Per usual, I am just thinking out loud but…
Although I recognize the general waste and potential for buck passing inherent in such a position, I wonder if the best argument for the job is Charlotte’s weak mayor’s office. Basically Mecklenburg County has to depend on the mayor’s office to raise holy soap-box hell with the state in order to get funding for the state courts in the county. For the past 18 months or so, Mayor Pat did that. Before, not so much.
Institutionally, the board of county commissioners is adverse to raising hell with the state delegation. It is almost a feudal relationship, why I’m not sure — beyond the dollars — but it is nonetheless. A county “crime czar” would straddle and deflect complaints about court funding somewhat from the wrath of the delegation.
Plus, and why no one is talking about this I do not know, we just elected a spate of liberal judges to district court. Expect them to wash away the effect of any increase in prosecutions the DA’s office is forced to undertake as a result of public outrage at our violent repeat offender problem. If and when that happens, who complains?
The chief of police? The sheriff? Both cannot afford to anger judges and set up a hostile relationship. Institutional inertia argues against that happening. Other elected officials have no direct control over judges and would doubtless be accused of “playing politics” should they speak up. A “crime czar” might be the only office left to blunt the impact of a modified catch-and-release program for the QC’s repeat offenders.
Bonus Observation: Now imagine a Democratic mayor who approves of catch-and-release and a general soft-on-crime regime for CLT. A czar, boyer, or even a crazed cossack might come in handy.
