Since I got to the board, I’ve tried to use this guiding principle: What does government have to do—because we’re the only ones, or the best ones, to do it? For the county, that’s running the jail, running the rest of the criminal justice system—the court system, the public defender, and all of that—the collection of taxes and assessment, and the public health system.
One of the things I’ve worked on since I came to the board, and have been joined by others since then, is ways to handle nonviolent offenders differently.