NYC’s lawless policies are not ‘compassionate’

Don’t let the rhetoric of “compassion” round permissive drug and crime insurance policies idiot you. They damage addicts and thieves as a lot as anybody else. 

Take into account the case of David Gonzalez, a former FDNY firefighter turned heroin addict and serial shoplifter. The Submit’s Stephen Yang adopted David on his rounds: shoot up; go on a large shoplifting run; lather, rinse, repeat. 

Nobody is doing something for David. He injects a syringe filled with heroin into his neck on a Midtown road: nada. Safety guards, retailer workers and even cops see him as he comes and goes about his thefts and do nothing.

He lives part-time at a Protected Haven, a city-run “transitional housing” facility that allows him to go on along with his drug use. And he will get solely slaps on the wrist for his theft (which runs into the 1000’s of {dollars} a month, all to feed the monkey on his again). 

How is that compassionate? How does it assist David that the regulation and its minions permit him to poison himself day by day, in a metropolis the place eating places should publish sodium warnings on menu objects? How does letting him steal with out critical penalties enhance his lot in life?

David’s story places a human face on what our public-health authorities have but to acknowledge as a disaster. The nation noticed 91,000 overdose deaths in 2020 (practically 5,000 in New York state) — the very best ever, per the Facilities for Illness Management, and the overwhelming majority opioid-related, pushed by lethal fentanyl. And people numbers look to be getting worse.

It doesn’t assist that decriminalization (and hyperprogressive “decarceration” district attorneys) has made it straightforward to feed your behavior with shoplifting and different petty crime. 

Taking a critical method to combating crime means exhibiting actual compassion to criminals: ensuring that addicts get the assistance they want (like therapy packages and housing not run by enablers) and that low-level crooks don’t mature into higher-level ones. 

“Serving to” the down-and-out by averting our eyes from their worst actions advantages nobody — least of all of the folks stealing and taking pictures up.