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You said in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27718636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27718636) that you don't oppose his reforms. I r

You said in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27718636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27718636) that you don't oppose his reforms. I really can't understand your viewpoint at all.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wahern 5y ago
I generally neither oppose nor support more lenient sentencing as typically proposed in liberal discourse. I think the criminal justice reform movement exaggerates the effects of, e.g., structural racism, particularly as they relate to the finer details of the law and public policy. (IMO structural racism is far more consequential as it relates to economic opportunity, but that's the area least susceptible to legal remediation.) So if, for example, a DA wants to have a policy letting all first time non-violent offenders walk, then so be it. I don't think it'll make a difference one way or another. For the same reason I don't think prosecuting such first time offenses was particularly consequential by itself in terms of creating a criminalized underclass of poor minorities, I don't believe that abstaining from such prosecutions would result in substantial changes in behavior--i.e. more theft. OTOH, there are qualitative boundaries. If you quite literally remove the threat of jail or other serious repercussions regardless of number of offenses, then at the end of the day marginal effects will absolutely dominate. Unlike most crimes of violence, property offenses are principally crimes of opportunity--sociologically speaking, it's far easier to become a serial thief than a serial murderer. At some point the threat of material repercussions is too remote, and so a sizable subset of people will begin taking the opportunities to violate relatively weaker norms regarding inviolability of property. For example, take parking tickets. Parking tickets and towing fees can be a huge, even life-changing, setback for the poor. But what do you think will happen if we tell people that, while we'll still ticket unauthorized parking, failure to pay those tickets would never result in any other consequence--no enforced payment, no wage garnishment, no suspended license? Illegal parking isn't exactly morally reprehensible. It'll skyrocket. But compare that to if you say that material consequences are suspended until the 4th offense? Are a flood of people going to go out and start to park illegally? Probably not. Why change your behavior when after 3 times you're back to the status quo ante? (To be clear, I don't deny that the latter will still see some marginal effects, but it's not the kind of thing I'm going to get worked up over as matter of politics. I'll be happy to let it play out in good faith, if that's what the majority wants, and then discuss policy once we can see the concrete results.)
- perl4ever 5y ago
  I just feel like you've made a lot of comments against him without being specific on what reforms are going wrong. Here, for instance, you are talking about all sorts of generalities and abstractions and hypothetical situations. But your comment could be written exactly the same no matter who was in office and what they were doing. Here, you paint a picture of a hypothetical line that is crossed, which is all very well, but does this really describe what has happened in SF? None of it appears to be firm statements about what has happened and who it could be attributed to. Someone who lives in SF may have the context that I don't. And it may not be worth your while to provide it. But I'm curious, because I can at least imagine getting a job offer in the bay area and wonder whether/how much of the stuff I read is true. Bail reform is something that's been happening in a number of places, I believe. And it sounds logical to assess the threat to the community instead of arbitrary cash bail, even if implementation is fraught.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wahern 5y ago

I generally neither oppose nor support more lenient sentencing as typically proposed in liberal discourse. I think the criminal justice reform movement exaggerates the effects of, e.g., structural racism, particularly as they relate to the finer details of the law and public policy. (IMO structural racism is far more consequential as it relates to economic opportunity, but that's the area least susceptible to legal remediation.) So if, for example, a DA wants to have a policy letting all first time non-violent offenders walk, then so be it. I don't think it'll make a difference one way or another. For the same reason I don't think prosecuting such first time offenses was particularly consequential by itself in terms of creating a criminalized underclass of poor minorities, I don't believe that abstaining from such prosecutions would result in substantial changes in behavior--i.e. more theft. OTOH, there are qualitative boundaries. If you quite literally remove the threat of jail or other serious repercussions regardless of number of offenses, then at the end of the day marginal effects will absolutely dominate. Unlike most crimes of violence, property offenses are principally crimes of opportunity--sociologically speaking, it's far easier to become a serial thief than a serial murderer. At some point the threat of material repercussions is too remote, and so a sizable subset of people will begin taking the opportunities to violate relatively weaker norms regarding inviolability of property. For example, take parking tickets. Parking tickets and towing fees can be a huge, even life-changing, setback for the poor. But what do you think will happen if we tell people that, while we'll still ticket unauthorized parking, failure to pay those tickets would never result in any other consequence--no enforced payment, no wage garnishment, no suspended license? Illegal parking isn't exactly morally reprehensible. It'll skyrocket. But compare that to if you say that material consequences are suspended until the 4th offense? Are a flood of people going to go out and start to park illegally? Probably not. Why change your behavior when after 3 times you're back to the status quo ante? (To be clear, I don't deny that the latter will still see some marginal effects, but it's not the kind of thing I'm going to get worked up over as matter of politics. I'll be happy to let it play out in good faith, if that's what the majority wants, and then discuss policy once we can see the concrete results.)

perl4ever 5y ago
I just feel like you've made a lot of comments against him without being specific on what reforms are going wrong. Here, for instance, you are talking about all sorts of generalities and abstractions and hypothetical situations. But your comment could be written exactly the same no matter who was in office and what they were doing. Here, you paint a picture of a hypothetical line that is crossed, which is all very well, but does this really describe what has happened in SF? None of it appears to be firm statements about what has happened and who it could be attributed to. Someone who lives in SF may have the context that I don't. And it may not be worth your while to provide it. But I'm curious, because I can at least imagine getting a job offer in the bay area and wonder whether/how much of the stuff I read is true. Bail reform is something that's been happening in a number of places, I believe. And it sounds logical to assess the threat to the community instead of arbitrary cash bail, even if implementation is fraught.