6 ms·

The mistake these courts are making is thinking that the punishment is meant for the individual committing the crime ONLY. In fact, it is a deterrent for OTHERS

• akerl_ 4y ago
  Nobody defecating outside is doing it because they found out it’s not being prosecuted, they’re doing it because they don’t have any other option.
  • babyshake 4y ago
    Defecting outside of a toilet is one thing. Defecating on the middle of a sidewalk is a different thing altogether. It is possible to defecate on a piece of waste paper and throw it away in the nearest garbage. People do it all the time.
  • proc0 4y ago
    That doesn't explain why those same people were not doing that years prior to that policy change. SF had walkable streets not even 10 years ago, and poop patrol didn't exist and was not needed. I think not prosecuting is one part of the solution but it needed to be implement alongside a real solution to the root problem. Many people living on the streets have mental issues of all kinds, and not addressing that while simultaneously removing all boundaries when it comes to what they can or cannot do outside, is quite obviously going to create mayhem. The cynical side of me thinks that could be the end goal, but that's a different matter.
    • yodon 4y ago
      Recycling laws changed and plastic bags ceased to be readily available. It's not a change in prosecution that happened, it's a change in the availability of the disposal mechanism.
      • Aloha 4y ago
        I think you actually hit the nail on the head. The homeless have always been there, the poop, the needles, and the other trash was less visible - until the plastic bag bans - now there is no ready disposal mechanism.
      • spfzero 4y ago
        Sure, whenever I can't find a convenient plastic bag when I need to defecate, I just do it in the street, because, what choice do I have?
  • civilized 4y ago
    I don't know why some people just automatically assume that all problematic behavior was done out of desperation. All stealing is just for loaves of bread to feed a starving family. All street defecation is an act of desperation after a good faith search for a toilet. etc. Are people angels who only behave badly when horrible circumstances leave them with no options? I just don't understand how someone could believe this. It would seem to take a very sheltered life where ideology takes the place of real human experience.
    • akerl_ 4y ago
      Just so we’re clear, your argument is that there’s folks out there who, upon needing to take a shit, think “hmm, I could go to a bathroom, but since nobody will prosecute me for taking off my pants and shitting here on the sidewalk, I’ll do that”? There are certainly people who do bad things because they’re bad people. But yes, on average, people who behave badly are doing so because of limited options, not because they’re really keen on crime.
      • civilized 4y ago
        The majority of homeless people are in the grip of drug addiction. They are already doing something illegal, completely unnecessary, and harmful to themselves because it feels good in the moment. So yes, I do think impulsive public defecation is a thing. People are already shooting up in the streets, why not other stuff too? If toilets are sometimes inconvenient, by all means add more, but it won't end the problem.
        • akerl_ 4y ago
          I think if we’re at the point where you think that the majority of homeless people are drug addicts, and that drug addicts are doing something “completely unnecessary because it feels good in the moment”, we’ve bottomed out the conversation.
          • civilized 4y ago
            I had seen some reports that it was a majority. Looking again, I'm seeing more like 30-40% for alcohol and 10-30% for drug abuse. It is very common by almost all accounts. I am not squeamish about pointing out the nature of self-destructive behavior. I don't think it does anyone any favors to ignore things because we are uncomfortable with perceived implications. We can sympathize with drug abusers and their circumstances while recognizing that they are behaving in a self-destructive and often other-destructive way.
  • dehrmann 4y ago
    Drug dealing is different, though. It's not necessarily a choice between homelessness and drug dealing; it might be between living in an SRO, barely getting by, and drug dealing. At some point, there's a threshold where drug dealing has the better outcome, but the situation you're coming from wasn't that bad.
    • akerl_ 4y ago
      Is it? The comment I replied to above presents the idea that this court decision is bad because it telegraphs to drug dealers that they can get away with existing in the Tenderloin, because the courts have determined that the government can’t preemptively ban then from doing so. The comment above posits that this removes an effective disincentive and will lead to more drug dealers in the area. My premise is that no drug dealer is factoring in this kind of disincentive at all into their calculus. Studies have shown that even more severe criminal penalties like long-term jail sentences don’t serve as an effective deterrent, because they don’t actually treat the factors that lead to somebody deciding to commit a crime, and once they do, the concept that there may be a harsh penalty if caught isn’t a factor.
  • devoutsalsa 4y ago
    I want to agree with you. But I also saw a guy on pissing on the street on San Francisco directly across the street from a public toilet. An opposite experience was I walked by a woman who was pissing between two parked cars. She apologized when I saw her. I walked by her again about an hour later, and she thanked me for not yelling at her. She said she was peeing in public because she had no access to a toilet.
  • jimmygrapes 4y ago
    Once upon a time single use plastic bags were used by the homeless as receptacles for waste. Guess what happened.
    • labster 4y ago
      The plastic bags got tired of that shit every day and formed a union?
  • calculatte 4y ago
    They do it because they are high on drugs and don't care where they crap. That's the truth.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • Ekaros 4y ago
    I would argue that if such thing was prosecuted they would at least do it somewhere they would not be observed and found out. Maybe moving the problem to alleyways or behind buildings. But that would still likely be better option for general cleanliness.
• Bud 4y ago
  Could we not have hyperbolic, bad-faith posts like this from people who clearly have no clue about SF and seem to have never even visited? Your comment on the feces issue is a ludicrous distortion, and your lack of thoughtfulness on the very real constitutional issue with this case is perhaps even more disturbing.
  • proc0 4y ago
    I hope I'm wrong since I want the city to improve, but I haven't visited since mid-pandemic, so it could be outdated. However I can assure you I lived through it.
• mlyle 4y ago
  > The mistake these courts are making is thinking that the punishment is meant for the individual committing the crime ONLY. In fact, it is a deterrent for OTHERS to think twice before attempting a crime. Rulings like this will have a very predictable outcome: drug dealers will read about this or hear about it, and they will proceed to take advantage of it. This isn't a mistake. This was not law before they committed their offense, and it's a very restrictive ban: this is effectively adding more punishment to a crime after the fact. Worse, there was no legislation to support the ban. > This has happened before. One year it was a clean city, then they announced they wouldn't prosecute quality of life crimes like defecating on the street... and the next year you couldn't walk a single block without having to avoid human feces. The amount of short-sightedness in the leadership of that city is astounding! At least don't announce it! Here, the leadership of the city was trying to take action in excess of what the law allowed against these dealers. So who exactly is fucking up here? The leadership of the city?
  • proc0 4y ago
    Yeah, TBH I don't know who to blame here. I assume the leadership is able to do something about it, but perhaps not and there is more at play here.
  • true_religion 4y ago
    I thought the DA said crimes wouldn’t be prosecuted. This may be in excess of civil rights but it’s still. If prosecution or jail time. A charitable view would state: It’s as if the DA is searching for solutions but always lands on the worst possible one which is both illegal and ineffective. The one benefit to this solution is that it reduces the DA case load, which it looks like is the real goal.
    • mlyle 4y ago
      In this case, we're mostly talking about drug dealers who have been prosecuted and convicted-- and ultimately released, no longer living in San Francisco. The city attorney (not the DA-- another official who handles civil matters for the city rather than criminal ones) sought to keep these people out of the portions of the city where drug dealing is most endemic. But, this turns out not to be legal-- with no legislative support and with it all being post-conviction, combined with it being large in scope compared to similar civil protective orders.
• dragonwriter 4y ago
  > The mistake these courts are making is thinking that the punishment is meant for the individual committing the crime ONLY. In fact, it is a deterrent for OTHERS to think twice before attempting a crime. That's not a mistake they are making, because: (1) No one was convicted of a crime, so there are no “criminals” involved, and (2) It doesn't make deprivation of rights without legal basis acceptable that it is done to deter people other than those being immediately deprived of rights. > Rulings like this will have a very predictable outcome Yes, and that outcome is “law enforcement will need to charge people with crimes and prove them to the criminal standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ before depriving them of liberty on the basis that they are criminals.”