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> And they told the supervisors that Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that reclassified nonviolent thefts as misdemeanors if the stolen goods are worth l
by azinman2 5y ago
> And they told the supervisors that Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that reclassified nonviolent thefts as misdemeanors if the stolen goods are worth less than $950, had emboldened thieves.
And that's really it. We've put to the people in ballot initiative after initiative to reduce crimes and penalties for 'nonviolent crimes', which people will happily vote with good conscious for because of the word non-violent.
But nonviolent to whom? We're forgetting that they're still crimes, that they add up and degrade quality of life, and can violently ruin lives without striking a blow. Whoever worked in these Walgreen stores now need to find a new job, and had they been small businesses, closing up shop could ruin their entire career. I had someone come into my garage in the middle of the night in December, who woke me up and I confronted him. He ran away, so it was technically a nonviolent crime, yet I couldn't sleep for weeks and haven't felt fully safe in my home ever sense. The psychological damage is done.
We have a tendency to focus on the criminals with open arms trying to reintegrate and not overly punish people, and completely lose track of the victims. And when there's no credible consequences for bad actions, criminals become emboldened.
- khuey 5y agoTo most voters "a misdemeanor" is not equivalent to "totally legal" but yet that's how the police and district attorneys have chosen to treat it.
- lumost 5y agoThis is the most concerning aspect, why do police feel that only felonies are worth their time?
- topspin 5y agoBecause non-felons are back in store taking stuff before the officers can finish the arrest paperwork.
- megous 5y agoRepeat offenses don't escalate the charges in SF?
- setr 5y agoIf it gets escalated, then it’s no longer a misdemeanor, and worth considering :-)
- ummonk 5y agoNo, repeat misdemeanors of this sort don't escalate charges anywhere in California, since there is no law for that. And the SF DA certainly wouldn't care to escalate charges for repeat offenders even if he could.
- upbeatlinux 5y agoThey don't. Their hand cuffed by Prop 47 and the apt but misdirected antics of defund the police.
- upbeatlinux 5y agoI suppose we can take this further and say prop 47 attempts to address symptoms because of a failure to agree on what the problems are (what problems should we be talking about).
- lumost 5y agoMy understanding of prop 47 reduced up charging and limited non violent theft to a misdemeanor offense. To my knowledge it doesn’t block enforcement of misdemeanor crimes.
- palijer 5y agoI don't think they "feel" that way more as it is an economical decision. If you have more work coming in than you have allocated resources for, there are decisions that have to get made. Summed up and very simplified obviously, but eh.
- aoeusnth1 5y agoBut the workload shouldn’t change - the same number of arrests and prosecutions can be made before and after the law is passed.
- maxlybbert 5y agoThe police arrest, gather information, and pass the file to the prosecutor. If the prosecutor decides to drop the case, the police have no say. If the police hand hundreds of cases to the prosecutor only to have the prosecutor refuse to pursue them, the police get the message.
- lumost 5y agoWhy doesn't the DA pursue these cases? San Francisco elects their DA. One could even imagine starting a recall campaign over a refusal to prosecute misdemeanors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_San_Francisco_District_Attorney_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_San_Francisco_District_At...
- maxlybbert 5y agoYears ago, I ran across the statement that democracy guarantees voters get the government they deserve. I didn’t take it seriously at the time, but I’ve come around. San Francisco will change when the voters insist on it, but I don’t expect that any time soon.
- 5560675260 5y agoEach time I hear about this I'm baffled that not prosecuting is a legal option for DA.
- closeparen 5y agoHow much intersection do you think there is between people who shoplift at CVS and people who have something to lose if they get a fine?
- fvrghl 5y agoAlso in the article: > The hearing did not answer a crucial question: Why San Francisco? If the problem stems in part from a change in California law, why aren’t other cities in the state seeing similar spikes in shoplifting?
- bunfunton 5y agoHomeless people.
- mike_d 5y agoI really hate that term. It implies that they are under-served or lack the resources to be homed. San Francisco's budget to address the problem is $106,500 per homeless individual, or enough to literally just buy them everything they need and send them to a trade school.
- natchy 5y agoYou used the term “homeless” after saying you hate it?
- aksss 5y agoJust because the homeless-industrial complex has resources doesn’t mean the needy homeless do. The first job of non-profit work is to keep the thieves away, and municipal homeless programs often fail this first job miserably. Indeed they’re often shady operations covering graft, rent-seeking, and political favors cough, Seattle, cough
- kriskrunch 5y ago>Why San Francisco? If the problem stems in part from a change in California law, why aren’t other cities in the state seeing similar spikes in shoplifting? Does Los Angeles count? Last I checked six months ago with LAPD Pacific Division most forms of crime were up, significantly. That was just listening to them take questions at the Venice Neighborhood Council meeting and looking at their reported crime stats documents. Solution: I moved out of LA. Problem is, most of these types of petty crimes aren't reported because LAPD can't do anything. Plus, it's below the insurance deductible for most retailers. I speak from experience as a former retailer in LA (Culver City) on a major street, Sepulveda Blvd, for twelve years managing my own decent sized store. I had tens of thousands stolen year after year. Even with video, I couldn't do anything. It's exceptionally difficult to catch and recover the money, so what's the point in trying, or even reporting it? It's a complete waste of time. I did my best with prevention, but even reveiwing videos to figure out what's happening takes a long time... And you need to know it's gone in the first place! When you have $500k to $1mm in inventory, which really isn't much, and tons of product coming and going every day, how are you to keep up? Even with cycle counts, we were always behind the thefts. I finally sold the shop in 2016 after a series of heart breaking thefts by employees, customers, and an electrician. Sure you can say it's my fault for not having a better system, and you're probably right. Still it takes honest employees and honest customers for it to work. Prop 47 seems self fulfilling: Expand misdemeanors to cover twice as much product, so then less crimes are reported by the community, finally claim crime is down! If technicalities were equivalent to reality this would be great policy, but it's different on the ground than what most people see from a report on their computer.
- AussieWog93 5y agoThe problem is that there's no real evidence that being tough on crime is a very effective way of solving the problem. You look at jurisdictions that are "soft" on crime - Scandinavia, New Zealand etc. and invariably all of them have figured out non-punitive methods of crime reduction that are far more effective than jail. This is reflected in crime statistics. (and before you mention Singapore, it's worth pointing out that they have many, many policies in place to alleviate poverty and social unrest - government housing, world class education, a strong economy, national service etc. in addition to their strict laws. I'm not arguing that the laws do nothing, but you can't just beat an uneducated, poor, fatherless person with a stick and expect them to be a productive member of society.)
- samatman 5y agoWhat's interesting is we have a sort of 'natural experiment' in the US, where a significant fraction of the population in Minnesota, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and the Dakotas, are descended from Scandinavians. They have a very low crime rate, several times lower than the white average. There was a study on this, and Swedish-Americans and Norwegian-Americans commit crime at about the same rate as Swedes and Norwegians, which is to say, not often.
- Judgmentality 5y agoI would really love a link to that paper. A quick google search didn't turn up what I was looking for.
- samatman 5y agoI'm quite sure I'll never see it again. I save papers relevant to my profession and hobbies, and US crime statistics are neither. I did manage to dredge this link up, which says that in 1973, Minnesota had the lowest high school drop-out rate in the nation, and the third-lowest crime after Iowa and Maine. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2003/08/12_cunninghamg_timemag/ http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2003/08/12_cu... Which is no smoking gun, but is suggestive. I'm sure someone could do a deep dive on academic literature in criminology and turn it up, but it won't be me I'm afraid.
- AlexandrB 5y agoThe article itself disagrees with this assessment of cause and effect: > The hearing did not answer a crucial question: Why San Francisco? If the problem stems in part from a change in California law, why aren’t other cities in the state seeing similar spikes in shoplifting?
- mhouse 5y agoYou missed a crucial part of the quote: > The retail executives and police officers emphasized the role of organized crime in the thefts. And they told the supervisors that Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that reclassified nonviolent thefts as misdemeanors if the stolen goods are worth less than $950, had emboldened thieves. You are quoting the police and business owners, who are very much a biased source. How do they know what the causes are? Do you think they've commissioned a survey or done research? It's just as possible they were against Proposition 47 to begin with and the NYT is supporting their agenda for their own reasons.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mike_d 5y agoYou must have missed the 8 million dollars in stolen merchandise they recently recovered from a retail theft ring here. You don't need a multi-year study to figure out that this shit is getting out of control. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/10/06/major-san-francisco-bay-area-retail-theft-ring-busted-five-suspects-arrested-8-million-in-stolen-merchandise-recovered/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/10/06/major-san-franc...
- raverbashing 5y agoI feel if we had Godzilla invading the city and start ripping people apart there would be still people questioning "hey is it even Godzilla doing that? I'm not convinced by the evidence"
- aksss 5y agoFollowed by the inevitable interrogation of our past opinions of Godzilla, criticisms that Godzilla has needs too, and that our displeasure with Godzilla ripping people apart is evidence of our structural bias against and exploitation of Godzilla.
- darth_avocado 5y agoIt's insane. I had my car broken into, fortunately I don't keep anything in it, so nothing was stolen, but when I called the cops, the basic response was initially along the lines of "Dude why are you even calling?" and when I persisted on filing an incident report, they begrudgingly filed it, but kept dropping hints that this is never even going to get looked at. I mean we have like 5 nest cams around the neighborhood, and plenty of shops also have cameras around, but I doubt they'll even try.
- wfhbata 5y agoThey won’t try because an arrest is pointless if the DA refuses to prosecute. Elect a real DA who respects the law and law-abiding citizens, and the police will be able to do their jobs. Until then it’s a lost cause.
- lsiebert 5y agoHungry people will try to eat whatever they can. Tired people will try to sleep wherever they can. Unhappy people will try to feel better however they can. Criminalizing these activities is incredibly costly and doesn't truly solve anything. People are quick to question the morality of desperate unhappy poor people when they break the law when they don't have enough resources or options, and yet we rarely consider the immorality of those who hoard incredible wealth they don't need, when there are desperate unhappy poor people in need. Shouldn't those with great power have the greater responsibility?
- Seattle3503 5y agoThere are many options to get fed in America, even if you don't have money. Here [1] is a list of food banks in SF. [1] https://food-banks.org/assistance/san_francisco_ca.html https://food-banks.org/assistance/san_francisco_ca.html
- lsiebert 5y agoAnd yet people still go hungry. It's a lot easier to feed yourself if you have money. Also not everybody has 5 and a half hours to wait in line. https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-politics/article/S-F-hunger-still-at-pandemic-crisis-levels-as-16186656.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-politics/article/S-F-hunge...
- ggggtez 5y agoNo, you missed the most important part. Before they stopped pursuing the theives they already were the target of organized crime. Their security guards were regularly assaulted. The problem started long before the change in policy.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- raverbashing 5y agoAgreed Whenever we read about people antagonizing masks or vaccines and their usual political alignments let's remember this, because it's fundamentally the same thing It's a "feel good" position, it's a "I'm in your tribe" position even if it makes no actual sense in reality (and both sides are not lacking in crap arguments to support those)
- natchy 5y ago> both sides There’s not only 2 sides. I stopped reading any news or social media (outside HN or stocks) since New Years. I don’t feel on a side anymore.
- raverbashing 5y agoAgreed, reality is more nuanced than what exists in media/social media. And you'll notice the extremes complain louder at those in the middle than at the "opposite side"
- jjav 5y ago> We're forgetting that they're still crimes I don't think "we" (the people?) are forgetting they are still crimes. They are, and are supposed to be still prosecuted as the minor crimes they are. The problem is that police and DAs have taken the position that if they can't go for bigger charges (which is what DAs like to put on their resume) then they won't pay any attention at all. That's the root cause of these lesser crimes being completely ignored.
- treeman79 5y ago{personal Experience} As a kid in California, we had constant break ins and other such vandalism. I was assaulted several times. 45 minutes for county sheriffs to arrive, as we had no police department. In a major urban center. Sherif finally told my dad. “Nothing we can do, buy a gun, just make the body look like it wasn’t running away and police won’t make an issue of it”. This horrified us on many levels. We moved to a safe neighborhood. Later on we realized we had a bunch of gun nuts on street. One of which loved to shoot blanks at trouble makers. This disturbed me, and left me deeply questioning many things about guns. As an adult I moved out of state to raise my family near the the pro gun people. Never once had an issue. Don’t like to touch guns personally. Yet happy to be where criminals fear to tread.