5 ms·

It’s really simple and I don’t understand why progressives can’t grasp this. You need to snuff out crime. There’s a reasonable way to do it without swinging acr

It’s really simple and I don’t understand why progressives can’t grasp this. You need to snuff out crime. There’s a reasonable way to do it without swinging across to either extreme. If the police force won’t cooperate, clean house and hire again. It’s a relatively low skilled job that is easy to hire for. Get the homeless off the street, snuff out petty crime or you’re basically dooming the progressive mandate as something unworkable.

ketzo 4y ago
“Police are easy to hire” Then why is the PD of every single major American city dramatically understaffed?
- diebeforei485 4y ago
  Because cities have had high increases in living costs and haven't increased police salaries to match, making suburban and rural policing jobs more attractive.
  - femiagbabiaka 4y ago
    This problem has been getting solved with overtime pay for more than a decade. Sergeants in notoriously corrupt and terrible Oakland PD make upwards of 500k/yr.
    - diebeforei485 4y ago
      Overtime pay is not a solution, because the overtime is largely going to protect specific stores like Apple Stores and not patrolling the streets.
      - femiagbabiaka 4y ago
        I agree. Why would you think that anything different would happen if base pay was increased?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jutrewag 4y ago
  The police union plays a large role. They reject candidates that don’t toe the line and heavily favor nepotistic hires. It’s the only union that needs to be busted.
  - leoqa 4y ago
    What agencies have you applied for? I’m in process with 4 right now and none have asked me for my personal beliefs. All my interviews focused on deescalation, using appropriate force etc.
pr0zac 4y ago
I lean rather leftist in how I think about addressing social issues so we may have differing opinions on correct solutions, but your general assessment on the city's problems and its root issue being a lack of strong conviction and follow through is spot on. I agree the SFPD’s lack of cooperation and inaction is a central issue that needs addressing by cleaning house and rebuilding. The leftist proposal (often shorthanded to “abolish the police”) would say wipe away the current structure that answers to no one built for antagonism and punishment and replace it with a service bound to strong community oversight tasked with protection, aid, and rehabilitation. That idea may be the literal scientifically perfect solution to crime or an impossibly impractical utopian fantasy but we’ll never know from SF’s vague motions. Appointing Boudin DA so he could reduce charges and lessen punishments without making corresponding changes in the police force to focus on community outreach and aid services was never a real attempt that could be judged, and was hamstrung from the beginning in a way that could only result in failure. But even if you think real try at that proposal would never work and the correct solution for addressing crime in SF is something very different the same type of failure is guaranteed if the city doesn’t address the point you made. If the police refuse to act in accordance with the wishes of the community and aren’t replaced with people who will the city will never have a cohesively focused law enforcement strategy that any approach requires to have a chance at succeeded. The homelessness issue is the exact same thing with SF continuing to be afraid to commit to anything more than half measures regardless of costs. The city has a homeless population of around 8-10 thousand and spends around $1.1b a year on services. Over $100k per person, a bit more than the average income in the city, how does that make any sense? Providing every homeless person an apartment, free food, healthcare, drug rehabilitation, and job search services would very likely cost less and actually solve the issue. Like yes that's a massive simplification and not actually workable in the current world, especially without the rest of the country providing similar services, but it approximates an actual plan with singular direction and the numbers involved highlight demonstrate the problem. San Francisco really wants to be seen as progressive on homelessness so it keeps throwing large amounts of money at one-off half-baked projects like $5k a month per person on tent spaces in parking lots to prevent COVID spread in the homeless or $70k a year to fund new beds in shelters the homeless can only sleep in at night or $1.7m to build a single public toilet. At the same time it really wants it to seem like its listening to its tax payers and taking action with visible effect so it also tosses however many millions on encampment sweeps, building hostile architecture, and having law enforcement harass or temporarily arrest the homeless all of which just results in the homeless moving somewhere else a few blocks away. So it ends up wasting this extraordinary amount of money and effort doing a whole bunch of nothing instead of you know, actually getting the homeless off the street. Because that would require establishing a goal with measurable criteria, forming a comprehensive plan to accomplish it, and working as a cohesive public body to make it happen. I really rambling here but I feel like pretty much every single issue in San Francisco stems from this same problem. The city and its government is terrified of doing anything that requires the integrity to build a concrete project that it could be judged by, in whichever political direction, and so it keeps creating a giant mismatch of conflicting partial measures it can parade around as progress to counter criticism and avoid quantifiable failure while never actually making any forward movement. See everything with the schools or the cost of living or public transit or other infrastructure or a million other things for even more examples of this. As long as SF continues to half-ass everything and avoid commitment nothing is going to change.
fundad 4y ago
They recalled the DA 10 months ago and the new, tough-on-crime DA failed us here.

ketzo 4y ago

“Police are easy to hire” Then why is the PD of every single major American city dramatically understaffed?

diebeforei485 4y ago
Because cities have had high increases in living costs and haven't increased police salaries to match, making suburban and rural policing jobs more attractive.
- femiagbabiaka 4y ago
  This problem has been getting solved with overtime pay for more than a decade. Sergeants in notoriously corrupt and terrible Oakland PD make upwards of 500k/yr.
  - diebeforei485 4y ago
    Overtime pay is not a solution, because the overtime is largely going to protect specific stores like Apple Stores and not patrolling the streets.
    - femiagbabiaka 4y ago
      I agree. Why would you think that anything different would happen if base pay was increased?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jutrewag 4y ago
The police union plays a large role. They reject candidates that don’t toe the line and heavily favor nepotistic hires. It’s the only union that needs to be busted.
- leoqa 4y ago
  What agencies have you applied for? I’m in process with 4 right now and none have asked me for my personal beliefs. All my interviews focused on deescalation, using appropriate force etc.

pr0zac 4y ago

I lean rather leftist in how I think about addressing social issues so we may have differing opinions on correct solutions, but your general assessment on the city's problems and its root issue being a lack of strong conviction and follow through is spot on. I agree the SFPD’s lack of cooperation and inaction is a central issue that needs addressing by cleaning house and rebuilding. The leftist proposal (often shorthanded to “abolish the police”) would say wipe away the current structure that answers to no one built for antagonism and punishment and replace it with a service bound to strong community oversight tasked with protection, aid, and rehabilitation. That idea may be the literal scientifically perfect solution to crime or an impossibly impractical utopian fantasy but we’ll never know from SF’s vague motions. Appointing Boudin DA so he could reduce charges and lessen punishments without making corresponding changes in the police force to focus on community outreach and aid services was never a real attempt that could be judged, and was hamstrung from the beginning in a way that could only result in failure. But even if you think real try at that proposal would never work and the correct solution for addressing crime in SF is something very different the same type of failure is guaranteed if the city doesn’t address the point you made. If the police refuse to act in accordance with the wishes of the community and aren’t replaced with people who will the city will never have a cohesively focused law enforcement strategy that any approach requires to have a chance at succeeded. The homelessness issue is the exact same thing with SF continuing to be afraid to commit to anything more than half measures regardless of costs. The city has a homeless population of around 8-10 thousand and spends around $1.1b a year on services. Over $100k per person, a bit more than the average income in the city, how does that make any sense? Providing every homeless person an apartment, free food, healthcare, drug rehabilitation, and job search services would very likely cost less and actually solve the issue. Like yes that's a massive simplification and not actually workable in the current world, especially without the rest of the country providing similar services, but it approximates an actual plan with singular direction and the numbers involved highlight demonstrate the problem. San Francisco really wants to be seen as progressive on homelessness so it keeps throwing large amounts of money at one-off half-baked projects like $5k a month per person on tent spaces in parking lots to prevent COVID spread in the homeless or $70k a year to fund new beds in shelters the homeless can only sleep in at night or $1.7m to build a single public toilet. At the same time it really wants it to seem like its listening to its tax payers and taking action with visible effect so it also tosses however many millions on encampment sweeps, building hostile architecture, and having law enforcement harass or temporarily arrest the homeless all of which just results in the homeless moving somewhere else a few blocks away. So it ends up wasting this extraordinary amount of money and effort doing a whole bunch of nothing instead of you know, actually getting the homeless off the street. Because that would require establishing a goal with measurable criteria, forming a comprehensive plan to accomplish it, and working as a cohesive public body to make it happen. I really rambling here but I feel like pretty much every single issue in San Francisco stems from this same problem. The city and its government is terrified of doing anything that requires the integrity to build a concrete project that it could be judged by, in whichever political direction, and so it keeps creating a giant mismatch of conflicting partial measures it can parade around as progress to counter criticism and avoid quantifiable failure while never actually making any forward movement. See everything with the schools or the cost of living or public transit or other infrastructure or a million other things for even more examples of this. As long as SF continues to half-ass everything and avoid commitment nothing is going to change.

fundad 4y ago

They recalled the DA 10 months ago and the new, tough-on-crime DA failed us here.