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Comment by millzlane | Hacker News Reader

>The damning thing here is the lack of prosecution for the arrests that have happened. It's a clear message to offenders that they can continue what they are doing with no serious consequences.

Also missing, is the figure of number of arrests that haven't been prosecuted. That data should be out there somewhere. It's interesting that no data to prove the theory has surfaced.

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UP implies they believe there have been zero prosecutions. If there were any resulting from the arrests they made they would have had to be involved as witnesses and they say they haven’t been contacted in that capacity.

> UP implies they believe there have been zero prosecutions

Under the California Victim's Bill of Rights they have a right to information on this on request (but they don't have to be provided with it proactively), so if they merely “believe” this but can point to neither concrete information or a failure to respond to inquiries, it means they have chosen not to ask to avoid their belief being proven wrong.

But, anyway, they don't say that, so its immaterial: they specifically acknowledge prosecutions and convictions, they are just upset that the DA is taking plea deals to charges they feel are insufficiently serious rather than expending more resources seeking convictions (and risking acquittals) on more serious charges.

(They also specifically are validating the argument of anti-cash-bail advocates by portraying cash bail as a punitive and disabling measure against unconvicted suspects rather than a means of securing appearance.)

To the contrary if people are repeatedly violating the law in the willful and obvious way that is exactly what bail should be used for. The bottom line is that they are seeing a lot of repeat offenders something is going to have to give.

If there is a plea bargain (which happens most of the time) there is no need for testimony. When my checks were stolen from the mail (1990's, Los Angeles area) an officer just called me to see if I was aware of the suspect. I heard nothing more from him afterwards.

The police were witness to the train thefts you weren’t witness to your stuff being stolen from your mail box.

That's what they are saying, the government isn't supplying them with that data.

All prosecutions are public data. So the government may not be serving it up on a plate, but they also must not be trying to find out.

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