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The truth is we are letting antisocial criminal trash walk freely around downtown and terrorize the local population. I think a lot of people live in their nice
by glerk 4y ago
The truth is we are letting antisocial criminal trash walk freely around downtown and terrorize the local population. I think a lot of people live in their nice neighborhood bubble and have never stepped foot in FiDi or SOMA.
Since I moved here, I have sen people break into cars (numerous times), fill suitcases with products from Target and Walgreens and leave without paying, casually smoke meth in a crowded bus, empty their bladder and bowels in the middle of the sidewalk, etc. all of this brazenly and in broad daylight. In other cities, this type of behavior usually earns you at least a good beating and a night in jail. The negative feedback is very important for conditioning antisocial people to behave in a civilized community, but for some reason, SF has decided to not bother with it.
Some other comments conflate this with the "homeless problem". This is not a "homeless problem". Homeless people living in a shelter or pitching a tent under a bridge are not the problem in SF. Criminal antisocial nutcases getting no consequences for their actions are the problem.
- jacquesm 4y ago> at least a good beating In what cities does any of this earn you a good beating?
- tormeh 4y agoVery few rich cities, formally speaking. I know Singapore uses formal physical punishment. In worldwide practice, however, police will often be a bit rougher than they perhaps have to (or have the right to) be when arresting if they feel someone deserves it. Many judges also silently tolerate this.
- blackwateragent 4y ago> Very few rich cities, formally speaking. I know Singapore uses formal physical punishment. For extremely serious crimes, not his list of public indecency. For instance: * Under the Environmental Public Health Act, it is an offence to urinate or defecate "in or upon any street, arcade, vacant land, river, canal, ditch, drain or watercourse or in any place to which the public has access except in any sanitary convenience provided for such purpose." The penalty is a fine of up to $1,000 for a first offence, and up to $2,000 and $5,000 for the second and third offence respectively. [1] [2] [1] https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/totally-unacceptable-man-pees-grass-near-bus-stop-public-toilet-only-metres-away https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/totally-unacceptable-man-p... [2] https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/nea-issues-warning-woman-who-defecated-outside-mrt-station https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/nea-issues-warning-wom...
- Aeolun 4y agoWhat is the penalty for not being able to pay any of those fines? We know that the rich are allowed to do what they want. I’m more interested in the people likely to actually do it.
- rippercushions 4y agoSame as most countries, you get thrown in prison. You still won't get caned though.
- astura 4y agoIt's not a formal punishment, it's an informal punishment from police.
- keithalewis 4y agoIn NYC we call that a "tune up".
- jacquesm 4y agoElsewhere that is called 'police brutality' and should result in the sacking of the associated officers.
- mindslight 4y agoIdeally it should result in the prosecution of the perpetrating officers, the same as for anyone else who beats someone up.
- jacquesm 4y agoAgreed. But once convicted they should never be allowed back on the force. That kind of stupidity is one of the driving forces behind the whole defund the police movement and one of the side effects of that is that you end up with less police rather than with more disciplined police which would have been a far better solution. Without a police force dense societies usually can not function.
- mindslight 4y agoI swear the same pattern happens to every political movement. As soon as they get the limelight, the dumbest ideas take over. It's probably related to the bikeshed phenomenon. Defund the police does have a certain legitimate point in the US, where police are basically the catch all for dealing with any kind of social problem. In fact I think if it were phrased differently, most cops would rather there be another type of department that responded to sticky social situations. But yes, the fundamental issue is really a lack of law and order for law enforcement itself, which decreases the public trust and increases adversarialism. The average person seeing a cop and reflexively thinking how to avoid getting their attention and avoid getting hassled for some bullshit is an indicator of a deep set problem. The cancer was fueled by drug criminalization and other crushing nanny statism (eg the draconian ways that traffic laws are enforced), but it would take a lot more than simply rolling those back to regain the public trust.
- censor_me 4y ago[dead]
- rukuu001 4y agoStandard procedure, especially if its not feasible/convenient to actually charge someone. I've been wondering what cops are using these days since phonebooks aren't a thing any more. Guess a lot of people are 'falling down stairs' instead (outside SF).
- selfmodruntime 4y agoMunich. Police will teach you to keep your trashy behaviour to your home. There's barely any homeless here, they get cleaned up at night.
- scanny 4y agoThere is a presence of street beggars that doesn't exist back in Australia / New Zealand that are quite noticable here (although less than in other european cities). Knowing how die Bayerische Polizei operate I am surprised they aren't surpressed as well. I just wonder why that is?
- selfmodruntime 4y agoYou’re right. The peaceful homeless camp at the Kolumbusplaz vanished from one day to the next but the accordion beggar near the Viktualienmarkt remains. No clue.
- public_defender 4y agoThis person is promoting police brutality as a social good.
- fed_up_ca 4y ago[dead]
- sprkwd 4y agoPBaaS
- SilasX 4y agoI'm imagining that if a tech startup ran a protection racket, this is how they would brand it.
- prepend 4y agoI mean, they aren’t wrong, per se. I think if that’s the price we pay to not have people doing the things GP described then it seems like an acceptable price. I would prefer that criminals were not beaten and that we find a better solution. I don’t think we have to choose between police brutality and crime.
- shiftpgdn 4y agoPeople are at the end of their wits with organized gangs and homeless. What do you expect?
- snvzz 4y ago[flagged]
- _heimdall 4y agoI'd consider the usual process for a street arrest to be a beating by itself. That's not even to say it isn't "reasonable force" to protect the officers, just that it often looks like it must hurt like hell.
- soulofmischief 4y agoOpinions like these involving the use of corporal punishment and ad hominem (antisocial criminal trash) are part of the reason why the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction and the bay now lives in a liberal dystopia
- fastball 4y agoI think you mean corporal punishment. In what way does using harsh language to describe harsh people cause DAs to not enforce crimes? How does one thing directly cause the other?
- soulofmischief 4y agoI did, thanks for the catch; in my mind I said corporal but my hands and eyes apparently disagreed. "Harsh language" isn't the problem, it's the framing and lack of empathy for these people.
- fastball 4y ago> it's the framing and lack of empathy for these people Wasn't this the argument which lead to the current policy positions? Which seem to have not helped?
- random314 4y agoDo you live in the bay? Portions of SF have always been sketchy, but I am enjoying this "liberal dystopia" quite well. 15 years in and no one in my family has been a victim to any crime.
- newfriend 4y agoI'll have you know, my ivory tower is devoid of any riffraff!
- soulofmischief 4y agoI currently live in Sacramento. It's undeniable that the bay has gotten much worse even if it was "already bad" decades ago. I actually had a nice week in the bay two weeks ago, but I was in a rental in a nice neighborhood. And don't get me wrong; I've walked through SoMa at night even recently and while it was pretty sketchy I didn't feel unsafe. That doesn't mean I couldn't have gotten mugged.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rainy59 4y agoSF is very very good at marketing itself Crime was pretty crazy during dot com days, just tolerated more. Maritime Park next to the Hyatt / Embarcadero was always hip deep in homeless people at night. Very scary. Even worse when the freeway was still there. Market always had overly bright lights at night and looked like a sci fi dystopia. Absolutely no one wanted to be in SOMA at night which is a real problem for a startup working late hours. Hence small startups preferred renting private homes in Menlo Park etc. (Silicon Valley HBO)
- noobermin 4y agoBuddy here just skipped past the distinction about anti-social criminals and conflated homelessness with it, much to contradict the parent post.
- arethuza 4y agoI remember about 20 years ago going to a conference at the Moscone Center and as I was busy I let someone book my hotel for me. Got to the airport and the taxi driver said "Do you really want to go there?" - which was a bad sign and things just got worse when I got to the hotel and noticed that my room had 3 huge sliding bolts on the door.... I was told by the receptionist NOT to walk directly along Geary (I think) to get to the hotel but go two blocks north first and then cut back down. Being an idiot I ignored this advice one night and got the fright of my life! This was in a hotel that was a fairly short walk from Union Square.
- hotpotamus 4y agoAs ever, "The Simpsons" were insightful. > Because you need me, Springfield. Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside, you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalise criminals and rule you like a king! That's almost 30 years old now.
- kypro 4y ago> I think a lot of people live in their nice neighborhood bubble and have never stepped foot in FiDi or SOMA. We have similar problems here in the UK. A lot of people are disconnected by class which leads to misunderstands and bad politics. I personally think this class disconnect contributed far more to events like Brexit and Trump in recent years than social media. Most of family are working class and things like mass 3rd world migration, homelessness, drug use, etc has caused huge problems in working class communities here in the UK. But when you try to raise these issues (as a working class person) you always get accused by some progressive middle-class person of racism, intolerance, or being anti-progress, etc. You basically have to wait for things to get so bad that middle class people are also impacted, then they'll stop slandering you and let you have an opinion. As an outsider it would seem San Francisco is reaching that tipping point now – it's not just poor people being impacted by these bad political decisions, but also the wealthy progressives responsible for them. Although from what I've seen in the case of SF it seems the progressives who caused the issues rather just flee than fix the problems they created.
- walthamstow 4y agoI can't imagine that anyone is taking you to task for saying that homelessness and drug use are a blight on any community. So let's take a look at the other list item... Poland and Romania are not the third world, nor are Spain, Italy or Ireland. India is borderline third world, but Indians are one of the most successful migrant groups in the UK. Nigerians, too, are seeing success in education, business, politics and sport. My partner works for a YC-funded startup founded by two Nigerian Londoners. So, by process of elimination, are you are saying that Pakistanis and Bengalis are a major source of problems? Hardly surprising that people accuse you of intolerance in that case. Would you like to be more specific? (And before you start up about class again: my dad drove a van for a living)
- Veen 4y agoIt's not that Pakistanis, Albanians, Somalians, Iraqis and so on are more inclined to crime, but that many of those who chose to immigrate to the UK are from parts of those societies who are inclined to crime. No one is worried about educated professionals from those cultures coming here; but many are worried about uneducated young men in particular and the types of people who tend to be settled in working class communities. I know many Nigerian and Indian immigrants who work hard, pay their taxes, and don't make a problem. I also experience what it's like when a small town has a large number of uneducated, criminally-inclined Albanians settled in their midst—it's not pretty.
- harimau777 4y agoYou are presenting two false dilemmas: First, that addressing the core causes behind most crime (poverty, drugs, mental health, etc.) implies not enforcing the laws. We could address the root causes while also enforcing laws. Second, that enforcing the laws requires extreme punishment like beatings.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sva_ 4y agoI think there is a large intersection between the sets "homeless people" and "antisocial nutcases" though. I've been to SF once, and the amount of crazy shit I've seen in just two days was staggering. But there was also a lot of good stuff.
- noobermin 4y agoDefine large. By a percentage, it's not large. What is closer to reality is one is often a neccessary condition for the other, which is anti-social nutcases are generally homeless, while homeless people are not by fraction largely anti-social.
- AlexandrB 4y ago> The negative feedback is very important for conditioning antisocial people to behave in a civilized community, but for some reason, SF has decided to not bother with it. If we go with this, let's apply it equally. SBF should get 50 lashes in a town square and any employer stealing wages or landlord failing to maintain their property gets a beating and thrown in jail for a night. Why limit this punishment to petty crimes like pooping in the street?
- glompy 4y ago[flagged]
- cdelsolar 4y agoI worked in FiDi, I worked in SOMA, and I worked in the Western Addition for many years. I saw a lot of shit (literally), addicts shooting up on the Civic Center station steps, my coworker got punched in the arm by a homeless person on the way home. I've walked through the Tenderloin at night numerous times (some of the best food in the city). Yeah, there's some nasty stuff going on. But the comments here make it seem like SF is a lawless hellhole, a failed city. This is just not true. I never felt too unsafe, and I explored the city on foot by night constantly. Of course everyone takes a chance walking around at night in a US city. I love SF and I intend to visit again someday soon.
- telotortium 4y agoI'm guessing you're not a (biological) woman?
- Min0taur 4y agoNice qualifier about 'biological' there, was totally necessary to make your point, really. Because, you know, if you're a trans woman you totally won't get harassed in the Tenderloin. So insightful, you must have a deep understanding of both presenting as a woman and living near the Tenderloin.
- edifilol 4y agoThose burly fellows can look after themselves. We're talking about real women here, not blokes in drag.
- telotortium 4y agoI think you might get harassed as a trans woman in the Tenderloin, but the reasons would be different from the reasons you would get harassed as a cis woman.
- Gigachad 4y agoYour tolerance for danger must be very high. If I saw any of that stuff you described, I'd be considering getting out.