7 ms·

You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco. Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic

by sylens 3y ago

You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco. Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing and charging criminals. If the only risk for stealing the author's scooter will be I get briefly detained and released the next day to await my trial, what's stopping me from stealing a different scooter every night? Even if I get caught 50% of the time, I'm making money the other 50% of the nights. A lot of city residents need to come to terms with the fact that some of these progressive criminal justice reforms may need to be adjusted a bit, given that we now have years of evidence of their effects. Otherwise, you're going to drive every law abiding, tax paying citizen out of these cities.

JamesBarney 3y ago
> as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity This is a big assumption. Do you have anything that backs this up? I'd be incredibly surprised if the FED jacked up interest rates, the Federal government cut expenditures or increased taxes to curb inflation we'd see a large fall in crime.
- jakelazaroff 3y ago
  What if we built a ton of free and low-cost housing, created a public healthcare system and made it easier for struggling people to get welfare assistance for staples like food and clothing?
  - JamesBarney 3y ago
    > What if we built a ton of free and low-cost housing? Lets imagine homeless people are 3x more likely to commit a crime than the housed. Currently 1 in 800 people are homeless. If you eliminated the homelessness problem you'd end up with less than an even 1% reduction in crime. > Created a public healthcare system? Most crime is committed by young people who have very limited healthcare needs. > made it easier for struggling people to get welfare assistance for staples like food and clothing I was homeless for a while, and even among the homeless most could eat and were clothed. Such a small % of the population in the U.S. doesn't haven't enough food or clothing that making sure they did couldn't possible drive much of a reduction in crime. Those might all be nice things for a society to provide, but it isn't going to reduce the crime rate.
    - jakelazaroff 3y ago
      > Those might all be nice things for a society to provide, but it isn't going to reduce the crime rate. Sure, because this whole conversation very intentionally ignores the biggest drivers of the crime rate. Most crime is committed by people the “law and order” crowd has no interest in going after. If we really want to make a dent in the crime rate, we should tackle things like wage theft and police misconduct and civil asset forfeiture. Wait — that last one’s not actually a crime, because crime is socially constructed and we’ve decided that stealing is okay if the right people do it. The entire point of this “crime wave” project is to find ways to criminalize people we as a society don’t like.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  I'd also like to see some stats on drug abuse and how that relates to crime and homelessness. It anecdotally seems that here in Portland most problematic homeless and criminals are addicted to meth or fentanyl. I know the war on drugs was a disaster and am a great fan of Portugal's approach, but fentanyl and the new meth seem to be a new kind of problem.
bluefishinit 3y ago
> Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity Wouldn't it make more sense and be potentially more cost effective if the focus was on giving people food and other essentials so they could survive without having to steal scooters? Police and prison are super expensive. You're going to be paying for the food, lodging and industrial grade military complex vs food, lodging and maybe some green spaces and public works projects.
- forgetfulness 3y ago
  What would be stopping people from taking the aid and stealing the scooters anyway? You can only rely so much on the inherent goodness of humans. Add organized crime into the mix and you run into the problem that might makes right for plenty of people, specially if there's easy money and "respect" involved.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    What is driving people to steal the scooters if not the need to pay for food and housing?
    - alexb_ 3y ago
      Money? Plenty of people exist that lack any sort of empathy, and theft is just a risk vs reward calculation. If there's no punishment for getting caught, and reward for not getting caught, then you should always take that gamble. When you completely eliminate all social trust in a society, all empathy is lost and theft just becomes a mathematical equation of risk and reward.
      - ryandrake 3y ago
        > When you completely eliminate all social trust in a society, all empathy is lost and theft just becomes a mathematical equation of risk and reward. Almost exactly like how corporations operate. If the profit for doing XYZ is greater than the probability of getting caught times the expected penalty, you do XYZ.
DoreenMichele 3y ago
A lot of city residents need to come to terms with the fact that some of these progressive criminal justice reforms may need to be adjusted a bit, given that we now have years of evidence of their effects. And/or: We need to make affordable housing available, make a car-optional lifestyle more viable, etc. "The beatings shall continue until morale improves" isn't an effective approach to anything, especially since if the victims of such hostile policies actually rise to the occasion, they are typically not rewarded by having their lives work better. Instead, policymakers go "Oh, beatings worked! Let's do more of that!" (Hard eyeroll)
- sylens 3y ago
  Notice I am not advocating for a complete reversal of these reform-based approaches - I said they need to be adjusted a bit. It is unlikely anything is done 100% correctly on the first attempt, and we are seeing firsthand that there needs to be some further disincentive for so brazenly committing crimes of theft in these areas
  - DoreenMichele 3y ago
    Notice how I opened with "And/or".
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    It's so weird to me how Oregon, for example, tried to adopt Portugals policies on drugs, but seemingly stopped reading at "legalize" and didn't implement anything like mandatory rehab if it's found you need it.
- StephenSmith 3y ago
  The long term strategies you suggest almost certainly are the long-term answer. But that's just it, those solutions may take years. San Francisco may not last that long.
  - DoreenMichele 3y ago
    Yeah, let's put off trying to implement actual ("long-term") solutions because we are in a crisis. Then make new excuses next year for how we still can't afford to think long-term because our problems are so bad right now.
kyleblarson 3y ago
"You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco." I'm not sure about that. There were 53 shootings in Chicago last weekend alone.
- MaxfordAndSons 3y ago
  It's an apples to oranges comparison - those cities may have worse problems with violent crime, but SF's issues with property/petty crime and drug use are off the charts.
rco8786 3y ago
> You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia From what I have seen (as someone who frequents and pays attention to American cities) making this comparison is unfair to both SF and the other cities in the comparison. It's not like "crime is kinda up and SF is leading the pack", it's more like "crime is kinda up and - holy shit SF is off the charts". The problem is so much more acute in SF, and it needs to be singled out in order to get it fixed. The "Oh this is happening in all cities" is both false and also hand waves away the problem in SF specifically.
- sylens 3y ago
  That is fair - I've only seen other cities firsthand since the pandemic, not SF.
  - MaxfordAndSons 3y ago
    The Tenderloin in SF was a worst in class skid row area pre-pandemic; post-pandemic it is a full blown open air drug market zone, ala Hamsterdam from The Wire.
    - ajmurmann 3y ago
      Hamsterdam in the Wire seemed kinda organized and civil
      - MaxfordAndSons 3y ago
        Yea that's true, it's not a great comparison. I just meant in the sense that it's a de-facto open air drug market/use zone.
      - colpabar 3y ago
        I'm currently rewatching it and no it didn't - there are several scenes where the cop who started it experiences how awful it has become for the people who live near the area. The other corners improved because nobody was selling drugs on them, but hamsterdam itself was a complete shitshow. Don't you remember when bubbles was walking around at night and even he was horrified by what he saw? Also, for anyone reading this who has not seen the show - watch it. I know it's fiction but it does such a good job of showing how complex all these problems and their solutions are.
vinaypai 3y ago
I don't think the cost of living has anything to do with it. There was a huge boom in delivery services during the pandemic, and rapid transition from bicycles to far more valuable electric scooters. There's just far more opportunity for theft.
- lanstin 3y ago
  It's a lot easier to steal a scooter than a car, and yet harder to put the scooter into your apartment than a bike. I live in San Jose, not San Francisco, but I really don't notice its any less pleasant to visit the city now compared to 2008 when I moved to California. And while things do get stolen in San Jose, it feels a lot less crimey than 1990s East Coast cities that I lived in back then (I left a bike on the VTA once, and did not get it back; I've had bikes I left in my front driveway unlocked for overnight and had them stolen). Beater bikes that are locked, for example, are mostly safe. And just don't buy a multi-thousand dollar bike in a culture with rampant inequality, it is impolite. It's like making out with your partner in front of someone that's just lost the love of their life.
ajkjk 3y ago
> You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco I don't think this is true at all? Where are you getting this statistic? San Francisco (and a few other west coast cities) are the only ones in the country I've been to that feel _dramatically_ worse with each passing year.
- bagels 3y ago
  Feelings are influenced by political media coverage. Let's see data. Maybe it's true, but I'm not advocating for policy change based on how one person feels.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- not_the_fda 3y ago
  Philly is a literally a city of zombies that will stab you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl0fDm7HSQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl0fDm7HSQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y
  - chucksta 3y ago
    Kensington is hardly an example of the city, it was a mess before the pandemic. Drug epidemic is bad but that's all cherry picked, dude even said it https://youtu.be/nl0fDm7HSQ0?t=169 https://youtu.be/nl0fDm7HSQ0?t=169 "one block is clean, the next isn't"
    - sylens 3y ago
      My experience with Philadelphia since the pandemic is that its public transit is now riddled with crime and heroin users, whereas before that was not the case
    - grumple 3y ago
      As someone who lives in Olde Kensington, that means half the blocks are bad. There are drug addicts, stick up kids, and insane people wandering every block throughout most of the city. The fact that I have to walk a few blocks to see 1000 zombies pass by doesn't mean it's not a problem that affects me. Go onto any of the main thoroughfares in Philly, even in upscale center city, and you'll see lots of addicts. It is not overblown, if anything it's underplayed. Those videos don't capture the scale. It's like an entire stadium of addicts on Kensington Ave every day. And that many again wandering throughout the city and on the trains.
dogmayor 3y ago
You won't get "briefly detained and released the next day" if you're caught doing the same thing every other night. And the sentence you receive in the end will be far more severe than if you only committed the one initial offense. Penalties and fines will likely erase any money you made on other nights. And oh maybe an investigation is opened to find out who has taken all these scooters, now that 50% of the time you don't get caught in the act means little seeing that you're just getting caught after the fact. *spelling edits
- mywittyname 3y ago
  Assuming the police care -- which is unlikely unless you're important. More and more, it feels like police largely care about crimes that generate revenue for them, so drug & (select) traffic enforcement. And the odd harassing people if a venue hires them for "security" at $250/hr. Letting "real" crime go is apparently a good way to get more funding for the department. Every time I go to vote there's another measure to increase local police funding, last time it was an off-cycle vote where that was the only issue (and the voting machine I put my ballot into showed 25 votes by 7pm).
  - dogmayor 3y ago
    Agreed. PDs are rackets, and there is far too little interest paid to local government matters. But selective policing is on the police, not the prosecutors.
munificent 3y ago
> A lot of city residents need to come to terms with the fact that some of these progressive criminal justice reforms may need to be adjusted a bit, given that we now have years of evidence of their effects. Or we need progressive economic reforms to go with them. You can avoid property crime two ways: 1. Massive police power that brutally punishes anyone who does it so that the incentives are always against it. 2. Create an economic environment where acquiring sufficient resources through legitimate means is easier and more rewarding than through crime. For the past 50 years, the US has gotten worse and worse at #2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...). We could turn the country into a police state and go all in on #1. But a much better world to live in is one where we focus on fixing #2.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  A bit of #1 helps with #2. You just need enough to nudge the cost/ benefit so crime isn't perceived to pay (or if it does pay, that it isn't perceived to be worth the risk).
- jakelazaroff 3y ago
  The goal of "crime wave" rhetoric is #1. You can tell because the people pushing it ignore far costlier crimes such as wage theft that tend to be committed by people whom they don't want to punish. Heck, for the past decade or so, police themselves have stolen at least as much via civil asset forfeiture than has been taken in burglaries [1]. Yet the "law and order" solution is to hand them more power. [1] 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...
PaulHoule 3y ago
It's rare that cops anywhere are motivated to track down stolen skis, bicycles and similar objects. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-wee%27s_Big_Adventure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-wee%27s_Big_Adventure
pbiggar 3y ago
You're making the mistake that everyone does, which is confusing progressive policies with being lax on crime. The former "progressive" DA actually pushed pretty hard on organized crime like this - and you won't find any progressives pushing against prosecution of organized criminals. What you will find is that progressives are pushing against harming (including by jailing) people for being poor - which is what DA Jenkins and the mayor Breed are doing. You'll notice for example that Jenkins won't prosecute the daylight murder of Banko Brown, because Brown was homeless.
grrrate 3y ago
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whiddershins 3y ago
There is no evidence that economic conditions are driving criminal activity. It may be the case. But it could have other casual factors such as the change in policing or any of a number of other factors. Poverty and violent/property crime do correlate. But the arrow of causation between them, or whether they can be both products of some other factor, is not clear and heavily debated.
woodruffw 3y ago
> This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing and charging criminals. In case it needs to be said: the alternative to releasing people before their trial is indefinite detention (indefinite because the courts cannot guarantee that the trial begins immediately after arrest). A free society doesn't lock people up indefinitely without trial, even if all evidence points to them being a petty thief. To a first approximation, people (especially indigent people) don't steal things for "kicks." Eliminate the cause of the stealing, and you eliminate the crime. Fail to eliminate the cause, and you the worst of both worlds: crime and indefinite detention.
readthenotes1 3y ago
Would I see this in cities outside of the United States? Everywhere is not just Memphis Baltimore and Chicago....
darth_avocado 3y ago
> Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This I would say is an outreach. Sure some petty theft is related to high cost of living, but a lot of crime in San Francisco is less driven by necessity and more by opportunity. Organized crime is leveraging liberal policies to make money with no consequences. And outside of organized crime, there are just some very twisted individuals who commit crime repeatedly for no reason. 1. Kids arrested for 35 robberies: https://abc7news.com/amp/oakland-robberies-children-arrested-police-robbery/13290328/ https://abc7news.com/amp/oakland-robberies-children-arrested... 2. Organized retail theft targeting Apple: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/02/09/eight-charged-with-felonies-for-role-in-organized-retail-theft-ring-that-targeted-apple-stores-in-bay-area/amp/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/02/09/eight-charged-with-f... 3. Statewide retail theft ring: https://abc7news.com/amp/organized-retail-theft-california-ring-busted-macys/11682062/ https://abc7news.com/amp/organized-retail-theft-california-r... 4. Multi state retail theft ring: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/02/09/california-takes-down-coordinated-multi-state-retail-theft-crime-ring/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/02/09/california-takes-down-coor... 5. Another retail theft ring: https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Bay-Area-retail-theft-bust-nets-8-million-in-16673449.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Bay-Area-retail-th... 6. Car theft rings: https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/01/26/inside-a-multi-million-dollar-car-theft-ring-newark-nortenos-allegedly-traversed-the-bay-area-seeking-dodges-and-jeeps-to-steal/amp/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/01/26/inside-a-multi-millio... 7. Organized crime for luxury item thefts: https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/organized-crime-rings-are-behind-spate-of-high-end-store-robberies-in-bay-area-experts-say-01637629485 https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/organized-crime-rings-... There’s many more but you get the idea.
UncleOxidant 3y ago
Definitely have been seeing this in Portland for a while now. The interesting effect is that it seems to be moving people who were quite progressive in the "time to get tough on crime" direction, ie. to the right. That's natural, I suppose, what I find interesting is the effect it's starting to have on local politics. I think we could see some rather large swings to the right at least in terms of policing and getting a DA that's going to actually prosecute people who commit property crimes. Portland was the poster-child for giving people 2nd and 3rd chances and "We just need to empathize with their situation." Well, people are done with empathizing with other people essentially camping in their front yard, using drugs, and stealing everything that isn't nailed down.

by sylens 3y ago

JamesBarney 3y ago

> as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity This is a big assumption. Do you have anything that backs this up? I'd be incredibly surprised if the FED jacked up interest rates, the Federal government cut expenditures or increased taxes to curb inflation we'd see a large fall in crime.

jakelazaroff 3y ago
What if we built a ton of free and low-cost housing, created a public healthcare system and made it easier for struggling people to get welfare assistance for staples like food and clothing?
- JamesBarney 3y ago
  > What if we built a ton of free and low-cost housing? Lets imagine homeless people are 3x more likely to commit a crime than the housed. Currently 1 in 800 people are homeless. If you eliminated the homelessness problem you'd end up with less than an even 1% reduction in crime. > Created a public healthcare system? Most crime is committed by young people who have very limited healthcare needs. > made it easier for struggling people to get welfare assistance for staples like food and clothing I was homeless for a while, and even among the homeless most could eat and were clothed. Such a small % of the population in the U.S. doesn't haven't enough food or clothing that making sure they did couldn't possible drive much of a reduction in crime. Those might all be nice things for a society to provide, but it isn't going to reduce the crime rate.
  - jakelazaroff 3y ago
    > Those might all be nice things for a society to provide, but it isn't going to reduce the crime rate. Sure, because this whole conversation very intentionally ignores the biggest drivers of the crime rate. Most crime is committed by people the “law and order” crowd has no interest in going after. If we really want to make a dent in the crime rate, we should tackle things like wage theft and police misconduct and civil asset forfeiture. Wait — that last one’s not actually a crime, because crime is socially constructed and we’ve decided that stealing is okay if the right people do it. The entire point of this “crime wave” project is to find ways to criminalize people we as a society don’t like.
ajmurmann 3y ago
I'd also like to see some stats on drug abuse and how that relates to crime and homelessness. It anecdotally seems that here in Portland most problematic homeless and criminals are addicted to meth or fentanyl. I know the war on drugs was a disaster and am a great fan of Portugal's approach, but fentanyl and the new meth seem to be a new kind of problem.

bluefishinit 3y ago

> Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity Wouldn't it make more sense and be potentially more cost effective if the focus was on giving people food and other essentials so they could survive without having to steal scooters? Police and prison are super expensive. You're going to be paying for the food, lodging and industrial grade military complex vs food, lodging and maybe some green spaces and public works projects.

forgetfulness 3y ago
What would be stopping people from taking the aid and stealing the scooters anyway? You can only rely so much on the inherent goodness of humans. Add organized crime into the mix and you run into the problem that might makes right for plenty of people, specially if there's easy money and "respect" involved.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  What is driving people to steal the scooters if not the need to pay for food and housing?
  - alexb_ 3y ago
    Money? Plenty of people exist that lack any sort of empathy, and theft is just a risk vs reward calculation. If there's no punishment for getting caught, and reward for not getting caught, then you should always take that gamble. When you completely eliminate all social trust in a society, all empathy is lost and theft just becomes a mathematical equation of risk and reward.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      > When you completely eliminate all social trust in a society, all empathy is lost and theft just becomes a mathematical equation of risk and reward. Almost exactly like how corporations operate. If the profit for doing XYZ is greater than the probability of getting caught times the expected penalty, you do XYZ.

DoreenMichele 3y ago

A lot of city residents need to come to terms with the fact that some of these progressive criminal justice reforms may need to be adjusted a bit, given that we now have years of evidence of their effects. And/or: We need to make affordable housing available, make a car-optional lifestyle more viable, etc. "The beatings shall continue until morale improves" isn't an effective approach to anything, especially since if the victims of such hostile policies actually rise to the occasion, they are typically not rewarded by having their lives work better. Instead, policymakers go "Oh, beatings worked! Let's do more of that!" (Hard eyeroll)

sylens 3y ago
Notice I am not advocating for a complete reversal of these reform-based approaches - I said they need to be adjusted a bit. It is unlikely anything is done 100% correctly on the first attempt, and we are seeing firsthand that there needs to be some further disincentive for so brazenly committing crimes of theft in these areas
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  Notice how I opened with "And/or".
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  It's so weird to me how Oregon, for example, tried to adopt Portugals policies on drugs, but seemingly stopped reading at "legalize" and didn't implement anything like mandatory rehab if it's found you need it.
StephenSmith 3y ago
The long term strategies you suggest almost certainly are the long-term answer. But that's just it, those solutions may take years. San Francisco may not last that long.
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  Yeah, let's put off trying to implement actual ("long-term") solutions because we are in a crisis. Then make new excuses next year for how we still can't afford to think long-term because our problems are so bad right now.

kyleblarson 3y ago

"You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco." I'm not sure about that. There were 53 shootings in Chicago last weekend alone.

MaxfordAndSons 3y ago
It's an apples to oranges comparison - those cities may have worse problems with violent crime, but SF's issues with property/petty crime and drug use are off the charts.

rco8786 3y ago

> You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia From what I have seen (as someone who frequents and pays attention to American cities) making this comparison is unfair to both SF and the other cities in the comparison. It's not like "crime is kinda up and SF is leading the pack", it's more like "crime is kinda up and - holy shit SF is off the charts". The problem is so much more acute in SF, and it needs to be singled out in order to get it fixed. The "Oh this is happening in all cities" is both false and also hand waves away the problem in SF specifically.

sylens 3y ago
That is fair - I've only seen other cities firsthand since the pandemic, not SF.
- MaxfordAndSons 3y ago
  The Tenderloin in SF was a worst in class skid row area pre-pandemic; post-pandemic it is a full blown open air drug market zone, ala Hamsterdam from The Wire.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    Hamsterdam in the Wire seemed kinda organized and civil
    - MaxfordAndSons 3y ago
      Yea that's true, it's not a great comparison. I just meant in the sense that it's a de-facto open air drug market/use zone.
    - colpabar 3y ago
      I'm currently rewatching it and no it didn't - there are several scenes where the cop who started it experiences how awful it has become for the people who live near the area. The other corners improved because nobody was selling drugs on them, but hamsterdam itself was a complete shitshow. Don't you remember when bubbles was walking around at night and even he was horrified by what he saw? Also, for anyone reading this who has not seen the show - watch it. I know it's fiction but it does such a good job of showing how complex all these problems and their solutions are.

vinaypai 3y ago

I don't think the cost of living has anything to do with it. There was a huge boom in delivery services during the pandemic, and rapid transition from bicycles to far more valuable electric scooters. There's just far more opportunity for theft.

lanstin 3y ago
It's a lot easier to steal a scooter than a car, and yet harder to put the scooter into your apartment than a bike. I live in San Jose, not San Francisco, but I really don't notice its any less pleasant to visit the city now compared to 2008 when I moved to California. And while things do get stolen in San Jose, it feels a lot less crimey than 1990s East Coast cities that I lived in back then (I left a bike on the VTA once, and did not get it back; I've had bikes I left in my front driveway unlocked for overnight and had them stolen). Beater bikes that are locked, for example, are mostly safe. And just don't buy a multi-thousand dollar bike in a culture with rampant inequality, it is impolite. It's like making out with your partner in front of someone that's just lost the love of their life.

ajkjk 3y ago

> You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco I don't think this is true at all? Where are you getting this statistic? San Francisco (and a few other west coast cities) are the only ones in the country I've been to that feel _dramatically_ worse with each passing year.

bagels 3y ago
Feelings are influenced by political media coverage. Let's see data. Maybe it's true, but I'm not advocating for policy change based on how one person feels.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
not_the_fda 3y ago
Philly is a literally a city of zombies that will stab you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl0fDm7HSQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl0fDm7HSQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y
- chucksta 3y ago
  Kensington is hardly an example of the city, it was a mess before the pandemic. Drug epidemic is bad but that's all cherry picked, dude even said it https://youtu.be/nl0fDm7HSQ0?t=169 https://youtu.be/nl0fDm7HSQ0?t=169 "one block is clean, the next isn't"
  - sylens 3y ago
    My experience with Philadelphia since the pandemic is that its public transit is now riddled with crime and heroin users, whereas before that was not the case
  - grumple 3y ago
    As someone who lives in Olde Kensington, that means half the blocks are bad. There are drug addicts, stick up kids, and insane people wandering every block throughout most of the city. The fact that I have to walk a few blocks to see 1000 zombies pass by doesn't mean it's not a problem that affects me. Go onto any of the main thoroughfares in Philly, even in upscale center city, and you'll see lots of addicts. It is not overblown, if anything it's underplayed. Those videos don't capture the scale. It's like an entire stadium of addicts on Kensington Ave every day. And that many again wandering throughout the city and on the trains.

dogmayor 3y ago

You won't get "briefly detained and released the next day" if you're caught doing the same thing every other night. And the sentence you receive in the end will be far more severe than if you only committed the one initial offense. Penalties and fines will likely erase any money you made on other nights. And oh maybe an investigation is opened to find out who has taken all these scooters, now that 50% of the time you don't get caught in the act means little seeing that you're just getting caught after the fact. *spelling edits

mywittyname 3y ago
Assuming the police care -- which is unlikely unless you're important. More and more, it feels like police largely care about crimes that generate revenue for them, so drug & (select) traffic enforcement. And the odd harassing people if a venue hires them for "security" at $250/hr. Letting "real" crime go is apparently a good way to get more funding for the department. Every time I go to vote there's another measure to increase local police funding, last time it was an off-cycle vote where that was the only issue (and the voting machine I put my ballot into showed 25 votes by 7pm).
- dogmayor 3y ago
  Agreed. PDs are rackets, and there is far too little interest paid to local government matters. But selective policing is on the police, not the prosecutors.

munificent 3y ago

> A lot of city residents need to come to terms with the fact that some of these progressive criminal justice reforms may need to be adjusted a bit, given that we now have years of evidence of their effects. Or we need progressive economic reforms to go with them. You can avoid property crime two ways: 1. Massive police power that brutally punishes anyone who does it so that the incentives are always against it. 2. Create an economic environment where acquiring sufficient resources through legitimate means is easier and more rewarding than through crime. For the past 50 years, the US has gotten worse and worse at #2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...). We could turn the country into a police state and go all in on #1. But a much better world to live in is one where we focus on fixing #2.

HPsquared 3y ago
A bit of #1 helps with #2. You just need enough to nudge the cost/ benefit so crime isn't perceived to pay (or if it does pay, that it isn't perceived to be worth the risk).
jakelazaroff 3y ago
The goal of "crime wave" rhetoric is #1. You can tell because the people pushing it ignore far costlier crimes such as wage theft that tend to be committed by people whom they don't want to punish. Heck, for the past decade or so, police themselves have stolen at least as much via civil asset forfeiture than has been taken in burglaries [1]. Yet the "law and order" solution is to hand them more power. [1] 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...

PaulHoule 3y ago

It's rare that cops anywhere are motivated to track down stolen skis, bicycles and similar objects. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-wee%27s_Big_Adventure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-wee%27s_Big_Adventure

pbiggar 3y ago

You're making the mistake that everyone does, which is confusing progressive policies with being lax on crime. The former "progressive" DA actually pushed pretty hard on organized crime like this - and you won't find any progressives pushing against prosecution of organized criminals. What you will find is that progressives are pushing against harming (including by jailing) people for being poor - which is what DA Jenkins and the mayor Breed are doing. You'll notice for example that Jenkins won't prosecute the daylight murder of Banko Brown, because Brown was homeless.

grrrate 3y ago

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whiddershins 3y ago

There is no evidence that economic conditions are driving criminal activity. It may be the case. But it could have other casual factors such as the change in policing or any of a number of other factors. Poverty and violent/property crime do correlate. But the arrow of causation between them, or whether they can be both products of some other factor, is not clear and heavily debated.

woodruffw 3y ago

> This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing and charging criminals. In case it needs to be said: the alternative to releasing people before their trial is indefinite detention (indefinite because the courts cannot guarantee that the trial begins immediately after arrest). A free society doesn't lock people up indefinitely without trial, even if all evidence points to them being a petty thief. To a first approximation, people (especially indigent people) don't steal things for "kicks." Eliminate the cause of the stealing, and you eliminate the crime. Fail to eliminate the cause, and you the worst of both worlds: crime and indefinite detention.

readthenotes1 3y ago

Would I see this in cities outside of the United States? Everywhere is not just Memphis Baltimore and Chicago....

darth_avocado 3y ago

> Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This I would say is an outreach. Sure some petty theft is related to high cost of living, but a lot of crime in San Francisco is less driven by necessity and more by opportunity. Organized crime is leveraging liberal policies to make money with no consequences. And outside of organized crime, there are just some very twisted individuals who commit crime repeatedly for no reason. 1. Kids arrested for 35 robberies: https://abc7news.com/amp/oakland-robberies-children-arrested-police-robbery/13290328/ https://abc7news.com/amp/oakland-robberies-children-arrested... 2. Organized retail theft targeting Apple: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/02/09/eight-charged-with-felonies-for-role-in-organized-retail-theft-ring-that-targeted-apple-stores-in-bay-area/amp/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/02/09/eight-charged-with-f... 3. Statewide retail theft ring: https://abc7news.com/amp/organized-retail-theft-california-ring-busted-macys/11682062/ https://abc7news.com/amp/organized-retail-theft-california-r... 4. Multi state retail theft ring: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/02/09/california-takes-down-coordinated-multi-state-retail-theft-crime-ring/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/02/09/california-takes-down-coor... 5. Another retail theft ring: https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Bay-Area-retail-theft-bust-nets-8-million-in-16673449.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Bay-Area-retail-th... 6. Car theft rings: https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/01/26/inside-a-multi-million-dollar-car-theft-ring-newark-nortenos-allegedly-traversed-the-bay-area-seeking-dodges-and-jeeps-to-steal/amp/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/01/26/inside-a-multi-millio... 7. Organized crime for luxury item thefts: https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/organized-crime-rings-are-behind-spate-of-high-end-store-robberies-in-bay-area-experts-say-01637629485 https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/organized-crime-rings-... There’s many more but you get the idea.

UncleOxidant 3y ago

Definitely have been seeing this in Portland for a while now. The interesting effect is that it seems to be moving people who were quite progressive in the "time to get tough on crime" direction, ie. to the right. That's natural, I suppose, what I find interesting is the effect it's starting to have on local politics. I think we could see some rather large swings to the right at least in terms of policing and getting a DA that's going to actually prosecute people who commit property crimes. Portland was the poster-child for giving people 2nd and 3rd chances and "We just need to empathize with their situation." Well, people are done with empathizing with other people essentially camping in their front yard, using drugs, and stealing everything that isn't nailed down.