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Democratic San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins went against many in her own party and said releasing repeat drug offenders before their trial is a big reason why the city sees “repeat offenders in and out of our stores, on our streets, rotating through our courtrooms.”
Jenkins made the comments during a late September community gathering in San Francisco where residents shared their concerns over crime, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. She said that the outcome of releasing repeat drug offenders – who then go on to commit more crime – is something that deeply frustrates those in the local law enforcement community, which includes prosecutors.
“The community, especially in the Tenderloin, find it abhorrent, right? To have to keep dealing with the same problem each and every day,” Jenkins said. “We simply cannot live in a society where we let people tell us over and over again that they will not respect the law.”
She said that while most of the time repeat drug offenders get multiple “chances,” those same drugs continue to take lives.
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“That is part of the problem of why we continue to see repeat offenders in and out of our stores, on our streets, rotating through our courtrooms: Because until we take the responsible position, when somebody’s clearly putting people in danger, clearly demonstrating to us that they will not follow the law so that we can figure out a plan for them, that will help them follow the law, we’re in this cycle,” Jenkins said.
On Oct. 1, Jenkins’ office tried to detain eight of 11 people who were charged with felonies relating to drug trafficking, but wasn’t successful.
The public defender’s office in San Francisco said Jenkins’ comments were “fearmongering.”
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“Our legal system is based on the presumption of innocence,” the office said. “This fearmongering is another attempt by the district attorney to attack the independence of the judiciary, further pack our already crowded jails, and put her thumb on the scale of these pending cases.”
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Tom Wolf, a former homeless addict from San Francisco, told Fox News Digital that Jenkins is fighting an “uphill battle” when it comes to detaining accused drug traffickers before their trial.
“We have a problem, especially in San Francisco, but really throughout the state of California…because of a law that was passed in 2018 in California called the Mental Health Diversion Act, so many of these repeat offenders basically go into court and say, ‘hey, I’m struggling with my mental health,'” Wolf said.
“Addiction is considered a mental illness. And so they’re continually referred to diversion, which means that they’re let out of custody. And it’s created an untenable situation in cities like San Francisco, where we have 8,000 people on the street. Most of them are addicted to drugs, and most of them have been arrested multiple times, and yet they continue to remain.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Jenkins for comment.
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