Read The Hearing for Free Online Page A

you’ll recall one of your campaign issues was that we treat the homeless with respect, and that seemed to strike a positive chord with the voters.”
    “Absolutely, as well it should.”
    Also, Torrey was thinking, remove the word “should” from her conversation and his boss would become functionally mute. “Yes, well, in practice you have to admit the policy caused some problems.”
    This, Torrey knew, was a whopper of an understatement. After Pratt had been swept to power on a tide of benevolent humanity, she formed a coalition with the mayor and several supervisors and, to a great deal of positive press, announced to the country that under this administration, San Francisco would be a haven for the homeless. No longer would the police hassle the poor and downtrodden. There would be no more rousting. There would be city-funded programs for free meals. Armies of volunteers would move out from the soup kitchen base and take sandwiches to the hungry where they lived.
    In short order, this utopian policy resulted in a mass migration of many of the nation’s chronically unemployed to the City by the Bay. Within months, camps of vagrants, drunks, the psychologically impaired and drug addicts had essentially taken over Golden Gate Park, Dolores Park, any number of neighborhood green areas. The downtown streets became gauntlets of panhandlers, drunks in doorways, public urinators. And then, as the worst became bolder, polite requests for spare change became belligerent demands and gave way to intimidations, purse snatchings, shakedowns and muggings.
    “But those weren’t the homeless we were trying to help,” Sharron said. “They were the criminal element, that’s all. People needed to see that. We just need to educate them.”
    Torrey was shaking his head. “No, Sharron. They’ll never see it. They think you let the bums in. You ruined the tourist industry.”
    Pratt straightened her back and lifted her martini glass to her lips. She sipped contemplatively. “Is it too late?”
    “Let me ask you one, Sharron. Are you sure you want to keep doing this? That you want to run again?”
    “That’s two.” She smiled halfheartedly, lightly touched Torrey’s arm again. “Do I want to keep doing this?” she repeated. “We’ve done a lot of good, Gabe, haven’t we?”
    Again, Torrey crafted a careful response. “I think we’ve changed the agenda in a positive way, Sharron. People are thinking about the office—the district attorney—in a way they never had before, now more as a force for social, maybe even moral, leadership. And all that’s to the good.”
    “But . . .”
    Torrey popped a couple of nuts. “But the fact remains that most of the electorate seems to have returned to the theory that the main role of the district attorney is to prosecute people who break the laws. And that’s never been your forte. You want to help people. That’s always been what’s driven you. Which is why I ask if you want to keep doing this.”
    She sighed, considering. “It’s a bully pulpit, Gabe. We’re way ahead of the curve in our thinking. We knew that going in. We can’t just keep building more prisons and throwing more people into them. We’ve got to—”
    Torrey put his hand on Pratt’s arm, stopping her. They had to educate the masses, and the criminals, and the victims, and do counseling, and rehab, and yada, yada, yada. At some point, before he’d come to work full-time in the Hall of Justice and become immersed in the stupidly hopeless march of crime through the system, he’d even believed a good portion of it. But that day was in the past.
    “Let’s keep this discussion on point,” he said a little more firmly than he’d planned. But before his boss could react negatively, he pressed on. “We’ve tried to raise the moral bar, Sharron. We’ve done the right thing time and time again. But the polls are telling us that the people aren’t getting the message, or it’s not the one they want. Now