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The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco
- travisjungroth 7y agoI grew up in Sonoma and lived in San Francisco for three years. I’m near the end of a two month stay in Medellín, Colombia. I’m looking to make the move out of SF permanent. People here ask me why I’d move to a city like Medellín from SF. It’s because there’s less crime, less drug use, less homelessness and less street harassment for my girlfriend.
- MuffinFlavored 7y agoYour girlfriend gets harassed walking down the street of SF more than she does in Colombia? What kind of harassment are you talking about?
- throw03172019 7y agoWalking down Market street from 5th - 8th Street gives you a 50/50 chance of getting cat-called as a female.
- novok 7y agoThere is also non-sexual harassment that happens too :/ And the smell of piss and shit everywhere.
- MuffinFlavored 7y agoCould you give an example of non-sexual harassment you've encountered/are aware of?
- novok 7y agoRandom homeless person getting aggressive / in your personal space, etc.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoAggressive pan handling. Agressive sales people trying to buttonhole you. (Not specific to SF. I experienced such in San Diego.)
- joegahona 7y agoWhat type of people are doing the cat-calling? Homeless people or construction workers or.....?
- MuffinFlavored 7y agoI'm struggling to understand why getting catcalled is specific to San Francisco. If you walked down Miami, Atlanta, New York, etc., you feel you wouldn't be catcalled? Why does San Francisco yield a higher catcalling rate?
- travisjungroth 7y agoYes, she does. The kind of street harassment she experiences in SF: “catcalling me, yelling at me, following me around closely.” She’s also been robbed at gunpoint on Market Street.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoInterested in a move to Medellin as well. Mind if I message privately to ask some questions?
- travisjungroth 7y agoSure, my email is my last name at gmail.
- minderasure 7y agoHaving lived in Medellin for a few months and currently living in SF I feel like this is a gross exaggeration. While SF certainly has more pronounced problems with homelessness and drugs, Medellin has vastly more violent crime. There are many neighborhoods Medellin I wouldn't dare be in past midnight.
- travisjungroth 7y agoThere are definitely parts of Medellín worse than the worst parts of SF. There are also commercial zones in Medellín that are nicer than any commercial zone in SF, and I live near one of them. Also if you’re in a good neighborhood and not involved in the drug trade, the occurrence of violent crime is very low.
- xltk 7y agoWhile I sympathize with your position, this feels a little misleading and lacking in perspective. I’ve lived all over San Francisco and am now in the Inner Richmond. It’s easily my favorite place I’ve ever lived. Amazing food, easy access to two of the more incredible city parks in the country (Golden Gate and Presidio), and very safe [1]. I’ve gone for many a walk listening to music after midnight with no threat of danger. Though I’ve never been to Colombia, I’ve been to Tijuana, Mexico City, San José, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Saigon… in none one of those places would I want to walk around with AirPods, take pictures with a nice digital camera, or have my phone out in public for more than a few seconds. There’s simply too big of an income disparity between you and the average citizen. [1] https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-California/crime/ https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-California/...
- travisjungroth 7y agoIt’s wild that you say that my comment is lacking in perspective when you haven’t been to one of the two cities I’m comparing.
- xltk 7y agoCorrect me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you lived in one of the more crime-ridden parts of SF (Tenderloin/SoMa/Mid-Market/Mission) while living in a relatively good neighborhood in Medellin (estrato 4 or above from my limited research). If that’s the case, I don’t see how that’s a fair comparison. And you’re right - I can’t say for sure what Medellin is like because I’ve never been there.
- andreshb 7y agoThat’s like saying “I’ve never been to Manhattan, but I’ve been to Baltimore, Detroit, and St Louis and I wouldn’t feel safe in Manhattan”
- xltk 7y agoBaltimore, Detroit, and St. Louis have the three highest murder rates in the U.S. [1]. If you’re implying the cities I listed have higher rates of murder or violence than Medellin, that is only true of Tijuana. Medellin has a murder rate of roughly 25/100,000 people [2], more than double any of the other cities I listed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Colombia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Colombia
- andreshb 7y agoI feel safer in Medellin than in San Francisco. In Medellin harassment and crime is not random. I’ve lived in both cities and currently live in Medellin while frequently traveling to SF for business You have to deliberately go into the wrong neighborhood and mess with the wrong people. Every time I’m in SF I’m on edge when I walk in the street. In Medellin I feel safe walking around with AirPods and iphone out, plus I’m not on defensive mode ready to dodge feces or harassment.
- xltk 7y agoI’m glad to hear you feel safe exposing valuables in Medellin. From looking at your LinkedIn profile though, I noticed two things: - You’re a board member of a programming school based in Colombia. There’s inherent bias and conflict of interest in sharing your experiences. - You are fluent in Spanish and appear to be of Latin American descent. I imagine that adds to your relative comfort level when in Colombia. When I am in the areas near downtown SF, I also feel on edge and weary of my surroundings. I encourage you to leave SoMa/Tenderloin/FiDi and check out the Richmond, Sunset, Japantown, Potrero Hill, North Beach, Marina, Pacific Heights, Mount Sutro, Presidio, or Golden Gate Park. I think you’ll find SF has a lot to offer.
- ryanmarsh 7y agoGoing to be there next week. Lived there twenty years ago. Haven't spent much time in the city since. All I hear is horror stories. I hope everything is ok? I was going to try to break in my new hiking boots after work each day. Any suggestion on safe places to walk with my pack on? I'm camping in Montana the following week.
- itsaidpens 7y agoYou’ll be fine if you’re just visiting. Just don’t move there for any length of time.
- DrScump 7y agoRental cars are frequent targets, so much so that rental car companies remove exterior distinguishing characteristics like labels and license plate frames.
- mc32 7y agoIn traditional residential neighborhoods it’s still ok. It’s the tenderloins, SoMA, areas of the mission, etc., that have above average street crime. In the residential neighborhoods it’s petty theft, car break-ins and such. Nothing to worry about, but if you live there it can weigh on you after a while.
- chrisseaton 7y ago> it’s petty theft, car break-ins and such. Nothing to worry about Why are people so chilled-out and blasé about having their things taken or damaged? Are you genuinely not bothered about the destruction due to a political belief about property or do you think it's unavoidable? It doesn't happen in most places - it doesn't have to be that way.
- noirbot 7y agoI think they meant that it wouldn't be an issue if you're a visitor and just looking to hike through the area. It's obviously not a good thing, but if I don't live there, I don't have a car to get broken into, so it's not a worry for me to be in that area vs. somewhere where I might get assaulted.
- omegaworks 7y agoThe primary source at the top of their article, Susan Dyer Reynolds, is not an expert in any way but editor-in-chief of the Marina Times, an independent community newspaper. I wouldn't trust a single word out of this NIMBY's mouth. Why they chose to lead with her and quote her like she's an authority on the subject is beyond reason.
- rectang 7y ago> Why they chose to lead with her Because it's super important for political reasons that San Francisco be seen as failing. It's the same phenomenon as perception of the national economy: if you don't like who's in power, you think the economy is poor.
- fche 7y agoHow would you support the proposition that San Francisco is not failing, or is even flourishing?
- vkou 7y agoBy counting the number of millionaires who live in it. By that metric, it's one of the greatest cities in the world. Or by counting the value of it's real estate. Or the value of the companies it has created.
- luckydata 7y agoI wholeheartedly support the concept of eating billionaires.
- massaman_yams 7y agoSimple. Demand for housing. Supply issues aside, a huge number of people want to live in the SFBA, and the rents reflect that.
- theNJR 7y ago
- immichaelwang 7y agoI've wondered if what San Francisco needs is a Rudy Giuliani type mayor. Someone to come in a shake up the status quo with valid right leaning polices when it comes to crime.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 7y agoRudy Giuliani certainly deserves a lot of credit for cleaning up New York City--as US Attorney when he dismantled the Mafia. Whether his policies as mayor were effective is highly debated.
- immichaelwang 7y agoAgreed. But it's not like the current policies, some of which include blatantly not enforcing laws, are working. Giuliani was also a prolific mayor when it come to building housing. I don't think any right leaning or even centrist political candidate in SF could withstand the inevitable smear campaign that far leftist groups would organize against them.
- anigbrowl 7y agoLeft wingers are very much in support of housing. It seems like you've come here to grind a political axe. In general it's better to make good arguments in your first comment rather than reveal them in striptease fashion. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- immichaelwang 7y agoI've only donated and voted for liberal candidates. Also, my comment explicitly said 'leftists' which is different than liberals. Argument was also in direct response to a comment. Good day to you~
- gibolt 7y agoI generally agree with reduced sentences, if any at all, for minor offences. Once someone becomes a 3+ time offender, it is worth removing them from the street. The majority of cases are caused by a tiny number of people who do it serially because they can.
- the_snooze 7y agoIn Berkeley there's a woman on the streets who has a long history of assaults and property crimes. She obviously doesn't have the mental health care she desperately needs, but I feel the local government is giving up its legitimacy by keeping her on the streets and being all "surprised Pikachu" when she whacks a stranger over the head with a tree branch. https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/11/01/woman-arrested-in-downtown-berkeley-after-unprovoked-tree-branch-attack https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/11/01/woman-arrested-in-do...
- orthoxerox 7y agoHow come no one has shot her yet in self-defense?
- javagram 7y agoIt’s california, CCW permits are May-Issue (I.e., very rare) and open carry is banned. It’s less likely that assaulting random civilians will get you shot there than in, say, Texas.
- klipt 7y agoHow about pepper spray? If assaulting random civilians got you pepper sprayed half the time, that might be a deterrent.
- jopsen 7y agoA) Deterrents don't work very well, rarely work at all with desperate people, and far less with people who have mental issues. B) if you end up in a conflict it's always better to run. It's safer for you than to escalate. In sane countries failing to run can invalidate any claim of self-defense. Thus, you'd find yourself on the hook for "armed assult". Even if you state or country is crazy enough to have a "stand your ground" law, you are always better served by running away or de-escalating by other means. Your ego might be hurt, but that is rarely fatal :)
- idlewords 7y agoI used to go running in the early morning near Dolores Park. I remember a period of about six weeks when the entire row of cars there parked overnight would reliably have their windows broken every morning. I also struggle to remember ever seeing an SFPD officer patrolling this neighborhood (two blocks from a major police station) on foot.
- purple_ducks 7y ago> I also struggle to remember ever seeing an SFPD officer patrolling this neighborhood (two blocks from a major police station) on foot. Footbeats have been cut back from pretty much all police incl. in Europe. Policing(even moreso with reduced personnel) is more reactive than preventative. Getting from A to B and dealing with issue in B is generally quicker and safer by vehicle than having somebody run to B and then dealing with issue. Limited energy stores etc.
- masonic 7y agoIt's hot even reactive, when it comes to property crime. Police don't respond to property crimes below a Grand Theft threshold; they just have you file a police report online, and that is only used for insurance purposes.
- Causality1 7y ago>“We could be keeping them and be giving services while they’re in jail,” says Fabbri. “It could really be effective. >we’re not solving our problems when we pretend low-level crimes aren’t important. Those two facts are the crux of the issue. Prisons do not rehabilitate criminals; they just restrain them. Couple that with the fact it costs, on nationwide average, $84 per day to incarcerate someone and the average petty criminal steals less than $84/day and you end up with an uncomfortable conclusion. That conclusion is that it would be cheaper to offer government-funded total coverage crime insurance than it is to arrest the criminals.
- fche 7y agoA daily theft of $84 per day has much more than $84/day of cost in terms of corrosion of social trust. A government payout cannot fix that - heck it makes it worse.
- lostlogin 7y agoDoesn’t that strengthen causality1’s argument? You could give the their their $84 and it would be a straight win if they stopped thieving.
- fche 7y agoThat is a big "if", of course. And I thought the initial idea was to have the gov't pay the losses of the victims of thefts, without incarcerating the thieves. As though that would eliminate the victimization.
- DrScump 7y agoFor a property thief to net $84 would require taking $400+ worth of property and creating as much worth of damage in the process.
- MaxfordAndSons 7y ago> Prisons do not rehabilitate criminals; they just restrain them. I think it's worth pointing out that, while that's certainly true of most if not all of the US prison system, it's not necessarily the case that incarceration is never rehabilitative.
- intopieces 7y agoWhich of the high-crime areas have rent control? What would the crime look like if the market had let the rents rise? It's my intuition that people rarely commute 1hr in bumper to bumper traffic to smash windows.
- fche 7y agogentrification is whiteness amplification, and therefore bad, or something
- gibolt 7y agoI believe a large amount is attributable to the homeless (or near homeless) population. Everything around them exploded out of their range, and this is the only power they feel they have to not get priced out or feel any semblance of personal power.
- viscanti 7y agoOnly 50% of the homeless in San Francisco have been in the city for more than 10 years. Housing prices play a role but don't tell the full story. When looking at the homeless who are still on the street, they're there because they refuse to go to shelters. The vast majority who are on the streets are there because of mental health issues or drugs. The visible aspect of homelessness has much more to do with us failing to provide adequate mental healthcare and a failed war on drugs than with housing prices.
- jahewson 7y agoThe older northern parts of the city have the highest rent control ratio. These are not high crime parts of the city. So there’s no correlation. What you do see in the high crime areas is a large homeless population - who of course don’t have any rent to pay. I can’t imagine higher rents making the homeless problem any better?
- gkop 7y agoThe smash-n-grab laptop theft is extremely organized in some instances at least: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/31/thousands-of-stolen-laptops-recovered-in-massive-bay-area-car-burglary-scheme/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/31/thousands-of-stolen-l...
- door5 7y agoSan Francisco absolutely does not need a racist[1] mayor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_Cit...
- dang 7y agoI've banned this account because, as we've told you repeatedly before, you're not allowed to use HN as place for ideological battle, and that's basically all you've been doing. No, that's not because we favor racist mayors. It's because HN needs to be protected against people who only want to use it to advance agendas and fight enemies. If we don't protect it, those things will soon engulf everything else, the same way fire does. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20010589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20010589 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- microtherion 7y agoI have no opinion about the grandparent account one way or the other. But are you implying that the original article was NOT "ideological", "advancing agendas" and "fighting enemies"? If this kind political article is legitimate for this site (and I would argue that it is, given that it touches on the daily experience of many HN contributors), shouldn't it also be legitimate to take the other side of the political debate?
- dang 7y agoMany articles posted to HN have a political dimension. We don't exclude them because if we did, the site would become less intellectually interesting. The idea of HN is to optimize for what's intellectually interesting. Moreover, it's impossible to define "political" precisely. Basically everything is political somehow. On the other hand, unmoderated political discussion soon becomes flamewar. We can't allow that either because if we did, flames would consume the site and destroy the community. And that would also be less intellectually interesting. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20scorched%20earth https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... So we allow the topics, but try to prevent the hotter discussions from taking their natural course into, basically, war and rage. We want to avoid the latter not primarily for ethical reasons, but because it leads to informational heat death, which is boring. How to handle this? Lots of ways, but also: badly. We do an uneven job of it and don't know how to do much better. Pretty much any thread that gets into these topics makes me cringe. It's shocking and painful how awful people are to each other when they're sure they're right. Curiosity, incidentally, doesn't come with that certainty. We try to ensure that articles with political overlap have at least some angle that isn't purely political, and that they contain substantial new information. That provides fiber, if you like, to slow down thought processes. This supports better discussion, or at least not such awful discussion. Another thing we do is urge people not to post comments that abandon curiosity in order to fight enemies. It's not actually so hard to tell these apart. Any comment with a glimmer of curiosity has a tentative quality that remains open to new information and what others have to say. Why wouldn't it? Curiosity, by listening, may get gratified. This is very different from battle comments, which weaponize language and emotion (on the internet, that means snark) in the service of what the commenter feels is worth fighting for. For curiosity, it's important to remain open; for battle, it's important to fasten your armor, cede nothing, and be closed. Once you've triumphed over evil, maybe you can open up again. Battle may be important, but it's inimical to curiosity. Curiosity is the one thing we're trying to optimize HN for, so we moderate against battle no matter what it's for or against. Another thing we do is down-regulate indignation however we can. Indignation is the strongest force on the internet, including on HN, and the most hostile to curiosity. Perhaps you think we shouldn't, because indignation has some value? Don't worry; no matter what we do, it will always be the biggest force here. Human nature plus internet equals indignation. Lastly, another thing we do is ban accounts that use HN primarily for battle. Note that word primarily; it's there because of an empirical observation. Accounts that post curiously about lots of different things and occasionally get into a political argument are fine. Maybe we have to ask them not to cross the line into unkindness—but we wouldn't ban them for that. Accounts that primarily use HN to fight opponents are a different species. The first are net positive even if they occasionally burn some health points. The second are net negative, and not in a small way—in a curiosity-based ecosystem, they're an invasive species. This has turned out to be a fair and at least partially objective distinction that is suitable for moderation. If you watch closely what we do when we ban accounts for political battle, it should be clear that this is the test being applied. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20primarily%20test https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- wpietri 7y agoCrime's definitely a problem here, but parts of this strike me as exaggerated. I live in the Mission, and have for almost 20 years. I don't think crime is noticeably worse. This is also the first time I've heard a claim that crime is a significant reason for stores closing. When I talk with actual business owners, the big reasons are 1) massive rent increases, and b) difficulty finding staff at $15/hr. As an example, Allan Beats, who has run the specialty sci-fi shop Borderlands Books, just closed down his adjoining cafe. He was clear about the problems, and crime doesn't come up: http://borderlands-books.blogspot.com/2019/04/borderlands-cafe-to-close.html http://borderlands-books.blogspot.com/2019/04/borderlands-ca... Or Lucca Ravioli, just down Valencia Street, closed on the same day. The owner was selling the building, and there's no way anybody could buy the business without having millions to buy the building too. In sum, it was real estate costs: https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/94-year-old-Lucca-Ravioli-Company-to-close-in-13571326.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/94-year-old-Lucca-R... I absolutely agree that crime is a problem; I've had 7 bikes stolen over the years. I also agree that the insane rents guarantee people will end up on the streets, and homelessness is comorbid with addictions, which are often fed by crime. But this strikes me as overdramatic. It makes me wonder who funds the organization that produces this.
- keithly 7y agoIt's a politically conservative publication funded by the Manhattan Institute think tank https://www.manhattan-institute.org/ https://www.manhattan-institute.org/
- ben_jones 7y agoI've also started to see NRA sponsored youtube channels [1] doing in-depth reporting on San Francisco's problems. It's not a bad documentary actually, but conveniently leaves out the whole NIMBY movement while featuring a real estate agent as a primary source focusing instead on the failures of local (liberal) government. I fear we're seeing a massive ramp up in propaganda leading up to the 2020 elections. San Francisco will play a prominent role of "look how bad $FOO are at government!". [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSNBxnnawq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSNBxnnawq4
- DevKoala 7y agoIn SF, there is major organized crime. It’s very obvious. I remember that during my first year in SF, a travel bag was found with a man mutilated inside. I live in a cheap studio in the Mission to save on rent. The things I see remind me of my childhood in South America. I just wonder when the kidnappings will start. Also, even professionals have lost all respect for the city. People with a six figure salary urinating on the streets, why?
- seattle_spring 7y agoThere are basically zero public restrooms there. If you need to pee, what exactly else are you supposed to do? Tough it out for the 1.5 hours it takes to ride a bus 5 miles back to your apartment?
- DevKoala 7y agoGo into a McDonald’s or another restaurant. Are you honestly excusing drunken wealthy people coming out of bars and treating the streets of the Mission like it’s a public urinal?
- anigbrowl 7y agoKinda, yeah. There used to be more public restrooms (not least in every bart station) but they shut them down after September 11 for 'security reasons' and have never been able to figure the problem out since. Sure, you could hide a bomb in a public toilet, but on the other hand that's probably the least-bad place for an explosion to occur if someone ever decides to do that. If you don't have public toilets, then drunk people are gonna relieve themselves in alleys and the like. That's just a fact of life, not a moral issue.
- inferiorhuman 7y agoThere are basically zero public restrooms there. If you need to pee, what exactly else are you supposed to do? That's largely true in Spain as well, but nobody shits all over the sidewalks there.
- 7y ago
- lscotte 7y agoGood thing SF banned plastic straws! Great to see they've got their priorities straight!
- jarjoura 7y agoI had an interesting experience the other week, as I went to Montreal in Canada. It was still super cold up there, barely getting above freezing this late into the year. Holy hell, the sheer amount of homeless people I saw on the streets, the crazy amount of drug dealers trying to sell me shit, it was next level. Now, I'm not trying to suggest it's any better or worse than San Francisco. It's bad for the simple reason that Montreal is in this climate zone where it's fucking COLD for 50% of the year. Anyway, the point I'm getting at is, I had always been under the assumption that San Francisco, (and Oakland) were unique in the temperate climate that enabled the insane amounts of homelessness you see here. Instead what I've just come to realize, it's 110% SF's policies that have enabled this culture. If its a problem in Montreal, a place where no one should ever be allowed to sleep outside because, quite honestly, they would die, then they too lack the proper policies to deal with it. For SF to ever fix this problem, they have to first admit that it's not OK, and for all of us here in Hacker News though it seems obvious to us, it's clearly not obvious to the city.
- jefft255 7y agoHomeless people actually sleep outside in Montreal even in the winter. It is a problem as many die from hypothermia during particularly cold periods. Some refuse to go to homeless shelters. Cops will sometimes try to find some bullshit reason to arrest them so they don’t freeze to death.
- joelrunyon 7y agoSF is a weird place. From a distance, it's really really beautiful and there's a lot of nice things about it. But walking around it on the ground, the only place I've been that's felt dingier than it was Kuala Lumpur (and I still felt safer there). Maybe if you live there - you get used to it - but man, was it unappealing.
- duxup 7y agoIs there a real increase in these sorts of crime? The temperature of the story and stats provided by the police don't seem to match.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoIt looks to me like a great deal of this is rooted in the homeless issue in San Francisco, which is directly related to the very high cost of housing in SF. Studies show that simply building more housing of any kind whatsoever helps alleviate the problem, even if you build more luxury housing. Lack of affordability is tied to straight up lack of availability. (Seems easy enough to infer that lack of availability should be directly to tied to incidence of homelessness as well.)
- Simulacra 7y agoLow level crime slowly becomes a drain on the entire neighborhood. Theft, vandalism, taking a crap in the street, it all adds up. Eventually the police will find a way to reduce such crime, or citizens will start building gated enclaves and hiring guards, creating the burbclaves that Neal Stephenson warned us about.