That’s where the victim’s compensation fund comes in. “I don’t want there to be rampant shoplifting either, so what we need to do is repair businesses, and I will.” Stealing a sandwich, sleeping under an awning – there’s nothing about jail that solves those problems,” Thomas-Kennedy said at debate moderated by the Seattle Times on Sept. “We’re talking about basic survival needs. Thomas-Kennedy says she will not prosecute crimes in which poor people are trying to meet their basic needs. “I will stand up for our small businesses and our neighborhood business districts, which the city government forces to endure the plague of retail theft.” “We can balance, on the one hand, compassion for those who are struggling with mental health challenges or chronic addiction with appropriate solutions, and on the other hand, prosecute those who are repeat offenders, responsible for so much crime and mayhem on our streets that impacts all of us,” Davison said in a statement on her website. On her website, Davison says she believes in seeking some alternative solutions to prosecution, but she still believes in some form of retribution. someone steals a bottle of soda or breaks a window - the two candidates are divided. Thomas-Kennedy often offers this clarification: though she believes most survivors of interpersonal crime do not want prosecution, it should still be an option.īut in terms of economic crimes - e.g. Despite being portrayed as one of two extreme reactions to Holmes’s tenure, one challenger, Thomas-Kennedy, has been adamant that the victim’s compensation fund will be a priority for her office, too.īoth candidates claim their approaches to misdemeanor crime would “center the victim.” (The City Attorney does not deal with felonies, that’s for the King County Prosecuting Attorney.) Both candidates say that in cases of interpersonal crime, prosecution is fair game. If approved, it would be something of a swan song for Holmes, who championed the reboot of Seattle’s community court. In his experience, victims of these types of misdemeanors don’t “want to get a pound of flesh out of somebody” or to “use the criminal legal system to get revenge.” “I can tell you, because I used to be a prosecutor, that a lot of witnesses and victims in Seattle, their bottom line is they just want to be made whole,” Lewis said. Lewis is hopeful the council can implement a program that avoids the courtroom altogether. For victims, it can take months, even years to get restitution under the current system. “Whether Council will ultimately allocate that money should be known for certain when the final budget is adopted the week of Thanksgiving.”Ĭurrently, restitution is contingent on a guilty verdict. “ is working with City Council now to secure funding in next year's City budget to create a fund, so it can be established regardless which person is next elected City Attorney,” said Dan Nolte, the communications director for the Seattle City Attorney’s Office. It’s a program Holmes told the workgroup he “could not be more enthusiastic” about. At the top of their list: a Victim’s Compensation Fund. In February 2020, he teamed up with a regional Fines & Fees Justice Workgroup to develop and make reform recommendations around court costs. But his last-ditch effort to tank the competition by painting them as extreme was unsuccessful.įollowing a summer of civil unrest spurred on by an extrajudicial police killing of a Black man over a suspected crime that amounted to $20, Seattle voted for a drastic change in how we deal with low-level crime - but Holmes still has time yet. In the throes of his primary campaign, three-term Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes took to Twitter in an attempt to warn Seattle suburbanknights that without him there’d be no middle ground on the ballot: on one side sat tough-on-crime Trump Republican Ann Davison, and on the other sat prison and police abolitionist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy. Her Republican opponent, Ann Davison, isn't so sure. NTK strongly supports a city fund to financially support victims of low-level crimes.
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