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SF's crime debate turns nasty
- robarr 5y agoSome Maps and statistics about San Francisco criminality: https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crime-dashboard https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crim... https://www.crimemapping.com/map/ca/sanfrancisco https://www.crimemapping.com/map/ca/sanfrancisco
- PeterisP 5y agoA major point that this article is making is that all these statistics are misleading because stores and individuals have systematically stopped reporting most property crime incidents as it's worthless effort because nothing gets done about the reports. Data-driven decisions don't work if you have really bad source data.
- prussian 5y agoThis seems strange to me though. How does one collect on insurance without it being reported to the police? Are businesses and individuals just eating the cost or are adjusters just writing out checks without a police report?
- quanticle 5y agoThe article points out that businesses are eating the cost until they can't tolerate it any more, then they're leaving. The example cited was that of Walgreens closing 17 stores in San Francisco because of shoplifting related losses.
- 6f8986c3 5y agoPolice don’t send out officers to take reports for minor crimes. I know more than a few cops, and current SOP is to ignore anything that isn’t an immediate threat to life.
- refurb 5y agoDoes insurance pay out for shoplifting? Do store owners even buy that insurance? Can you even get that insurance in SF? What are the deductibles? What happens to your rates when you make a claim? I could see for big ticket retailers (jewelry, etc) insurance against theft makes sense, but CVS? When people steal $100 worth of makeup?
- ericbarrett 5y agoThere is "commercial crime insurance" (separate from general business insurance) but I can't imagine an underwriter staying in the San Francisco market. And a large retailer like CVS, Walgreens, or Target would almost certainly be self-insured.
- jkhdigital 5y agoAre you using “self-insured” as a euphemism for “just eats the losses”? Because it’s not really insurance if there’s no risk pooling, and a large retailer is a single entity—who are they pooling risk from? Individual stores? That would make sense only if they are franchises.
- mbg721 5y agoThey may not be pooling risk, but they may be hiring actuaries to look at their past losses compared to similar businesses, and setting aside a reserve to cover expected future risk.
- jkhdigital 5y agoI’m sure that’s exactly what they do, but that’s not insurance—just prudent risk management.
- refurb 5y agoThat’s basically what self-insured is. Large employers offer health insurance but they aren’t pooling risk with other companies, they just pay all expenses. Insurance is meant to protect against catastrophic loss. If a loss isn’t catastrophic, it’s often cheaper to just pay for the loss yourself.
- drdec 5y agoAny kind of meaningful coverage for shoplifting can't be dependent on having police reports. Under normal circumstances it is the shoplifting you don't know about that causes losses. I suspect that stores do not have insurance for shoplifting, but perhaps someone with first hand knowledge could weigh in.
- jkhdigital 5y agoI don’t have first hand knowledge but I would bet all my Bitcoin that retailers do not have “shoplifting insurance”. There seems to be a common but deeply flawed belief that businesses can and do insure against literally every bad thing that could ever happen to them. Anyone with personal experience dealing with health or dental insurance should be well aware that insurance companies are in the business of covering (and paying out) as little as possible and there’s no reason to believe this dynamic is any different for a corporate customer.
- jkhdigital 5y agoUnder normal circumstances, insurance protects against unlikely but catastrophic events (health insurance in the US is a weird exception). Even if shoplifting insurance exists, I can’t imagine how it would be cheaper than just eating the loss.
- dcolkitt 5y agoYou will never in a million years find an insurance carrier to underwrite a policy that covers shoplifting in Union Square. If you do, please let me know, I want to short the hell out of their stock.
- dionidium 5y agoRetail stores expect some baseline amount of theft. For an individual, theft is a rare, unexpected, maybe even insurable event. Not so for stores. They expect theft. You don't generally insure against things you expect to happen.
- thereare5lights 5y agoThey don't collect because the level of shoplifting is so high that collecting on insurance would be financially a net negative due to premium increases.
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- dionidium 5y agoIn addition to the point about under-reporting, which was already made here, the drop in tourists and commuters may also be masking a rise in crime in the data. To understand this, you first have to realize that crime is typically overstated in destination neighborhoods, because visitors to the neighborhood are not counted in the denominator of most crime statistics, which are calculated by dividing the number of incidents by the number of permanent residents. Given two neighborhoods with identical official crime rates, the one with more daily visitors actually has a much lower true rate. But in a year where the visitors fell off a cliff, you could have a drop in the number of incidents, which would show a decrease in crime in the official stats, even if there was actually an increase in the true rate of crime.
- supercanuck 5y ago>So I’d suggest that part of the reason reported incidents have decreased is that stores don’t bother. They aren’t reporting shoplifting to the police because nothing happens. They just hope their employees don’t get punched and the losses balance out. >And frankly, lately they haven’t.
- PicassoCTs 5y agoSo the actual data is in the store closures and areas that are abandoned? Store-rent in those areas would go down?
- the-dude 5y agoIn general there is a very strong incentive for the landlords/owners of commercial property to keep it empty instead of lowering the rent.
- hugh-avherald 5y agoRent is not generally affected by vacancies.
- adolph 5y agoInteresting proposition. Given that existing leases are not affected, do you mean that owners would rather take a tax loss than potentially be locked into a lower rent?
- L-four 5y agoMany landlords are highly leveraged and reducing the monthly rent by even 10% would reduce the on paper value of the property to such an extent to put the property into negative equity.
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- refurb 5y ago“ It reported that shoplifting incidents are below what they were before the beginning of the pandemic.” Not sure that’s a good metric? It was a problem before Covid hit.
- m0llusk 5y agoPretty sure that is wrong, though. What really strikes me is the large amount of informal, typically illegal public sales stalls on sidewalks downtown and in the Mission. There is a sudden boom in stolen goods with all kinds of detergents and soaps and personal care products available for pennies on the dollar. This is very clear evidence of a boom in stolen goods and one possible route to establishing some control over the situation. It is important to keep the whole social context in mind. Next door San Mateo county has much more serious enforcement and around 2500 incarceration beds available most times. San Francisco has huge political struggles over all police activities and around 250 incarceration beds available most times. People need to decide what they actually want and provide the resources to get there but so far that is not what is happening.
- redis_mlc 5y agoFYI: the final Target SF location, Stonestown, with normal closing hours (9 pm or 10 pm) just adopted 6 pm closures too. They also have 3x the security at self-serve registers, one per row, compared to maybe one total before.
- tpmx 5y ago(The parent comment was flagged/dead.) https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Target-San-Francisco-stores-reduced-hours-why-16284219.php https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Target-San-Francisco-st... Every Target in San Francisco now has reduced hours. As of this weekend, the Target in the Stonestown Galleria's hours have been cut back to 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. because of an uptick in retail theft. It's due to "a significant and alarming rise in theft and security incidents," said spokesperson Brian Harper-Tibaldo. "For more than a month, we’ve been experiencing a significant and alarming rise in theft and security incidents at our San Francisco stores, similar to reports from other retailers in the area," said Harper-Tibaldo.
- JumpCrisscross 5y agoCan anyone comment on why San Francisco’s debate became so nasty? Is it just re-trenching the tech vs. long-term tenant fight? Or is there a new dynamic? We just got through this debate in New York City through our mayoral primary. Neither “side” won. But the process has so far produced two lead candidates who acknowledge the problem, pledged to focus on public safety and at the same time be mindful of the racial inequities of the NYPD’s recent past. That compromise doesn’t exist in SF. The political space for it to exist doesn’t exist. There is a refusal to admit the problem on one hand. And a vilification of the incumbents as idiots, or worse, in bed with the criminals, on the other.
- draw_down 5y agoIt’s “racist” to talk about it, basically.
- bradleyjg 5y agoThis is admittedly regional chauvinism, but I think New Yorkers are just fundamentally more pragmatic. Maybe it comes from everyone taking the subway. I don’t know, but we just seem less likely to drive an ideology right over a cliff. Up to the edge, maybe, but not over.
- cm2187 5y agoI don't know that it is the case. The front runner for NY DA intends to not prosecute minor offenses [1] [1] https://www.alvinbragg.com/plans https://www.alvinbragg.com/plans
- bradleyjg 5y agoThe next mayor is an ex-cop though. The woman that came in second explicitly rejected “defund the police”.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> front runner for NY DA intends to not prosecute minor offenses Bragg is a far cry from Boudin. He is, as a former prosecutor, leading in a field that had Boudinesque candidates, e.g. those with zero prosecutorial experience. I would actually highlight him as an example of the sort of compromise that seems lacking in San Francisco.
- spodek 5y agoHe focuses on shoplifting in San Francisco. Over here on the other coast, I focus on littering in Washington Square Park in Manhattan, though related to the broad-daylight wide-open sales and use of heroin and crack combined by the police retreating from walking through the park to only standing behind barricades near the arch. I posted a couple videos on it here: https://joshuaspodek.com/pride-destroyed-the-park-washington-square-park-after-a-parade https://joshuaspodek.com/pride-destroyed-the-park-washington.... I've picked up litter every day since 2017, starting from an environmental motivation, but as a resident since the 90s with civic duty, safety and crime have become important.
- tomjen3 5y agoWe can solve that overnight by legalizing the selling of drugs to adults. Require a (free) registration to be able to buy, prohibit the selling to minors, require that all shops selling it have pamphlets with addiction guidance and pom, no more drug dealers, no more selling to kids. Also way less crime.
- ryathal 5y agoLegalizing drugs at best reduces the black market/removes some of the danger. There are still plenty of black market weed dealers in states with legal recreational use. For that matter, there are still people selling cigarettes in a black market, Eric Garner was killed for doing this.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoPeople sell to adults when it's illegal. If you make adults legal and minors illegal, why do you assume that nobody will sell to minors?
- ookblah 5y agoi mean i get it, but if you've ever walked into the CVSs off mission no amount of data driven evidence is going to convince you not to GTFO of there as soon as possible.
- 6f8986c3 5y agoI mean, these are the same people that thought the Boogaloo boys were right-wingers, and not just lefties LARPing as what they thought a right-wing militia looked like. (The idiots that plotted to kidnap that governor were all rabidly anti-Trump, for example, and boogaloos have worked hand-in-hand with BLM)
- bsenftner 5y agoThe entire area has Stockholm Syndrome; SF and the surrounding area is overly expensive, overly crowded, over hyped, intellectually confused, exhausted and completely spent as quality places to live. Southern California too. Anywhere fashionable is wreaked by over population and the Karens they contain.
- Huwyt_Nashi052 5y ago>and the Karens they contain Yes the biggest demographic problem in these areas is the scourge of conscientious middle-aged White women...
- bsenftner 5y agoYou've not met male Karens? Just add a dick and threats of physical violence, but still a Karen.
- Huwyt_Nashi052 5y agoIn case it wasn't obvious, I'm calling you out on the racial aspect.
- bsenftner 5y agoThat's interesting. I'd accept my statement being a class attack, but racist? You've not met a very diverse set of Karens - they observe no boundaries of gender, or "race" - they are simply intolerant and self important. Regardless of their origin.
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- jacob2484 5y agoVery eager to blame it on Trump too I'm sure.
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- blahwhatever 5y agoWhat are we going to post this hour, Brain? The same thing we post every hour, Pinky: Right-wing Hatred of San Francisco. Just go to Austin and get over it. Move on with your lives. You people post like 200 articles a day about how San Francisco is dead. Good. Get out of my home and go back to Texas, Connecticut, or whatever trump-loving dump from which you came. Yes. Poor people steal from Walgreens and Target. Go cry about it on next-door and twitter, instead of doing something productive with your privilege. PS: Please take Cyan Bannister and the rest of the billionaire libertarian trophy wives with you. You're rich and you steal movies with BitTorrent. Y'all ain't innocent.
- ericbarrett 5y agoWhat I am not seeing discussed in all the hubub about SF shoplifting is the impact of organized crime. There is a well-developed fencing process for this kind of thing: goods are stolen by individual thieves or groups; fenced to black-market warehouses; then redistributed to individual sellers, who either hawk in flea markets or to local businesses, or ship the goods in bulk to other areas. It's been this way for years. Gangs of bicycle thieves used to roam the entire Bay Area (probably still do) with this model—I believe they were affiliated with some L.A. groups as well—and more than one group was busted on state charges in the last decade or two. Anyway, the people running the stolen goods warehouse intermediaries are committing felonies, regardless of whatever proposition or do-good D.A. people are huffing about. Where are the detectives? Where are the prosecutors? Where is the state of California?
- mutatio 5y agoI'm British so I'm not fully equipped to understand in terms of the state law or effects on the ground, but isn't there plausible deniability for the aggregators that sell goods from individual shop lifters? If the retribution on the individual is negligible, why would they provide evidence against the folk exchanging money for stolen goods, there seems to be no motivating factor to do so. You could increase punishment for folk buying the goods, but I'm not sure what negative ramifications that might have, e.g. you're second in chain buying a stolen phone. Maybe I don't understand, but it all seems a bit bonkers to me.
- ericbarrett 5y ago> isn't there plausible deniability for the aggregators that sell goods from individual shop lifters? Quite right, and penetrating this "I dunno" defense is part of building a criminal case against the high-level traffickers. It's the job of the District Attorney (local), the Attorney General (state), and their teams of investigators; that is, the detectives. To do this they can surveil, pressure arrestees for lower-level crimes, penetrate organizations with undercover agents, and even tap phones and computers—pretty much anything you've seen in an American T.V. show, which is often dramatized but not always as far from the truth as you'd think. > You could increase punishment for folk buying the goods Do you mean the end-purchasers? Conceivably you could get some of the shopkeepers, if you can prove they knew the goods were suspect. But there's nothing criminal about buying household goods at a corner store—all the crime happened on the way there.
- scop 5y agoI recently moved from SF to Texas. I walked into a Walgreens for the first time here in TX and thought I was in the Truman show…everything was suspiciously clean, well organized, and friendly. Was this some kind of hidden camera show? Growing up and living in SF had convinced me that all Walgreens were messy and miserable places.
- dcolkitt 5y agoMan, wait till you come to Florida and see Publix.
- ransom1538 5y agoSF -> Florida here. Yes. Publix is a bizarre surreal experience. I was used to buying food at CVS hoping to not step on a needle. If you asked a CVS employee where something is - they roll their eyes and mumble something. At publix, I asked an employee where the peanut butter was - they smiled, asked how my day was, walked me over to the peanut butter. When I checked out they told me the peanut butter was "bogo". I said excuse me? They proceeded to tell me I get another free peanut butter - for absolutely no reason. I fell in love.
- scop 5y agoFriendliness is another dynamic I’ve been totally surprised by. People waving and saying hi while you’re walking. The McDonalds cashier telling my wife she liked her dress. Kids on the playground seeing my son fall and coming over to help him up and see if he’s okay.
- jacob2484 5y agoSF got what they voted for - a progressive utopia. At some point, there have to be repercussions for crime.
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- blahwhatever 5y agoHackerNewsie: OH NO! THERE'S A POOR BLACK PERSON ON MY STREET! POST ON NEXTDOOR! CALL THE POLICE! Oh. He's delivering my postmates. Make sure to video tape him in case he's casing my $2m condo.
- stupidcar 5y agoAs a non-resident of San Francisco, I have no dog in this fight, but it shows up on my Twitter feed regardless. I was amused by a recent exchange where one user was complaining about the amount of human faeces on the sidewalk, and someone retorted that they'd lived in SF for 15 years and there'd always been human faeces on the sidewalk. I don't know whether crime in SF has gotten worse or not, but as a resident of a city where people don't defecate on the sidewalk, it boggled my mind a little to see someone apparently advocating for the city on the basis that sidewalk defecation wasn't a new problem.
- eevilspock 5y agoIt boggles my mind that sidewalk defecation only matters as a measure of where one should move, rather than a measure of what is wrong with our culture and society that produces iPhones with the one hand and crushes so many people with the other.
- CyberRabbi 5y agoI don’t think this is a cultural issue, most other US cities don’t have the sidewalk defecation problems that SF has had / still has. The most simple explanation that fully explains what’s going on would be the policy of this specific city’s government.
- swiley 5y agoMost other states don't house the only two relevant mobile OS vendors either.
- CyberRabbi 5y agoHow does that cause sidewalk defecation problems in SF?
- silicon2401 5y agoComments like this are why SF is such a terrible place. Instead of having standards, the bar is lowered and lowered and goalposts are moved to avoid addressing the crime and other issues with the city.
- unstatusthequo 5y agoMy car was broken into 3 times in two years. This is with NOTHING left out to see. Twice inside my own apartment garage. Once in supposedly upscale Russian Hill area. Storage unit broken into twice. Homeless guy LIVING in another storage unit. People dropping dookies in the middle of Illinois street during mid day. Why deal with all this? Even the city has an income tax. Where does that money go? To poop tracking apps? Free shoot-up sites? Gross mismanagement by weak, ineffective, and “progressive” anything goes ultra left politicians is ruining SF. I left SF. Not coming back.
- MrMember 5y ago>A woman named Michelle Tandler posted a Tweet lamenting that “every single one of my friends is considering leaving SF.” She added that “My friends are scared for their children and their husbands are scared for their wives.” >And for some reason, Kate Chatfield, who is a senior director on DA Boudin’s staff, thought this would be a good time for a public official to take a shot at a local resident. Chatfield said the “Husbands are scared for their wives,” was right out of the famously racist film, “Birth of a Nation,” which portrays the Ku Klux Klan as heroes. This is absolutely insane to me. Someone expresses concern about crime and someone from the DA's office publicly compares them to the KKK? How is that in any way acceptable?