4 ms·

This may be the case, but your link doesn't really prove the point. SFPD is certainly not over-staffed, with half the per capita police force of most major citi

This may be the case, but your link doesn't really prove the point. SFPD is certainly not over-staffed, with half the per capita police force of most major cities. Per capita statistics in San Francisco also need to be adjusted because the _resident_ population is much smaller than the _daytime_ population due to land use issues. In addition, the police standing idly is an unfounded claim. As far as I can tell, a major part of the problem is that each police action takes a huge amount of overhead to execute. Booking a suspect is a multi-hour trip to the station.

alxmng 4y ago
Someone was repeatedly breaking into my apartment lobby to steal mail. The police told me they couldn’t do anything unless I had video of it. So I caught the crime on video, identified them, and went to the police station with the video. They said they wouldn’t do anything because it wouldn’t be prosecuted anyway. Oh, and they also warned me not to confront the perp or do anything myself or they might arrest me. The same person continued to steal packages, and I moved.
- chii 4y ago
  > because it wouldn’t be prosecuted anyway. which is weird to me - video evidence should mean a slam-dunk case is it not? So the reason it isn't going to be prosecuted is political then? Which means a failing of the system and institutions. This is an indication of a deeper problem. Moving is the individual's solution of course, but that's not a real solution for the state.
- shuckles 4y ago
  I could tell you a dozen similar stories about every part of the San Francisco or state bureaucracy. Does that mean they’re all over staffed and over funded? If booking a suspect takes multiple hours of work by the booking officers, I could see why the police would not want to allocate the few officers they have on any shift to that job for a mail thief.

alxmng 4y ago

Someone was repeatedly breaking into my apartment lobby to steal mail. The police told me they couldn’t do anything unless I had video of it. So I caught the crime on video, identified them, and went to the police station with the video. They said they wouldn’t do anything because it wouldn’t be prosecuted anyway. Oh, and they also warned me not to confront the perp or do anything myself or they might arrest me. The same person continued to steal packages, and I moved.

chii 4y ago
> because it wouldn’t be prosecuted anyway. which is weird to me - video evidence should mean a slam-dunk case is it not? So the reason it isn't going to be prosecuted is political then? Which means a failing of the system and institutions. This is an indication of a deeper problem. Moving is the individual's solution of course, but that's not a real solution for the state.
shuckles 4y ago
I could tell you a dozen similar stories about every part of the San Francisco or state bureaucracy. Does that mean they’re all over staffed and over funded? If booking a suspect takes multiple hours of work by the booking officers, I could see why the police would not want to allocate the few officers they have on any shift to that job for a mail thief.