Yes, it's such a half-baked approach. I understand not wanting to just incarcerate a bunch of people who clearly need mental health intervention (and the state of incarceration in DC is horrible and makes everything worse -- mental health, physical health, everything -- for inmates). BUT the answer is not just compassionate release. We have to actually help these people and we need to have programs that provide them with the support they need while ALSO protecting the rest of the population.
It's the same with arguments for more crime prevention and less prosecution. Okay IF you actually fund and build up the crime prevention programs and they work, and then reduce prosecution. But everyone wants to reduce prosecution first. So we just... do nothing? No, this doesn't make sense. We have to protect people.
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