Sheriff T.K. Waters made a good decision when he said he would no longer meet with a left-wing group that cannot seem to engage in the civil discourse libs claim they want.

Waters has attended meetings of ICARE to discuss crime. But when he has tried to present information, he has been booed and shouted down.

Who needs that?

ICARE’s idea of a crime problem is that too many people with black skin get jaywalking tickets. It also chases the rainbow of “restorative justice.”

Meanwhile, crime and violence persist in the city, as it does throughout the nation under the Biden administration, which is more interested in disarming victims than in prosecuting criminals.

In many Democrat-run cities, prosecutors whose campaigns were funded by socialist George Soros routinely turn violent criminals loose on the public.

Jacksonville, like many cities, has bought into the concept of preventing crime by trying to identify people who might commit crime and attempting to convince them it isn’t a good idea – something that might easier be done by a good, stiff prison sentence.

These “anti-violence” programs – also called “interrupters: — are expensive, but proponents claim that sending people to prison is more expensive. That might be true but there is little solid evidence that the programs do what they claim.

In 2021 Vox wrote “… studies on interrupters have been largely disappointing. Reviews of the evidence have found that the approach often produces no significant effect on shootings and murders, and some programs were even associated with more violence. While some studies have found positive effects, they are few and far between and suffer from methodological flaws. Taken together, the research is decidedly mixed — and offers little proof that the programs live up to their promise.”

Jacksonville taxpayers are spending millions of dollars annually for a program called Cure Violence, which is based on the dubious notion that violent crime is a health problem. Its value has yet to be determined.

Democrats promote such programs, which are expensive and provide make-work jobs. But the left is anti-police and anti-family.

In our view, programs that would strengthen families probably would do more to reduce crime and at less cost.

Other approaches, such as problem-oriented policing, also show more promise.

Bottom line: the sheriff does not need to waste his time talking with people who don’t want to hear what he has to say.