2 ms·

I think you correctly diagnosed the problem but not the cause. There are LOTS of social services (far more than most other cities... we even give them monthly c

I think you correctly diagnosed the problem but not the cause. There are LOTS of social services (far more than most other cities... we even give them monthly cash on debit cards) offering free clothes, hot meals, showers, and even rooms at a shelter (but they don't want to obey those rules...) and this attracts more homeless here since it's an easier city to be homeless than say somewhere in the South. And this was going on well before COVID--although that gave the city an excuse to do even less than it already did. This is happening because theft under $950 is a misdemeanor, which means if it's reported to 911 it's a low priority response. As a result, you see rings of people going in grabbing as much as they can which is usually still under $950 and then moving on to the next place. Because there's very little investigation, literal crime rings are doing this and then re-selling on Amazon and Walmart.com and other e-commerce sites. This goes on because it's a low priority to cops, and even if the cops catch them, prosecutors go easy (thanks to Chesa Boudin), and even if they're convicted the judge and jury usually go easy. So if you're a career criminal, SF makes it especially appealing to target. We've allowed "social justice" to be defined as legalizing theft rings and open drug use.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> This is happening because theft under $950 is a misdemeanor, which means if it's reported to 911 it's a low priority response. There is no necessary connection between those things. The problem is the police choose to deprioritize it, in part as a political protest of the classification, and in part because (or as a political gesture to highlight the fact that) the current SF DA won't prosecute it most of the time even as the misdemeanor it is. There aren't retailers leaving the rest of California because of a wave of theft, because other DAs and police departments aren't equally ineffective with the same penal code. This is mostly a Chesa Boudin issue and secondarily an SFPD issue.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> This is happening because theft under $950 is a misdemeanor, which means if it's reported to 911 it's a low priority response. There is no necessary connection between those things. The problem is the police choose to deprioritize it, in part as a political protest of the classification, and in part because (or as a political gesture to highlight the fact that) the current SF DA won't prosecute it most of the time even as the misdemeanor it is. There aren't retailers leaving the rest of California because of a wave of theft, because other DAs and police departments aren't equally ineffective with the same penal code. This is mostly a Chesa Boudin issue and secondarily an SFPD issue.