7 ms·

Proposition 47 is the real bugaboo, it moved from felony to misdemeanor thefts under $950 which includes damage caused by them. this made breaking into cars pre

Proposition 47 is the real bugaboo, it moved from felony to misdemeanor thefts under $950 which includes damage caused by them. this made breaking into cars pretty much a free pass because window damage rarely could exceed that. becoming a misdemeanor meant cops have no real reason to follow up. throw in the requirement to prove the doors are locked, well its easy to understand however the real dishonesty is from Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) who claims a bill to at least remove the requirement for prosecutors prove a car was locked before being broken into based on costs. As in, they are very willing to pass the costs onto individuals; hence there still is a cost but to government it does not occur unless on their books. As it was pointed out, how is it never a crime to enter a vehicle you do not own without permission? Prop 47 lead to an increase in shop lifting because it set the limit high enough that it basically insured no one would get prosecuted. the common method is to send a bunch of people into a store at one time to get the goods in volume but with each individual being under the limit in monetary value if being young enough prosecution won't work either

mc32 7y ago
At a local Safeway woman loads cart with bottles of liquor. Walks out. She yells “I know my rights, I know my rights”. What are the cashiers and security going to do? Nothing, they let her go. At another place kids get caught stealing they turn over a display and run out. Again, nothing done. All those costs are borne by the paying customers. People are gonna get sick of it; the progressive supes are gonna rue this move. The DA race in SF was close. I think it’s gonna go the other way next election. Also word on the street is apparently thieves prefer SF to Daly City because San Mateo county doesn’t play as nice as SF.
- StuffedParrot 7y ago
  I believe what you’re describing is nation wide and doesn’t have anything to do with SF.
  - mc32 7y ago
    It’s the frequency and brazenness of the crimes that’s out of line with respect to other stats.
    - StuffedParrot 7y ago
      Sure, but the underlying difference is that people actually know their rights, not that SF is somehow soft on crime as implied.
      - Jamwinner 7y ago
        In most places people can be stopped. Mega business tends not to chase them because they can absorb the costs, making possible litigtion not worth it. The small business owner is the one made powerless by these laws, which are, indeed, different from the rest of the country.
        kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
        Their customers absorb the costs. Always.
      - WarDores 7y ago
        The right to steal unimpeded?
      - mc32 7y ago
        It’s almost as if you’re wanting to imply shoplifting is a right. They are not imploring a right. I could make s citizens arrest under my rights but people will tell you, it’s a losing proposition because you subject yourself to other frivolous claims that take money and time to clear up. So the reason people aren’t detained for police is because police will do very little in these cases because they are classed as misdemeanors. So why risk lawsuits, etc. when there is no upside?
        coreless 7y ago
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  What you are describing is a particular sort of story that's meant to inflame and probably speaks to where you get you news, which sounds like it's political and partisan. Both of the things you describe are corporate policies. They have nothing to do with state law anywhere, and they are there because of liability. Safeway doesn't want to get sued for 1) if an employee is an idiot/racist and misidentifies someone and harms them 2) employees get harmed substantially trying to stop a shoplifter. In these cases you have rare and small losses that are miniscule compared to bad financial outcomes of intervention. It would be easy to stop, but that costs money. It's a very simple business decision for retailers: is the cost of loss prevention higher than the loss. The fact that this surprises you is surprising to me, this problem is many decades old in retail. Car burglaries are a much different dynamic, and another poster mentions that it's a felony that was reclassified to a misdemeanor, and that law probably does need to be changed and is a problem for lawmakers. edit: and can we raise the elephant in the room, which is that this is fairly solvable with a national facial recognition database and fairly low end iptv/image capture tech?
  - beat 7y ago
    Hasn't anyone ever watched the opening scene of Pulp Fiction? Tarantino got right to that... no one is going to stop if you if you decide to rob a diner.
  - mc32 7y ago
    I get neighborhood news from one of the various social neighborhood apps. These apps aren’t political or partisan in so far as I can tell. In my neighborhood there are lots of progressives but after a few years even some of the died in wool progs see that there are problems. And to your point. Yes different crimes but the point is there has been a surge in both as well as a new crime in the form of package theft.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    One point is that grocers shouldn't have to fend for themselves against crime. Supplying the public good of crime fighting is the main reason to form governments in the first place.
- undefined1 7y ago
  > “I know my rights, I know my rights”. What are the cashiers and security going to do? Nothing, they let her go. I've seen a shoplifter (also in SF, Safeway) take it to the next level, repeatedly yelling, "I'm pregnant! The guards are killing me and my baby!". None of which appeared to be the case, and security was as nervous as you might imagine. This kind of stuff happens a lot at Safeways in SF (also Starbucks and CVS, but mostly Safeway it seems). Other times you'll just see someone running out the door, guards look into the distance for a moment and that's that. My wife calls them Unsafeway, heh.
  - souprock 7y ago
    I find it hard to imagine that. How do they stay in business? At my supermarket, I have never observed proper going-out-the-door shoplifting. I am still able to get offended when somebody eats a grape that they haven't purchased. I'm sure worse crime happens, but in-store grape consumption is the worst I've ever observed.
- rambojohnson 7y ago
  going deeper into these threads has got me asking, wait, am I still on hackernews?
  - apta 7y ago
    Why? Not everyone on HN is a far leftist.
    - rambojohnson 7y ago
      I know and that's fine, I meant the politics in general.
- nradov 7y ago
  My local Safeway in a middle class area of the South Bay Area also has a significant shoplifting problem. It's often kids who come in after school and steal small items, as well as homeless adults. Unfortunately the management appears to have a policy of not prosecuting or even confronting shoplifters. I sort of understand why they don't want to do anything, but it's disappointing because tolerating lawlessness brings down the whole neighborhood.
  - anxman 7y ago
    Technically, all of the customers like yourself are paying for it.
- oceanghost 7y ago
  In So Cal, a supermarket I go to remodeled and removed the entrance closest to the liquor, leaving only one (rather busy) entrance where a security guard is posted. I've seen people stealing liquor there as well.
adrr 7y ago
Drunk driving is a misdemeanor and they have DUI check points every weekend and saturation patrols(additional units) from 10pm to 3am. I've been pulled over multiple times for bogus reasons(license plate light out) to check to see if i am drunk. Prop 47 has nothing to do with it.
- devwastaken 7y ago
  Drunk driving tends to kill more people. There's only a number of things resources can be allocated to police.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomatotomato37 7y ago
    If police units have enough resources to field fully-kitted SWAT units with APCs they have enough resources to put a couple beat cops on theft duty
  - adrr 7y ago
    DUI checkpoints don't catch drunk drivers. They catch unlicensed drivers. Next time you you roll through one, thank the police officer for keeping the community safe and then ask how many drunks they arrested that night.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Exactly. They make their real money as a pretext to issue petty citations to people they wouldn't have otherwise stopped. Actual drunks are just the pretext. Sure they'd be happy to catch a few but they're the bonus not the goal.
    - blacksmith_tb 7y ago
      That doesn't seem too terrible - we want unlicensed drivers off the roads too don't we? Whether or not they can drive well, they will be uninsured, which is clearly a risk to everyone else.
zten 7y ago
I still haven't figured out why "well it's just a misdemeanor" means the justice system totally gives up on that type of crime. Everybody discussing Prop 47 talks about this like this is an obvious thing to assume. It still looks to me like crime is being committed -- I certainly wouldn't go and commit it, anyway, because it feels like it should have very real repercussions.
- Kalium 7y ago
  Elected prosecutors want to posture for the next election. Their incentives are around garnering popularity. When most voters mentally translate "misdemeanor" into "minor thing not worth worrying about", it isn't always a good look to go after those who may have committed them. Police notice what isn't prosecuted. They don't enjoy the experience of wasting their time arresting people repeatedly for deeds that the prosecutor doesn't care about. Then there's stuff like this: > “In an era where our streets are filled with homeless people looking for shelter from the elements this expansion of the prosecution and incarceration time for individuals who have not damaged a locking mechanism of the vehicle to gain entry could negatively impact those with the least of means,” the public defenders said in a letter to lawmakers. Prosecuting those with the least of means for anything less than heinous, violent crimes also isn't a good look.
  - azinman2 7y ago
    > Prosecuting those with the least of means for anything less than heinous, violent crimes also isn't a good look. So therefor just because you’re homeless you’re free to steal? That’s total BS, and also rots society. The bigger problem is nothing is being done to make prisons better, or to address the deficiencies that allow people to become homeless in the first place.
- jlmorton 7y ago
  Exactly. What's important in deterring crime is not just the length of the sentence. It's the likelihood of being caught and punished. I don't necessarily want to lock people up for petty theft. But I do want them to face some sort of punishment, even community service, with follow-up and escalating punishments if the community service is not completed. If the implication is that we were prosecuting these crimes before Prop 47, them we can still prosecute every one of them, we just don't need to charge them as felonies.
beat 7y ago
It's not just California, either. I live in MN, had my car window smashed out for a couple of bucks in loose change. The neighbor's doorbell camera caught it on video, but the cops didn't even want to see it. Just file a report, my insurance replaced the window, and it was mostly just a pain.
mschuster91 7y ago
> Proposition 47 is the real bugaboo, it moved from felony to misdemeanor thefts under $950 which includes damage caused by them. The problem is not Prop47 or "liberal"/"progressive" politics. The problem is a police and justice system that seems to be underfunded or understaffed to take care of small/petty crimes. No need to ruin someone's entire future for a shoplift or smash-and-grab, but also no reason to let them off "for free" only because the system is so overloaded. > Prop 47 lead to an increase in shop lifting because it set the limit high enough that it basically insured no one would get prosecuted. In Germany, we have the concept of "gang theft" (§244 StGB for the interested), which penalizes exactly the modus operandi at play here.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tree3 7y ago
So in your opinion, where should the line be between misdemeanor and felony? Also, do you think that charging more people with felonies is an appropriate solution to crime that has it's roots in addiction and poverty?
tdeck 7y ago
This argument always confuses me because you can still spend a year in prison for a misdemeanor in CA. Isn't that enough of a reason to follow up?

mc32 7y ago

At a local Safeway woman loads cart with bottles of liquor. Walks out. She yells “I know my rights, I know my rights”. What are the cashiers and security going to do? Nothing, they let her go. At another place kids get caught stealing they turn over a display and run out. Again, nothing done. All those costs are borne by the paying customers. People are gonna get sick of it; the progressive supes are gonna rue this move. The DA race in SF was close. I think it’s gonna go the other way next election. Also word on the street is apparently thieves prefer SF to Daly City because San Mateo county doesn’t play as nice as SF.

StuffedParrot 7y ago
I believe what you’re describing is nation wide and doesn’t have anything to do with SF.
- mc32 7y ago
  It’s the frequency and brazenness of the crimes that’s out of line with respect to other stats.
  - StuffedParrot 7y ago
    Sure, but the underlying difference is that people actually know their rights, not that SF is somehow soft on crime as implied.
    - Jamwinner 7y ago
      In most places people can be stopped. Mega business tends not to chase them because they can absorb the costs, making possible litigtion not worth it. The small business owner is the one made powerless by these laws, which are, indeed, different from the rest of the country.
      - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
        Their customers absorb the costs. Always.
    - WarDores 7y ago
      The right to steal unimpeded?
    - mc32 7y ago
      It’s almost as if you’re wanting to imply shoplifting is a right. They are not imploring a right. I could make s citizens arrest under my rights but people will tell you, it’s a losing proposition because you subject yourself to other frivolous claims that take money and time to clear up. So the reason people aren’t detained for police is because police will do very little in these cases because they are classed as misdemeanors. So why risk lawsuits, etc. when there is no upside?
      - coreless 7y ago
throwaway5752 7y ago
What you are describing is a particular sort of story that's meant to inflame and probably speaks to where you get you news, which sounds like it's political and partisan. Both of the things you describe are corporate policies. They have nothing to do with state law anywhere, and they are there because of liability. Safeway doesn't want to get sued for 1) if an employee is an idiot/racist and misidentifies someone and harms them 2) employees get harmed substantially trying to stop a shoplifter. In these cases you have rare and small losses that are miniscule compared to bad financial outcomes of intervention. It would be easy to stop, but that costs money. It's a very simple business decision for retailers: is the cost of loss prevention higher than the loss. The fact that this surprises you is surprising to me, this problem is many decades old in retail. Car burglaries are a much different dynamic, and another poster mentions that it's a felony that was reclassified to a misdemeanor, and that law probably does need to be changed and is a problem for lawmakers. edit: and can we raise the elephant in the room, which is that this is fairly solvable with a national facial recognition database and fairly low end iptv/image capture tech?
- beat 7y ago
  Hasn't anyone ever watched the opening scene of Pulp Fiction? Tarantino got right to that... no one is going to stop if you if you decide to rob a diner.
- mc32 7y ago
  I get neighborhood news from one of the various social neighborhood apps. These apps aren’t political or partisan in so far as I can tell. In my neighborhood there are lots of progressives but after a few years even some of the died in wool progs see that there are problems. And to your point. Yes different crimes but the point is there has been a surge in both as well as a new crime in the form of package theft.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  One point is that grocers shouldn't have to fend for themselves against crime. Supplying the public good of crime fighting is the main reason to form governments in the first place.
undefined1 7y ago
> “I know my rights, I know my rights”. What are the cashiers and security going to do? Nothing, they let her go. I've seen a shoplifter (also in SF, Safeway) take it to the next level, repeatedly yelling, "I'm pregnant! The guards are killing me and my baby!". None of which appeared to be the case, and security was as nervous as you might imagine. This kind of stuff happens a lot at Safeways in SF (also Starbucks and CVS, but mostly Safeway it seems). Other times you'll just see someone running out the door, guards look into the distance for a moment and that's that. My wife calls them Unsafeway, heh.
- souprock 7y ago
  I find it hard to imagine that. How do they stay in business? At my supermarket, I have never observed proper going-out-the-door shoplifting. I am still able to get offended when somebody eats a grape that they haven't purchased. I'm sure worse crime happens, but in-store grape consumption is the worst I've ever observed.
rambojohnson 7y ago
going deeper into these threads has got me asking, wait, am I still on hackernews?
- apta 7y ago
  Why? Not everyone on HN is a far leftist.
  - rambojohnson 7y ago
    I know and that's fine, I meant the politics in general.
nradov 7y ago
My local Safeway in a middle class area of the South Bay Area also has a significant shoplifting problem. It's often kids who come in after school and steal small items, as well as homeless adults. Unfortunately the management appears to have a policy of not prosecuting or even confronting shoplifters. I sort of understand why they don't want to do anything, but it's disappointing because tolerating lawlessness brings down the whole neighborhood.
- anxman 7y ago
  Technically, all of the customers like yourself are paying for it.
oceanghost 7y ago
In So Cal, a supermarket I go to remodeled and removed the entrance closest to the liquor, leaving only one (rather busy) entrance where a security guard is posted. I've seen people stealing liquor there as well.

adrr 7y ago

Drunk driving is a misdemeanor and they have DUI check points every weekend and saturation patrols(additional units) from 10pm to 3am. I've been pulled over multiple times for bogus reasons(license plate light out) to check to see if i am drunk. Prop 47 has nothing to do with it.

devwastaken 7y ago
Drunk driving tends to kill more people. There's only a number of things resources can be allocated to police.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  If police units have enough resources to field fully-kitted SWAT units with APCs they have enough resources to put a couple beat cops on theft duty
- adrr 7y ago
  DUI checkpoints don't catch drunk drivers. They catch unlicensed drivers. Next time you you roll through one, thank the police officer for keeping the community safe and then ask how many drunks they arrested that night.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Exactly. They make their real money as a pretext to issue petty citations to people they wouldn't have otherwise stopped. Actual drunks are just the pretext. Sure they'd be happy to catch a few but they're the bonus not the goal.
  - blacksmith_tb 7y ago
    That doesn't seem too terrible - we want unlicensed drivers off the roads too don't we? Whether or not they can drive well, they will be uninsured, which is clearly a risk to everyone else.

zten 7y ago

I still haven't figured out why "well it's just a misdemeanor" means the justice system totally gives up on that type of crime. Everybody discussing Prop 47 talks about this like this is an obvious thing to assume. It still looks to me like crime is being committed -- I certainly wouldn't go and commit it, anyway, because it feels like it should have very real repercussions.

Kalium 7y ago
Elected prosecutors want to posture for the next election. Their incentives are around garnering popularity. When most voters mentally translate "misdemeanor" into "minor thing not worth worrying about", it isn't always a good look to go after those who may have committed them. Police notice what isn't prosecuted. They don't enjoy the experience of wasting their time arresting people repeatedly for deeds that the prosecutor doesn't care about. Then there's stuff like this: > “In an era where our streets are filled with homeless people looking for shelter from the elements this expansion of the prosecution and incarceration time for individuals who have not damaged a locking mechanism of the vehicle to gain entry could negatively impact those with the least of means,” the public defenders said in a letter to lawmakers. Prosecuting those with the least of means for anything less than heinous, violent crimes also isn't a good look.
- azinman2 7y ago
  > Prosecuting those with the least of means for anything less than heinous, violent crimes also isn't a good look. So therefor just because you’re homeless you’re free to steal? That’s total BS, and also rots society. The bigger problem is nothing is being done to make prisons better, or to address the deficiencies that allow people to become homeless in the first place.
jlmorton 7y ago
Exactly. What's important in deterring crime is not just the length of the sentence. It's the likelihood of being caught and punished. I don't necessarily want to lock people up for petty theft. But I do want them to face some sort of punishment, even community service, with follow-up and escalating punishments if the community service is not completed. If the implication is that we were prosecuting these crimes before Prop 47, them we can still prosecute every one of them, we just don't need to charge them as felonies.

beat 7y ago

It's not just California, either. I live in MN, had my car window smashed out for a couple of bucks in loose change. The neighbor's doorbell camera caught it on video, but the cops didn't even want to see it. Just file a report, my insurance replaced the window, and it was mostly just a pain.

mschuster91 7y ago

> Proposition 47 is the real bugaboo, it moved from felony to misdemeanor thefts under $950 which includes damage caused by them. The problem is not Prop47 or "liberal"/"progressive" politics. The problem is a police and justice system that seems to be underfunded or understaffed to take care of small/petty crimes. No need to ruin someone's entire future for a shoplift or smash-and-grab, but also no reason to let them off "for free" only because the system is so overloaded. > Prop 47 lead to an increase in shop lifting because it set the limit high enough that it basically insured no one would get prosecuted. In Germany, we have the concept of "gang theft" (§244 StGB for the interested), which penalizes exactly the modus operandi at play here.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tree3 7y ago

So in your opinion, where should the line be between misdemeanor and felony? Also, do you think that charging more people with felonies is an appropriate solution to crime that has it's roots in addiction and poverty?

tdeck 7y ago

This argument always confuses me because you can still spend a year in prison for a misdemeanor in CA. Isn't that enough of a reason to follow up?