Community Justice Center: Success for Newsom, failure for city progs

Like the opposition to Care Not Cash, political opposition to Mayor Newsom's Community Justice Center came from the city's left, particularly Supervisor Daly and the Coalition on Homelessness.

On the Justice Center, the city's left was again supporting an unacceptable status quo, while the supposedly more conservative Newsom was fighting to try something new.

City progs convinced city voters to reject the new court when the issue was on the ballot in 2008, but the city already had the money budgeted to go forward. Based on the information in an article in the Chronicle last week, it looks like the city's left was wrong again; the Justice Center is apparently a success.

Superior Court judges support the new court.

The Coalition on Homelessness offers nothing but hysteria and ignorance: The new court will supposedly only demonstrate "Newsom’s displayed predilection towards regressive 'enforcement first' policies, serve nobody but those with an interest in widening the gaping maw of the Prison-Industrial Complex." Of course the whole point of the court is to provide social services on the spot to offenders to help them break the cycle of anti-social behavior and keep them out of jail.

To his great credit, Supervisor Bevan Dufty has been a steadfast supporter of the special court.

Link for the Justice Court.

A blog on the city's "collaborative courts."