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Facing an unprecedented county deficit, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen issued a stark warning about proposed budget cuts to his office. He said:<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic safety costs money. Justice is expensive. Money is finite. There is less money. And so, there will be less justice. Please listen carefully: there will be less safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
For prosecutors, this must have sounded like a bar.<\/p>\n
He followed the axiom with rhetorical questions about what would happen if the District Attorney\u2019s Office had to absorb cuts. \u201cWill people get hurt? Will they be killed? \u2026 I don\u2019t know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But how exactly does that work? How do budget cuts\u2014cuts that are being carried by every agency in the county\u2014suddenly translate into danger, even death, if they touch the DA\u2019s office?<\/p>\n
The warnings Rosen is issuing refer to a possible $19 million reduction in the coming year. For context, the county already agreed to a $185 million net appropriation for the office this year, up from $177 million the previous year, according to the San Jose Spotlight. That budget is more than double the size of its institutional counterweight, the Public Defender\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
While the DA\u2019s office received a larger budget this year, the Public Defender\u2019s Office had to cut 10 positions.<\/p>\n
Rosen\u2019s tactic of moralizing an annual budget debate might have been more on point if used by the public defender with just a few words changed. It could have sounded like this:<\/p>\n
\u201cFreedom is expensive. Money is finite. There is less money. And so, there will be less freedom. Please listen carefully: there will be less freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reality is that, stripped of the hyperbolic fear-mongering, it is the District Attorney\u2019s Office that is expensive. And less money flowing to that office does not necessarily mean less safety. It could mean more resources available for county obligations that directly address the underlying conditions and drivers of crime.<\/p>\n
Funding mental health services keeps the public safe. Housing keeps the public safe. Investments in community health and youth development keep the public safe. Funding these services is an investment in solutions that prevent crime before it occurs.<\/p>\n
By contrast, the function of a district attorney\u2019s office is largely reactive. It responds to crime after it has already occurred. There is nothing inherently preventative about prosecuting an alleged offense after the harm has been done.<\/p>\n
Moreover, prosecution generates costs far beyond the DA\u2019s own budget. It acts as a cost multiplier within the county system.<\/p>\n
A criminal prosecution requires the involvement of many other actors: court staff, probation departments, defense attorneys, and other law enforcement agencies. Each of these components carries its own costs. Housing someone in the county jail costs money. The destabilizing effects of incarceration\u2014often requiring social services, hospital care, or emergency housing\u2014also generate significant public expense.<\/p>\n
An investment in the District Attorney\u2019s Office therefore commits the county to a cascade of additional costs that can quickly become exponential.<\/p>\n
Yet Rosen doubled down on his warning about what budget cuts might mean for the community. Programs within his office such as drug and mental health diversion, he said, \u201cwill be gone. No more.\u201d<\/p>\n
But diversion programs are, by definition, off-ramps from prosecution. They are pathways away from the criminal legal system and incarceration. Their underlying premise is that issues such as mental health challenges or substance use disorders should be addressed through treatment and public health responses\u2014not through criminal charges and jail cells.<\/p>\n
If the district attorney\u2019s office can no longer serve as a conduit to non-carceral programming, that is not necessarily a threat. It is, rather, an admission that scarce public resources might be better spent funding those programs directly.<\/p>\n
After all, why fund a prosecutor\u2019s office merely to step aside?<\/p>\n
Rosen\u2019s attempt to frighten the county into preserving his office\u2019s large budget comes at a moment when communities are grappling with layoffs, houselessness, strained health care systems, and unmet social service needs. Against that backdrop, the rhetoric can come across as deeply self-absorbed.<\/p>\n
And so the opposite conclusion may be worth considering: directing less of the county\u2019s finite money toward prosecution might actually produce more justice for a community in struggle.<\/p>\n
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