SAN FRANCISCO’S CRIME DEBATE IS GRIPPING

The debate over how law enforcement does its job has raged in America for decades. The San Diego Union-tribune Editorial Board has been a strong supporter of efforts to limit police use of force, to have behavioral health teams respond to mental health and substance use emergencies instead of police, to strengthen civilian review boards and to prevent bad cops from escaping consequences for their actions by getting new jobs at other agencies. We’ve also written about how disproportionate policing of communities of color leads to the perception of local officers as akin to an occupying army.

But in the wake of the May 25, 2020, murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a White police officer in Minneapolis, the debate ramped up to the point where in some circles, the central question wasn’t how to improve policing but whether to have it at all.

This editorial board thinks the public would never want such a radical solution, even if we weren’t in an era of rising crime. Elected officials in San Diego understand this, having increased the police budget again this year. Yet even though many people clearly want to abolish police, the argument was made that the slogan “defund the police” was more nuanced than critics made it sound. Activists cited what was done in San Francisco as an example. In February, Mayor London Breed, a Black progressive, unveiled a detailed plan to reduce law enforcement spending by $120 million, with the money instead used to help her city’s Black communities.

But after an anarchic, deadly year, on Dec. 17, Breed endorsed an extraordinary emergency police intervention in the drug- and crime-riddled Tenderloin neighborhood. She embraced the idea that officers should do more to restore and keep order and promised additional funding to pay for overtime. “It’s time that the reign of criminals who are destroying our city ... come to an end,” she said.

Breed was then blasted by District Attorney Chesa Boudin for lacking compassion and embracing outdated methods for dealing with addiction.

With Boudin already facing a June recall organized by residents upset over his decision not to prosecute people, including repeat offenders, for what he considers minor crimes, the stage is set for a public referendum on whether Breed or Boudin is right — and both San Diego and the rest of the nation should pay attention. Here’s what watchers are likely to learn: In key ways, both are right.

Breed is right that tolerance of violence and open drug use indirectly encourages such behavior and that at some point, there must be consequences for such conduct. Boudin is right that there aren’t nearly enough beds available at shelters and addiction-recovery clinics to help fentanyl, meth and heroin addicts, and that too many people have their lives ruined by excessive time behind bars.

So will San Franciscans who have witnessed the recent smash-and-grab chaos and the never-ending car break-ins dump Boudin and back Breed’s crackdown and increased police funding? Or will the “defund the police” movement spring back to life after another unjustified police killing?

Let’s hope the result is, well, nuanced. That police oversight and training improve and that officers stop shooting unarmed people. That addicts get the help they so need. That San Franciscans feel safer. And that radical ideas aren’t embraced in the heat of the moment — because budget cuts are far more likely to lessen public safety than improve policing.