Why punish people? To avoid becoming Portland 2022.

Fixing broken windows is just about all the downtown businesses have left to do these days. The guy who did this damage was released from jail almost immediately.

I was taught early in life that a working criminal justice system is essential for a functioning society. Were my teachers wrong about that? I guess we're finding out first-hand. Here in Portland, that system has completely and utterly broken down.

There aren't enough public defenders, and so dangerous criminals are turned loose to roam the streets.

There isn't enough mental health treatment capacity anywhere in the state, and so dangerous people with serious mental problems are turned loose to roam the streets.

There aren't enough police, and the ones we do have are on "quiet quit," and so dangerous criminals are allowed to roam the streets. For example, just in time for drug possession to foolishly be legalized, arrests of drug dealers have fallen off to next to nothing.

The "woke" district attorney is more concerned with "equity" than public safety, and so the few people who are arrested are given an undue benefit of the doubt in decisions about whether to prosecute them.

The bail system has been abolished, and so more people than ever laugh off court dates without consequence.

We're throwing many millions at our murky shadow government of nonprofit organizations in the name of making the city safer, but it won't do any good as long as there is no functioning criminal justice system. If there's any hope for Portland, the next governor of Oregon and the next City Council members are going to have to bite the bullet and steer money away from the nicey-nicey nonprofits and into the criminal justice system, and into the mental illness treatment system that backs it up.

I ask myself who the best candidates are from that perspective. They sure ain't Kotek and Hardesty. Vote for them if you like, but the smart people who know better are voting with their feet every day.