They are at it again. Our offender-friendly General Assembly is poised to take another step toward further decriminalization by prohibiting law enforcement from arresting lawbreakers, including repeat offenders, for numerous crimes.

Rep. Jennifer Bacon’s House Bill 1169 bizarrely declares “non-prosecution of low-level offenses has been shown to reduce reoffending….” Re-read that. She is not just talking about eliminating arrests for jailable offenses; Bacon believes non-prosecution will actually lead offenders to stop offending. Bacon goes on to propose law enforcement should not be used “for low-level offenses driven by poverty or mental health or substance-use disorders.”

The lobbyist for criminal defense attorneys declared – without any data or facts whatsoever – “police arrest mentally unwell people and put them in jail,” causing them to “often plead guilty to something they may not have even done, or that is overcharged.” Unsubstantiated nonsense. Such folks are not left to navigate the criminal justice system alone; they receive the expertise and advice of an experienced and aggressive public defender from their first appearance.

To truly appreciate the nature of the many crimes Bacon wants to see go unarrested and unprosecuted, we should explore which scenarios she wants to see addressed with a simple invitation to court.

Imagine prostitutes publicly working their trade and being openly solicited on a main street in your neighborhood. Under Bacon’s “prostitutes-over-the public” bill, the police could do little more than provide a ticket (and maybe a condom) to the transactional couple on their way to the alley or into a car. The police would have no authority to use force to stop or prevent the crime. Just a ticket book.

You and your family go a local park to enjoy the nice weather, when you are greeted by a couple having intercourse within view of your kids. Call the police, but do not expect them to do more than affix a summons to a a bare backside with non-toxic tape. That is all. In fact, the amorous pair (maybe it’s a prostitute and her John) could get right back to action after signing the promise to appear.

If the copulating couple suspects it was you who called the police on them, they may want to shock and annoy your kids by exposing their genitals to them. Again, Rep. Bacon says no arrest can occur there, just a ticket – maybe one shaped like a fig leaf.

Burning or damaging your property, as long as it’s under $300, is also worth only an invitation to court by a flammable summons.

Fighting in public, peace-destroying loud and continuous noise, offensive language and gestures hurled at you and your children – none of them can be stopped by police through an arrest, no matter how many times repeated. Just a ticket.

For hotel, condominium and apartment building residents, the police will be stripped of the ability to arrest trespassers, no matter how many times they are asked to leave the lobby or common areas, or how many tickets they are given. It’s time to be a good neighbor and learn the trespassers’ names.

The “low-level” crimes of possession of a forged instrument, check fraud, lying to a pawn broker and using a stolen credit card – each designed to prevent and detect larger property crimes – would be met with the aggressive handing of a piece of paper (presumably not forged) that looks like a ticket. The officer may even sternly admonish the criminal “keep it up and you will get a fist full of tickets! And nobody wants that.”

One of the more inexplicable provisions involves preventing an officer from arresting someone who escapes from an arrest. That officer, when they catch the criminal escapee, would have to write them a summons. For escaping the prior arrest.

Add in that arrests for Bacon-described “low-level” offenses have revealed the existence of countless outstanding warrants for significant “high-level” offenses, and have even led to the solving of significant crimes, and you get a bonkers policy that is designed to protect offenders from accountability, not the public from victimization.

One question. A fill-in-the-blank type question for Rep. Bacon: this law will make Colorado safer and a better place for businesses and families, because______________.

I could not come up with anything either.

George Brauchler is the former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. He also is an Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow at the Common Sense Institute and president of the Advance Colorado Academy, which identifies, trains and connects conservative leaders in Colorado. He hosts The George Brauchler Show on 710KNUS Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Follow him on Twitter: @GeorgeBrauchler.