So, no, I doubt it.
I don't know what you mean by "the far left" though. The actual far left doesn't re-examine its positions by design, just like the actual far-right. If you mean "the Democratic party", it was never as sold on prison abolition as Twitter would have had you believe.
There's still a lot of room --- and actual bipartisan support! --- for CJ reform in US politics.
Well yeah, SF's visibility comes because it's the original centre of what is now a much bigger area.
To expand on this: there are legions of non-violent, opportunistic crimes that put young Americans in jail only to release them years later unskilled, difficult to hire and possibly disenfranchised. At the same time, hosts of violent crimes carry relatively short sentences with no attempts at rehabilitation. And all sorts of society-corroding, sociopathic white-collar crime goes unnoticed by a justice system overloaded by the first group.
Reducing penalties on the former, honing focus on the second and creating an enforcement mechanism for the latter finds bipartisan support (first two play on separate sides of the aisle for a bargain; the last has populist appeal in both camps).
I can see bipartisan support for reducing penalties for victimless, non-oppotunistic crimes, like drug use.
Low level, non-violent drug offenses are the low-hanging fruit [1].
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/101...
How are these 'opportunistic'? All of them require planning.
Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. But I'd prefer we discuss the issue than my general view of the world.
Let's take your scenario: someone is on the brink of starvation, and an opportunity to sell drugs (and not starve) falls in their lap. They take it (without any prior plan). This is definitely opportunistic.
What happens if the above situation is repeated a second time? Do we consider that opportunistic as well?
How many times does someone have to take such an opportunity before we consider them selling drugs as being 'what they do' or part of their plan?
Unless the chance of being arrested is close to 100%, it's unlikely that someone's first arrest for selling drugs coincides with the first time they sold drugs. So is it really opportunistic?
There might not be other opportunities available. Until we've eliminated the threat of homelessness and starvation for everyone living here (which we absolutely could do), there will always be people who had no other choice.
https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/3914/1/2875-Understandingdrug...
Some data that suggests many get into it to feed their own addictions (which can be a "no other choice" scenario), meant more are collected by police as "dealers" even though they are just holding drugs for personal use. There's lots of research here, unsurprisingly.
The teenager crimes--drugs & petty thievery--are cut & dry, no contracts, no fine print, yes & no answers. "Did you, or did you not, take the bicycle?" White collar crime--unless the perpetrator was extraordinarily careless--can consume orders-of-magnitude more legal time, & requires more specialized/knowledgeable judges & attorneys (who are obviously in short supply).
Most municipalities fund their district attorney's office begrudgingly. Say some madman of a DA decided to put JP Morgan in his sights. How well will he fare against them with his 2nd/3rd tier attorneys on a shoestring budget?
The legal system is our sublimation of "might makes right". Established white collar criminals have sufficient might.
It seems like Krasner just lucked out on the timing of his reelection bid, as during the democratic primary the scope of the problem was not yet apparent. I bet Philly wishes they had a California-like recall mechanism right about now.
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/23/exodus-261-philadelphi...
It won't change much locally beyond the Democrats that win being one notch closer to moderate. Nationally, it feeds a narrative Republicans will push about how this is what the most progressive policies in the country will get you, then re-air the video of people shooting up in the Civic Center BART station.