In most cases, I have no problem viewing even repeat criminals as people. I have absolutely no issue with the belief that there are various reasons people go down that road, and we would do well to sit down with them and talk about it, if for no other reason than we might learn how to keep others from going down that particular road.
I really do think the best way, long term, to address crime is to prevent it from ever happening.
However, something else we need to do is to punish criminals.
Unfortunately, the mayor of Seattle doesn’t seem to understand that part at all.
NEW: Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell says no jail for 8-time offender, wants to learn their life story
Click: https://t.co/Bysewy6Qx0
— Jason Rantz on Seattle Red (@jasonrantz) October 3, 2025
Yeah, seriously.
From the linked story:
The moderator asked Harrell a fairly simple question: “If somebody has offended six, seven, eight times, even if it’s a minor offense, but they continue to fail to turn their life around, at what point do you balance public safety to giving this person some accountability?”
Harrell gave a stunning response. Instead of addressing accountability for an eight-time offender, Harrell waxed poetic about learning their “life story.” He openly declared, “I have no desire to put them in jail”
“When this person is committing six or seven crimes, I don’t know his or her story. Maybe they were abused as a child. Maybe they’re hungry. But my my remedy is to find their life story to see how we can help. First, I have no desire to put them in jail, but I need to protect you, and that’s the calibration that we have,” he explained. “I put police officers on the stand. I’ve cross examined them. So whether they commit seven or eight crimes, to me, is not the issue. The issue is, why are they committing these crimes? And so we have a health based strategy.”
Harrell wasn’t caught off guard. This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. This was his governing philosophy, spoken aloud on a stage where voters were watching. He essentially said victims don’t matter, public safety doesn’t matter, and that repeat offenders should be shielded from jail because of their supposed backstory.
Does he realize how insane that sounds?
No, he probably doesn’t realize any such thing.
There’s been a long history of people who see the tragedies and traumas that lead some down the road toward criminality has something we should be more understanding of, and I’m willing to be understanding. However, “understanding” doesn’t mean that one should avoid punishment for what they did.
After all, their crimes often traumatize others. Refusing to incarcerate those who commit those crimes, who traumatize others, may well create more criminals if it’s really just that easy.
Plus, if you’ve ever been traumatized–really and truly traumatized, like from abuse or combat or something else of that nature–then you know that you also have at least some volition of your own in how you deal with it. There’s absolutely no reason we should give someone a pass simply because they’ve got a tragic backstory like a character in some bad movie. Somewhere along the way, they made the choice to break the law, and they need to be held accountable for that. There’s absolutely no justification for crossing that line. Ever.
Over at our sister site Hot Air, David Strom had this to say about what Harrell had to say:
Somebody who has committed multiple crimes is a…criminal. That is their primary job. They don’t do it because they are living the life of Oliver Twist, needing more gruel; they are bad guys.
And, if they truly need more care and attention, it’s pretty clear they aren’t getting it on the streets. Separating them from society seems like a good first step, and if you can find a program that reduces recidivism, more power to you. But implement it while they are segregated from their victims.
Notice who Harrell says he has cross-examined–the police, not the criminals. He has a lower opinion of the police, whose job it is to protect the citizens Harrell represents, than of the criminals terrorizing those citizens.
Seattle doesn’t tend to re-elect its mayors, so it is likely that Harrell will be replaced with an even worse candidate. Mayors seem to resign or get kicked out on a regular basis, although perhaps Harrell will break the curse.
One can hope.
However, until they do, Seattle will continue going down the toilet. So will every other city that embraces this kind of ridiculous mentality regarding criminality.
This “thinking” is what led to so many cities deciding not to prosecute things like shoplifting, which created massive problems for regular citizens. It reminds me of a friend whose partner was killed in an armed robbery. The cop, sitting with him and his partner’s parents–someone my friend knew from his time as a police officer–telling them that the then-accused killer came from a broken home and had an awful childhood, as if that somehow excused him murdering someone.
I’ll never accept that, and I won’t accept anyone who seems to tiptoe around the idea of punishing repeat criminals. Yeah, reform might not be something that will work with such a person, but at the very least, it removes them from society. And sometimes, it just takes one more incarceration for that criminal to wake up and become a decent member of society.
J.D. Delay, who has a well-followed YouTube channel, is a prime example. 58 felonies, but now helps felons get their life back together and helps hunt down pedophiles.
But he’ll also tell you that coddling criminals doesn’t help them.
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