The New Untouchables

Seattle policymakers want to provide the city’s underclass with blanket immunity for misdemeanor crime.

In October, the Seattle City Council floated legislation to provide an exemption from prosecution for misdemeanor crimes for any citizen who suffers from poverty, homelessness, addiction, or mental illness. Under the proposed ordinance, courts would have to dismiss all so-called “crimes of poverty”—which, according to the city’s former public-safety adv…