jacobrheaume1 he lost me after the virtue signaling land acknowledgment part
@@teeconsigliano7631 kmele? Gave land acknowledgment? It must have been sarcasm. He 1000% does not believe that shit.
The willingness to lie when put on the spot scares me and should scare everyone.
"Detroit is doing much better!"
"But... everyone in Detroit ranks it almost last in the nation for safety"
"That's just how they FEEL though."
yup, total gaslighting
They always seem to forget drugs and crime are a CHOICE…doesn’t matter what background you come from.
The highest rates of crime, but the highest rates of recidivism; man, it's almost like letting criminals off lightly leads to them committing the same crimes.
"Diversion" programs available in the early 1970s, I participated in one. But for those within in a culture of crime, where lawlessness is incentivized, and spending time in prison is a badge of honor, the solutions are not in police or prison reform, but in the very cultural values and incentives we teach our children.
@nuqwestr
We don't have A Crime Problem, We don't have a Drug Problem. We have A Morals problem. ie a Religion Problem. For the last 60+ years we have driven Faith/Religion/God out of the public square, and pushed Secularism. How's That Workin Out?
@@stevenwiederholt7000 Iran has state religion, so do other nation/states, as does the history of religious strife in Europe. that's not the solution.
@@nuqwestr
A small question. Are All Religions The Same?
I would also point something else out Its not the 16th century.
BTW I have spent A Lot Of time reading/studying The Wars of Religion.
Also there would be other problems (thee ALWAYS Are) But Not These problems.
@@stevenwiederholt7000 All human aspirations toward transcendence of physical reality are about the same, but expressed in different ways. The 17th and 18th centuries are not ancient in terms of human evolution. The United States is framed in secular fashion for good reason.
"We can do better" is one of those cheapest ad hominem tropes. Only those who live and breathe in cultural bubbles, such as universities, have low enough self-awareness to pull one out on a debate stage.
Luxury beliefs, coined by Robert Henderson, in his book Troubled.
Agree. It's the same as "we need to have a conversation " they rarely do, their idea is you shut up and take the verbal thrashing
Lara is a lawyer but she is so emotional. It will always risk her logic taking over by her emotion.
Laura is an example of why I don’t like far left. Too emotional and idealistic.
I was totally convinced by Seneca. I loved his comments about the police.
In Chicago, criminals run rampant in neighborhoods where crime simply never happened until 4-5 years ago. People fleeing gorgeous, idyllic neighborhoods because shootings and armed robberies are happening once a week at this point. People mostly talk about the already-bad neighborhoods. But it's spilling into the nice neighborhoods too. Just this morning, on the 10800 block of South Campbell, 2 "people" tried to jack an off-duty cop's car. The cop fired back. it was literally at like 5:30 this morning. It's out of control. These are neighborhoods that were extremely safe ,where families have lived for generations. It's profoundly depressing. It would appear the mayor would prefer to bring down the best parts of Chicago instead of working to elevate disadvantaged neighborhoods while using the best areas as a goal.
What is a bad neighborhood and what is a good neighborhood? Anything to do with race? These are the racists dog whistles I’ve been hearing for years.
@@egx161 Ask any Chicagoan -- Black, white or Latino -- which are the bad neighborhoods, and they will tell you the same thing. Chicago is the most segregated city in the country. If you don't understand the history of the city, it would be best if you didn't comment.
Former Edgewater resident here. Edgewater isn't a "bad" neighborhood, but I definitely wouldn't characterize it as "idyllic" in the way someone might describe Lincoln Park or Roscoe Village. I lived in Edgewater for 13 years. Some saw it as a place that was a little bit rough around the edges (I would disagree), but I lived there comfortably while I built my career. The year my wife and I left, there was a marked deterioration in safety and general quality of life that I believe stemmed from a degradation of the deterrent of law enforcement. If there is no deterrent, then the volume of law enforcement doesn't matter. It is sad that Chicago gets the one-sided reputation as something of a lawless place, because it is easily my favorite city in America and it has a lot to offer people. But when huge businesses start leaving, when your run of the mill tax payer, like myself, leave, it is the canary in the coal mine.
@@egx161 A good neighborhood is one where children play outside and walk themselves to the school live 3 blocks away from without fear of bullets flying by. Ones where armed robberies and homicides aren't a daily occurrence. Ones where gangs don't run rampant and essentially own the neighborhood. They exist (for now) and the example in my original comment is one of them (again, for now). A bad one is where gangs are in charge and where shootings are a daily occurrence. Sorry you live in an alternate reality.
This is how communist overthrow countries... Vote the Democrats out ... Work hard at voting in Republicans and libertarians if you have to!
Criminal Justice Reform (so called) has been a disaster. I live here in the SF-Bay Area. The sooner we can come back to our senses the better (but we won't).
Laura is awful, part of the problem
We owned a duplex in South Minneapolis during the riots of 2020. Many of these were Minnesota residents as shown by public records, where 54 were arrested for vandalism and disorderly conduct looted the local Target, liquor store, Walgreens and burned down the Dominos, Holiday station and many other businesses. Gov Walz did nothing for days. You could protest and riot not wearing masks, but you couldn't go to church. I was so happy to get out of the city and sell our property, which is a shame, because my tenants were wonderful people, unfortunately surrounded by a community that is lawless. The city council is full of a bunch of clowns, they are bringing the city to their knees. I wouldn't do business in Minneapolis.
Did Laura watch Madeline’s story about her son being murdered and Bragg pretty much slapped their hands
Never heard of this Senneca guy, but he was incredible.
Search @gothamoakland
Absolutely! Took the whole debate to reality...and was extremely compelling to listen to.
"Like... DO YOUR JOB!" Great analysis, lady. Very nuanced.
My favorite part of that exchange was where she compared being a police officer in The Tenderloin to her being a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law.
@@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat Seriously. Self awareness just doesn't play a role.
Sheltered white lady talking about things she really doesn’t deserve an opinion on.
Seriously! Do your job! Stop being so sensitive! Don't you know there's sexist and homophobic texts! 😅Ugh she's awful!
1:15:24 she walk’s everything she said back. She basically has no argument now.
Excellent debate with such well informed and well spoken debaters!
Tell me you live in a gated community without telling me you live in a gated community. Seriously Laura......
The only times i was ever incarcerated were when i broke the law.
I have not been incarcerated since i stopped breaking the law.
Just sayin'
Seneca for president, he was excellent.
If Lara thinks that Police should get out of the car abd do their jobs, how about she takes an overnight shift. Don't ask someone to do a ugly job and then expect them to never get ugly.
When you decriminalize various crimes like shoplifting and drug use of course you're going to see a drop in crime statistics. It doesn't actually mean criminal acts are down we just don't consider them crimes anymore.
Prison guards deserve a decent salary for such a dangerous job.
19:52 What is a Centrist today 20 years ago was a Radical
Embarrassing? I think it’s embarrassing that people are crapping on the street.
They say listen to your opposition to learn their arguments in order to be better prepared in conversation. However, listening to Laura is a virtual impossibility, argument from anecdote, mischaractering arguments (Strawman) and appeal to emotion are just some of the logical fallacies she engaged in. Yikes.
Word has it the polling went back to 87/13 within 5 minutes of the attendees leaving the building.
I called it as soon as they said the numbers at the start. Psycho leftists lying in the first poll, to make themselves sound better in the end one.
Exactly!
Did Laura watch Madeline’s story about her son being murdered and Bragg pretty much slapped their hands
Much respect Seneca
This is the first time I've heard Seneca speak at length - He's outstanding
I also find it funny how Lara calls out Seneca for a straw man, saying that she never said "abolish the police" but in the same breath, goes on to create a straw man saying that they're saying that we need more prisons
How can she defend the current state of San Fran?! The only thing explaining this, is that she lives in a VERY safe and secure place and does not understand how others are suffering.
IT's so crazy. I'm a therapist and while I do mostly armchair therapy, I worked for years in subtance abuse, most notably as the clinical director of a methadone clinic. The federal guidelines per SAMHSA, dictate how and when patients can get "take home medicine". The philosophy being, whe you first come in to treatment, you have to come every day to dose bc you are not stable enough and have not demonstrated abstinence sufficient that you are trusted with a week or a month worth of medication. The risk of diversion (selling/giving to someone else) is too high. Once you demonstrate through continued negative UDS that you are abstinent, you are then allowed take homes. This is the feds saying, we can't just assume people with substance use disorders will do the right thing from day one. This is well established and effective policy. In places like SF we see people advocating crazy shit, like housing first, as though that will solve the problem.
Kmele had a good argument, although it's mostly around how we define "criminal justice reform." Lara was overly emotional and personal, and that made her argument weak.
unfortunately his definition is not what it's been in practice
Seneca crushed it. Kmele crushed it. Lara doesn't seem to understand that crime statistics are not necessarily an accurate reflection of crime. People feeling safe is what matters, not how many people police are able or decide to arrest.
Lara, drug crime was not enforced in the Chesa/pandemic era and turned San Francisco into an OD'ing zombie land, the effects of which are still being felt despite our new "centrist" DA, but I'm sure you knew that.
Bari is doing good work. NYT lost a great opportunity when she was forced out.
Here for Michael Shellenberger only
Lol. I'm going to use statistics, but downplay statistics when mine are challenged.
This episode could be alternatively titled 'Laura is indignant and doesn't understand per capita statistics'
25:25 my initial thought is that we think that most people who commit crimes can be rehabilitated. I’m just not sure that’s the case. Another thought is that we must balance the right to safety and well being of citizens who do not commit crimes with those who do. It’s a hard balancing act. Many times, someone who should never have been back on the street, causes major harm to a person/people. It’s exactly those times that people are fed up with.
I recommend the work of Roland Fryer on police brutality.
Looking at his book descriptions, lots of empty academic jargon. No, thanks.
“America has the highest incarceration rate of anywhere in the world,” the first statement in this series is a false statement. I wonder how good this is going to be.
*Laura's opener:* Stats show Red Cities lead the Country in violent crime
*Laura's Defense:* Stats can be used to push either side's agenda
😂
Just ask that lady to walk around SF at night, let's see how much she really believes those stats
I enjoyed it. Freedom of speech is important. This is an important debate and they are all passionate about it.
What nonsense she is delusional
Should the FP decide to have a part 2 criminal justice debate, please invite someone like Rafael Mangual or Charles Lehman. Everyone here is obviously smart and well-spoken, but those two's full-time job is to study and write about criminal justice. And while I've enjoyed hearing Kmele Foster on the Fifth Column, he was mostly useless here: "Let's approach this debate with nuance." Yes, let's. No one who is remotely interested in this topic thinks it should be reduced to slogans. Felt like he was just scoring audience points by trying to inject "nuance" without getting into any nuanced points.
Well said
We certainly do not want to give criminals more power than our police officers. And call that criminal justice reform. Criminals should have some form of punishment regardless.
agree but it's already been done. should reverse this
Lara Bazelon opening statement: "...we could safely close 4 prisons in CA right now." Lara Bazelon at 1:14:45 "...we're not here talking about abolishing prisons"🤔
If you think those two statements mean the same thing, you're not thinking very hard.
"We could safely close 4 branches of Starbucks in New York right now". "Oh so you want to _abolish_ Starbucks 😎"
@@jayl271322 true, but she also called for less police, then states that she didn't believe we needed less police
@@jayl271322 The point is you can't say you can "safely close 4 prison is CA right now" unless you want to abolish prisons. CA should be expanding prisons given the crimes actually committed across the state.
LOL...technically not the same, very similar. If you want to be picky, the s in Starbucks (a brand name) is not the same as prisons (plural for prison). Nice try.
Why didn’t they put the graphs/slides on the big screen?
So, a NIH report states that 1% of the US population accounts for 63% of all violent crime… As the woman stated, we have the highest incarceration rate at 1% of our population… However, if 1% of our population is responsible for only 63% of our “violent crime”, seems to me we don’t have enough people in prison as the other 27% of violent crime perpetrators and all those committing significant non-violent crime are not in prison… Her argument also apparently ignores the fact that we have better law enforcement than most countries, thus we do have a higher incarceration rate than other countries, but not in relation to our crime rate… Now, while stats are up for debate, China has a much lower crime and incarceration rate but they also have much more severe punishment for crime - not to mention a culture that helps detours crime more than ours…
Bazelon and Foster constantly brushed off actual data and common sense with vague statements about "nuance" and "it's complicated" but they never really went into how it's so nuanced and complicated. Those aren't positions. Those aren't solutions. Meanwhile, the other side actually made sense in pointing out that if there were serious, long-lasting consequences to crime and addiction, those deterrents alone can make a difference. A well-trained, well-funded, and well-organized police force actually can help address rampant addiction and homelessness. Bazelon prattled on about compassion and yet it appears that she's only willing to extend that compassion to criminals and not their victims or potential victims - and there's the question of how compassionate it really is to essentially give up on these people to such a degree that they languish in the streets and die. She did not actually suggest alternatives. She merely insisted that she disagrees with calls for more policing, and then backtracked and claimed that that's not what she said or meant several times after. She kept alluding to an emotionally compelling anecdote about her "client" but didn't offer any practical solutions. And then at the end she tried to paint her opponents' positions as feelings-based! I'm not unsympathetic to her concerns, but I think she was the weakest in this debate.
Do you really think that's true or are you being partisan? Foster went into detail about why "it's complicated" and clearly stated that what flows out of that is the fact that it isn't easy to come up with solutions. It might feel good to just do something but that doesn't mean it's effective.
As much as I'm sure everyone on the panel wants to find solutions it's also the case that coming up with the solution isn't really the purpose of a debate.
@@jayl271322 I said what I said, Jay.
I agree with you. I'm familiar with all the speaker, except Seneca. Laura is leftist and clearly the most emotional about the topic. Which makes sense because she's a criminal defense attorney. IMO Kmele, tried to reframe the argument in a cynical plot to win, also he loses points for using the word particular too much. Shellenberger and Seneca clearly won.
@@pobodysnerfect2635 you sure did 😅
@jayl271322 you're struggling to look clever 🤣
Laura came off as a joke. Of course the Karen of the group is there to speak on behalf of the minority community.
1:16:33 "violence intervention and interruption" programs don't work. Not in Chicago at least.
I have a small question for Kmele Foster, and Lara Bazelon. Do You Live in a "Minority Community"? suspect Not.
So you’re a big proponent of “lived experience” as what really matters in an argument then?
Wait till you find out Kmele isn’t black.
@@jayl271322
Just pointing out if they did they might have a different take.
BTW I am (pretty much) The Token White Guy in my neighborhood.
Or they might not. You’ve just focused on where you *think* they live and made that mean something about whether their ideas are valid or not.
Seems like it would make sense but it actually doesn’t.
@@jayl271322That’s a far leap right there.
I think OP’s statement is absolutely applicable when talking about crime reform. Experience is important in every conversation. I won’t deem her entire argument worthless, but I’m going to consider the people who live in the area to have a higher level of credibility. It’s pretty much like that in every debate and conversations.
And it’s important to have scholars on the floor, but it’s also important to have those who’ve actually experienced it too.
Anyways, I think home girl sounded silly because her entire view is coming from a bad faith position of Police Officers who are an integral part of the criminal justice system. She only focuses on bad policing and not good policing. Go ask the people in those neighborhoods if they rather have more police or less. That is the most important evidence to me.
Lara may be speaking from her experience, but that varies from state to state. As someone who has seen the system up close in NYS, there are many times where someone can punch another person, or break their window, or harass them, and they will not see time. In NYS, unless you truly injure someone to the point that they have an impairment of a physical condition, any attack on another person is a violation, which has a maximum jail time of 15 days and requires an appearance ticket, so they are not brought to jail upon arrest, but given a court date. The majority of violations that I've witnessed result in the case being tossed, a fine, or community service. So her viewpoint that people who commit violent crimes will see time is wrong.
On another note, the debate for criminal justice usually always leaves out the most important person, the Victim. Seneca talked about it briefly, but who helps the person who had their window smashed in? When a criminal is let free because they damaged property and not a person, no one thinks of the loss of security the victim has. No one thinks about the justice the victim can get. It's only about "how do we make the bad guy feel ok".
Here here!
I live and work in the Seattle metropolitan area as a nighttime patrol officer.
For the last four years, it’s been an absolute nightmare. People call us wanting us to help them, but we’re not cops. I’ve had hundreds of conversation both in person and on the phone with people who have been victimized by people stealing, catalytic, converters, cars, and smashing windows just so they can search the car for valuables. Women come up to me and ask, sometimes begging, to escort them From their car to their apartment because they’re terrified of being alone after dark.
If people don’t feel safe in their own homes, then the system has truly failed. It wasn’t even this bad after 9/11. Even then, people weren’t terrified that terrorists would come barging into their homes to murder them.
sf is not led by centrists. wokism and progressivism are not centrist.
I live in one of the reddest states. In my town almost all the police quit. Crime skyrocketed. As soon as we get enough money we're moving far away
I love this channel. CJ needs a reform
Any debate about crime that does not talk about demographics is not a serious debate.
Bingo
Laura you made yourself look very silly
Lara is not listening to others points. She is emotional on particular cases. She’s not looking over all. She’s sad for her one client and wants the system burned down. She talks about of both ends.
Nice format, nice presentation.
There's one person in this debate I can't stand. Three guesses who
Obviously it didn't work
Had to wait for the video to end for that lady to stop smacking her hands. 🙄
When all is said and done we can see that we had a system, however imperfect, that worked overall and now, despite our best efforts to improve it, doesn't work as well.
I know I’m late to the show. I can’t help thinking to myself. Why can’t we get these four people together to actually re-create the justice system with these four Talking Heads and these great minds coming together we could definitely come up with some great solutions.
This was so informative thank you
The use of studies and research by the panelists is disconcerting. They routinely conflate correlation and causation, and many of their Statistics seem to be from simple correlation coefficients. It is irresponsible to use simple correlations for obviously multivariate problems. It makes sense that we have more prisoners in our country than in others, we have a lot more freedom. When your society keeps you in lock-down, there is a lot less opportunity for crime and innovation.
Calling Boston safe is a meme. I certainly didn't feel safe when I was in the more metropolitan areas, it becomes just like Nyc/Cali in the right spots and I'm speaking as a new yorker who can tell the difference
Was she debating criminal justice reform or trying to convince people “red bad, blue good”?
1:05:33 the shaking of the head by Laura was uncalled for.
This lady and her emotional arguments are not on the same level as the other guests on this panel. She clearly didn't have the facts on her side.
Great job-
But when cops arrest people and then the DAs refuse to prosecute, that makes the cops to be less likely to put their lives in harms way to arrest a criminal.
42:30 Laura confesses of using feelings in her arguments.
Framing the issue as addressing "criminal justice reform" probably courted about 20 minutes of defining terms I could have done without, as well as some talking past one-another, and ultimately making one question what the 'vote at the end' was really about. This could have been avoided by limiting the question to a specific policy, like Prop 47, though I understand functional debates don't really get clicks. There were some jaw-dropping moments -- Bazelon's putative reliance on data in the opening only to disclaim statistics as meaningless once challenged by Schellenberger was a bona fide knee-slapper. There's also some false dichotomy here -- its true that broader social forces influence crime more than criminal justice policy, especially within the short times progressive prosecutors have held office (before being booted out like Boundin or resigning in disgrace like Kim Gardner). But its also true that many (not all) CJP is important enough that it shouldn't be badly bungled by ideologues who refuse to face reality. E.g. drug use and petty theft proliferate more when there's no threat of arrest or incarceration. Diversion is a joke 99% of the time, which any criminal defense lawyer (like Bazelon) can tell you if s/he's being honest (unlike Bazelon) -- a last stop before prison, costly to the taxpayer, and dangerous to the community forced to suffer still one more crime from the same habitual offender. The best that can be said of 'progressive prosecutors' is that, despite their rhetoric, it was actually a pretty small gulf between them and their more mainstream Democrat predecessors and successors. Hence people like Bazelon can say the outcomes weren't so different under their regime. The rest of us might just say the rot in the system preceded them, and they were too ineffective to make it much worse. If people steal, they should go to jail. It's really that simple.
Our Penal system (Federal, State) Does Not Work. 70% (according to the FBI) of people release (paroled, time served) are back In Trouble within FIVE YEARS. Think of it this way. You drive by a prison, think of it as College For Crooks. It neither punishes strongly enough to deter nor rehabilitates those who can be. You get a (say) 20 year old goes in for robbing a liquor store (BTW this is Not his 1st rodeo). He get 10 years, gets out at 28 for time served, and 1. He's Pissed, 2. He's more prone to violence, 3. He's a smarter criminal.
@thefreepress You always seem to have a panelist that is arguing that their interpretation of the topic is different than the other panelists. That turns the discussion from debating the question itself to debating the definition of the question.
It may be useful in the future to establish some agreed upon definitions of terms being discussed.
In this debate you had arguments about the results of recent Justice reform policies, but then the counter to that was to redefine what justice reform means, and ignore the actual implemented policies and the actual results altogether. Those are two very different discussions.
hard to believe some people switched opinions to the pro crime side from the factually incorrect emotional ramble of that side. at least 3/4 still have some common sense
London Breed started off as a radical progressive.
Where is the reform money Laura
Where’s the proof what she said about Oakland ?
Where’s the proof of any claim made during the debate?
When you try and implement criminal justice reform, what are you doing to the rule of law for law abiding citizens? This effort seems like , in the long run, to be ignoring the rights of law abiding citizens because these advocants will be giving criminals more rights at the expense of putting more fear in law abiding citizens. More talk should be about lawfull peoples justice reform not only criminal justice reform.
What are the crime percentages in those other countries around the world who have less criminal incarceration?
Laura is not making a specific argument about what she says thst the cops she is talking about has actually done that she thinks should have some accountability?? It sounded like the.person she talked about dying from an overdose had done something that was illegal. I dont understand that.
How about putting fathers back in the house and not Uncle Sam. Unless of course you like Uncle Sam telling you how to live your life and providing others tax money to make you feel better about yourself.
Everything that 2nd lady said was complete bullshit
she flips at 42:00 hilarious!
I trust the progressive that was then The progressive that is. She’s calling breed a centrist - lmao
This lady leaves in a nutty universe
love it
The fact so few comments. Shows no one cares! Lock them up! My grandson at age 11 was suspended for an entire year for mistake caring his fishing pocket knife to school. Zero tolerance. He was a mild mannered good kid. Who had been at his grandpa house to fish. Forgot to take out of his bag. He was placed in a school with troubled teens to ages to 17. He scared... Well to much to go into. His mother unable to afford attorney. Than at 16 low level went to jail. He later got into trouble. In and out. He has spent MONTHS in solitary. Sometimes for his safety from other inmates. He has totally lost his mind. When he gets out. He I am afraid end up back in. He is not right on the head anymore. He tries to spare me from knowing it all. He has been raped .. list goes on. I do not know the answers. But treatment is in humane. On lockdown most of time due to lack of staff. Over crowding. It cost 130,000 year. Why can we not do better and help these guys early on.
56:45 being victimized doesn’t make you morally good…what a weird implication to weave into your statements here. Yes, being a criminal makes you morally bad, regardless of whether someone else has committed crimes against you in the past or future.
A
The fact that this woman is teaching kids is disturbing. Thankfully it's in San Francisco which is already destroyed by lib policies.