Miami Beach Commissioner Steven Meiner Proposes Crime Crackdown On Repeat Offenders
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - There's growing concern that some people know that they can commit crimes on Miami Beach and get away with it.
City Commissioner Steven Meiner wants something done to stop that from happening.
"What I propose is that if a person is arrested and has a prior arrest record anywhere in the United States, that we're going to prosecute that case," said Commissioner Steven Meiner.
According to Meiner, the majority of arrests made from last October to September of this year for city ordinance violations were not prosecuted.
"There's been a revolving door of arrest and immediate dismissal and I accurately got that from our city municipal prosecution team that showed that showed that last year 92 percent of our arrests made by our Miami Beach police department were outright dismissed, either by our own prosecution team or by the judge," said Meiner.
To stop the trend, Meiner has proposed ordinance R7N which will direct the city attorney's office to appeal cases that are dismissed by the courts, where the defendant has a prior arrest or is a repeat offender anywhere in the United States.
Attorney David Weinstein said the proposed ordinance would create a situation where people are being treated differently.
"To just impose a condition, or only appeal in this case, cases that are dismissed against people with prior convictions, that's not equal treatment across and it would be unconstitutional as applied," he said.
Weinstein said a better approach is to address the reason the cases are being dismissed.
"They need to do a better job of collecting the evidence, presenting the evidence to the judge, or using the city prosecutors to present the cases to the judges so they don't result in dismissals. Cases are dismissed because of lack of the evidence or insufficient evidence, or no violation of a statute or ordinance," he said.
Meiner said something needs to be done to protect residents and deter criminal activity.
"People are coming here knowing that there are no consequences for their actions, they're telling that to our police officers when they get arrested. They know there are no consequences, we need to change the narrative and show that you come here and commit a crime you're going to do the time," he said.
Meiner is proposing a second resolution for the collection of statistical data for their conviction rates.