5 ms·

We’re blaming the wrong things for San Francisco retail theft

14 points by turtlegrids 5y ago

dado3212 5y ago
> For context, police have made arrests in just 8.8% of commercial burglary cases this year. Isn’t this a data point for more/better policing? I get that they’re using it to push back on the “nobody prosecutes” messaging, but it feels like it cuts into their core argument.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  Does it? I'd like to think that in most situations, spending 2/3 of a billion dollars per year to get a success rate of less than 10% would cause people to take a step back and fundamentally reevaluate their approach.
- bifrost 5y ago
  It is and the Mayor is going to accelerate re-funding the police after decades of being underfunded. The DA has prosecuted a fraction of the crimes compared to prior years as well. Part of the problem is right now that SFPD is stretched too thin and many stores just can't make 20 calls a day for provable shoplifting. I have several friends who have worked in "Loss Prevention" over the last few years who say things are entirely out of control. Most of them have been assaulted by shoplifters, several other news reports cover stabbings to LP staff, those go generally unreported and unprosecuted due to the DA's neglect.
lefrenchy 5y ago
I think people are going to find way to criticize Chesa here, and there probably are some valid ones, but at the core I think he's right. It seems obvious to me that you need to get to the root of the problem if you care about solving the problem at all. Just prosecuting people won't prevent the next criminal, we need to meet people where they are and make sure they have skin in the game too.
- nfw2 5y ago
  "Prosecuting people won't prevent the next criminal" What makes you say that? Is fear of punishment not a reasonable deterrent from crime?
- torstenvl 5y ago
  > we need to meet people where they are and make sure they have skin in the game Some people simply will not get invested in a cooperative endeavor, no matter what. There is no way to "make sure they have skin in the game." Those people need to be incapacitated from causing further harm to society until such time as they pose no such threat.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    > Those people need to be incapacitated from causing further harm to society until such time as they pose no such threat. Who are "those people", though? There is a wildly disproportionate amount of attention focused on a very small sliver of theft. Consider that amount of stolen wages by employers recovered dwarfs retail theft by a factor of 3 to 1 [1]. The total amount taken is likely significantly higher. Walgreens — the very company for which people cite store closures as a consequence of shoplifting — just paid out a $4.5m settlement for stealing from thousands of employees in California from 2000 to 2017 [2]. Consider that over the past 20 years, police have stolen $68 billion from people without due process [3]. Since 2014, they've stolen more money than burglars [4]. As a society, we've actually chosen to make this legal via civil asset forfeiture. And yet no one is calling for crackdowns on employers who steal from their employees. No one is calling for police to be "incapacitated from causing further harm to society". Indeed, the goal of the activists pushing to recall Chesa Boudin want to give the police more power — even though they steal more than shoplifters! [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-forms-theft-workers/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo... [2] https://popular.info/p/a-tale-of-two-thefts https://popular.info/p/a-tale-of-two-thefts [3] https://boingboing.net/2020/12/21/us-police-have-stolen-68-billion-in-the-past-20-years-from-american-citizens-without-due-process.html https://boingboing.net/2020/12/21/us-police-have-stolen-68-b... [4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...
everdrive 5y ago
> We’re blaming the wrong things for San Francisco retail theft Seems a little callous to call these shoplifters “things,” but what the heck, I’m on board.
jevoten 5y ago
> these types of thefts with multiple people running into a store and grabbing items are not new [..] Nor are they isolated to the Bay Area or even to progressive cities But have they become more common recently/in San Francisco? It's very specious to consider only if a crime ever occurs, and ignore the rate at which it occurs.
- pempem 5y ago
  Actually there was an in-depth article showing that some of these 'spikes' were due to the way in which things were being reported which was recently changed. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-12-15/organized-retail-theft-crime-rate https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-12-15/organized-... https://archive.md/GNjpI https://archive.md/GNjpI
  - bifrost 5y ago
    Actually reporting the crime is a good start. We had 3000 car breakins last month in the 7mx7m city of San Francisco. Thats an incredible high and it coincides with a lack of prosecution. The DA is also responsible for improper stats keeping, he even explained how poor of a job he was doing on a clubhouse conference. -> https://twitter.com/cyantist/status/1473038134141063169 https://twitter.com/cyantist/status/1473038134141063169 The DA just purely refuses to prosecute people, even people who end up killing others, he's just so bad.
    - pempem 5y ago
      Reporting == good. We are agreed. However the majority of us have been subjected to or have created status reports. To claim that we are unable to see how selecting reporting metrics matter and can frame a story would be at best disingenuous.
egberts1 5y ago
DA Chesa seems to think that shopkeepers are victim-less.
egberts1 5y ago
Make S.F. Great Again - New Breed of S.F.ians. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow
aaron695 5y ago
Reichhardt 5y ago

14 points by turtlegrids 5y ago

> For context, police have made arrests in just 8.8% of commercial burglary cases this year. Isn’t this a data point for more/better policing? I get that they’re using it to push back on the “nobody prosecutes” messaging, but it feels like it cuts into their core argument.

jakelazaroff 5y ago
Does it? I'd like to think that in most situations, spending 2/3 of a billion dollars per year to get a success rate of less than 10% would cause people to take a step back and fundamentally reevaluate their approach.
bifrost 5y ago
It is and the Mayor is going to accelerate re-funding the police after decades of being underfunded. The DA has prosecuted a fraction of the crimes compared to prior years as well. Part of the problem is right now that SFPD is stretched too thin and many stores just can't make 20 calls a day for provable shoplifting. I have several friends who have worked in "Loss Prevention" over the last few years who say things are entirely out of control. Most of them have been assaulted by shoplifters, several other news reports cover stabbings to LP staff, those go generally unreported and unprosecuted due to the DA's neglect.

lefrenchy 5y ago

I think people are going to find way to criticize Chesa here, and there probably are some valid ones, but at the core I think he's right. It seems obvious to me that you need to get to the root of the problem if you care about solving the problem at all. Just prosecuting people won't prevent the next criminal, we need to meet people where they are and make sure they have skin in the game too.

nfw2 5y ago
"Prosecuting people won't prevent the next criminal" What makes you say that? Is fear of punishment not a reasonable deterrent from crime?
torstenvl 5y ago
> we need to meet people where they are and make sure they have skin in the game Some people simply will not get invested in a cooperative endeavor, no matter what. There is no way to "make sure they have skin in the game." Those people need to be incapacitated from causing further harm to society until such time as they pose no such threat.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  > Those people need to be incapacitated from causing further harm to society until such time as they pose no such threat. Who are "those people", though? There is a wildly disproportionate amount of attention focused on a very small sliver of theft. Consider that amount of stolen wages by employers recovered dwarfs retail theft by a factor of 3 to 1 [1]. The total amount taken is likely significantly higher. Walgreens — the very company for which people cite store closures as a consequence of shoplifting — just paid out a $4.5m settlement for stealing from thousands of employees in California from 2000 to 2017 [2]. Consider that over the past 20 years, police have stolen $68 billion from people without due process [3]. Since 2014, they've stolen more money than burglars [4]. As a society, we've actually chosen to make this legal via civil asset forfeiture. And yet no one is calling for crackdowns on employers who steal from their employees. No one is calling for police to be "incapacitated from causing further harm to society". Indeed, the goal of the activists pushing to recall Chesa Boudin want to give the police more power — even though they steal more than shoplifters! [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-forms-theft-workers/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo... [2] https://popular.info/p/a-tale-of-two-thefts https://popular.info/p/a-tale-of-two-thefts [3] https://boingboing.net/2020/12/21/us-police-have-stolen-68-billion-in-the-past-20-years-from-american-citizens-without-due-process.html https://boingboing.net/2020/12/21/us-police-have-stolen-68-b... [4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...

everdrive 5y ago

> We’re blaming the wrong things for San Francisco retail theft Seems a little callous to call these shoplifters “things,” but what the heck, I’m on board.

jevoten 5y ago

> these types of thefts with multiple people running into a store and grabbing items are not new [..] Nor are they isolated to the Bay Area or even to progressive cities But have they become more common recently/in San Francisco? It's very specious to consider only if a crime ever occurs, and ignore the rate at which it occurs.

pempem 5y ago
Actually there was an in-depth article showing that some of these 'spikes' were due to the way in which things were being reported which was recently changed. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-12-15/organized-retail-theft-crime-rate https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-12-15/organized-... https://archive.md/GNjpI https://archive.md/GNjpI
- bifrost 5y ago
  Actually reporting the crime is a good start. We had 3000 car breakins last month in the 7mx7m city of San Francisco. Thats an incredible high and it coincides with a lack of prosecution. The DA is also responsible for improper stats keeping, he even explained how poor of a job he was doing on a clubhouse conference. -> https://twitter.com/cyantist/status/1473038134141063169 https://twitter.com/cyantist/status/1473038134141063169 The DA just purely refuses to prosecute people, even people who end up killing others, he's just so bad.
  - pempem 5y ago
    Reporting == good. We are agreed. However the majority of us have been subjected to or have created status reports. To claim that we are unable to see how selecting reporting metrics matter and can frame a story would be at best disingenuous.

egberts1 5y ago

DA Chesa seems to think that shopkeepers are victim-less.

egberts1 5y ago

Make S.F. Great Again - New Breed of S.F.ians. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow

aaron695 5y ago

Reichhardt 5y ago