San Francisco in 2024

Written in October 2019...Satire Becoming Reality?

An updated version of this article was published exclusively on the Epoch Times on March 25, 2022.

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”                                                            

                                                                                   -George Orwell 1984

San Francisco took a very important step toward criminal justice last month. No, we didn’t stop crime. No, we didn’t stop all the open drug trading and use. No, we didn’t stop people from peeing and crapping in the streets. And the streets aren’t any cleaner or safer. What was accomplished you may ask? The Board of Supervisors adopted new rules for referring to people in the criminal justice system.

Now no more convicted felons, they are “Justice Involved Persons,” or JIPs for short. Addicts are a thing of the past, I think you are referring to “a person with a history of substance abuse.” And, a released offender or parolee, you mean a “returning resident.”

So, in keeping with the theme, the word Police and Cop seem to have very negative connotations. In fact, I don’t think we should be “labeled” the police anymore. Anyone who watches the news now thinks that all cops are racist, it gives us all a bad name. I think we shall now be called Justice Education Professionals, or JEPs. Now we can finally shed the stigma of the police and cop labels. Think how much better the SFJEPD sounds. Thank goodness we finally solved this major problem.

But why should the absurdity stop there? I have the next step in this brave endeavor to change society. Why not eliminate felonies all together? You cannot have felons if there are no felonies.

Think of all the fake change that will occur if we dump the word felony. Felony sounds bad…very mean to the JIPs. So, let’s stop using that dirty word. It will be the best Compstat meeting ever, 100% or more reductions in crime. Robbery also sounds bad, lets relabel that “unrequested wealth redistribution.” An intruder who decides the break into your house, no that’s not right, sounds more like an “unannounced and uninvited house guest.” Homeless also has a stigma to it now, let’s go with the “housing challenged individual.” Of course, the actual behavior will not change, but that doesn’t matter, we will all feel good about it and the great progress we have made. And feelings are all that really matter.

By the time you read this, I may be sent to the re-education camp so I can be sensitized to this new vernacular and atone for my thought crimes. If so, please forget all that I have said and know that the party is correct, 2+2 really is 5.

San Francisco can continue to perform its doublethink. They can even spread it to the whole state. None of it will change the fact that we have many JIPs committing bad acts and not being held accountable. What will 2024 look like in San Francisco?

JEPS IN 2024

Then there’s us, the JEPs. Still driving the same Crown Vics, now with even less paint and going on 297,000 miles. Sure, each car is a patchwork made up of body panels from other cars that didn’t make it. Our quilt of a patrol car is on its 3rd transmission, has no brakes, and all have siren boxes older than the cops driving them, but why choose a new car? The cage fits this car. Don’t want to buy a different cage, that would be too expensive. Ford has long stopped making replacement parts, so when cars go down, foot beats go up.

When we’re not walking the beat or driving our one patrol car around, most of us are sitting behind a desk at the computer. The detention you made earlier now requires a couple hours of paperwork. First make sure to tag the Body Worn Camera footage. Then fill out the State mandated questionnaire for detaining someone.

In addition to the states expanded questionnaire and database, San Francisco has now created its own system that requires you to answer 133 questions about each person you encounter. It’s all redundant and same information as the state system, but retyping it is very important busy work you need to do. You also must give your business card to every person you talk to. This leads to a giant uptick in Department of Police Accountability (DPA) complaints because the whole backside of the card directs people to DPA.

But DPA and the SFJEPD also created the new Proactive Complaint Management System. Now, the last thing you do, is complete is your “Pre-complaint Response Form,” which is yet another form. This form details your interaction and responds to a complaint that has not been generated yet. That way, once the complaint does come in, DPA already has more information to use against you if you missed dotting an “i” or crossing a “t” in the many redundant papers you complete. No wonder people can’t find a cop when they need one.

This bleak future sadly feels like where we are headed. So, keep changing the definitions and terms all you want. It still can’t hide the years of failed social policy that have created and continue to exacerbate the problems in San Francisco. Since the politicians appear unable or unwilling to fix anything here, they have instead resorted to an everchanging name game, like musical chairs, to distract from their failings.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

                                                                                    -George Orwell 1984

Outside the station the JIPs are running wild. The JEPs are stuck inside trying to catch up on the mountain of paperwork, longing to get out so they go to another call and do they job the signed up for. Meanwhile in City Hall, they realized that JIPs sounds bad and may offend people. So, it’s time to change their own term, Justice Involved Person, to something less offensive. They’ve voted to go with Consequence Oriented Neighbor or CON, for short.