> And they told the supervisors that Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that reclassified nonviolent thefts as misdemeanors if the stolen goods are worth less than $950, had emboldened thieves.
And that's really it. We've put to the people in ballot initiative after initiative to reduce crimes and penalties for 'nonviolent crimes', which people will happily vote with good conscious for because of the word non-violent.
But nonviolent to whom? We're forgetting that they're still crimes, that they add up and degrade quality of life, and can violently ruin lives without striking a blow. Whoever worked in these Walgreen stores now need to find a new job, and had they been small businesses, closing up shop could ruin their entire career. I had someone come into my garage in the middle of the night in December, who woke me up and I confronted him. He ran away, so it was technically a nonviolent crime, yet I couldn't sleep for weeks and haven't felt fully safe in my home ever sense. The psychological damage is done.
We have a tendency to focus on the criminals with open arms trying to reintegrate and not overly punish people, and completely lose track of the victims. And when there's no credible consequences for bad actions, criminals become emboldened.
The problem is that there's no real evidence that being tough on crime is a very effective way of solving the problem.
You look at jurisdictions that are "soft" on crime - Scandinavia, New Zealand etc. and invariably all of them have figured out non-punitive methods of crime reduction that are far more effective than jail. This is reflected in crime statistics.
(and before you mention Singapore, it's worth pointing out that they have many, many policies in place to alleviate poverty and social unrest - government housing, world class education, a strong economy, national service etc. in addition to their strict laws. I'm not arguing that the laws do nothing, but you can't just beat an uneducated, poor, fatherless person with a stick and expect them to be a productive member of society.)
You're making so many assumptions. First, that crime rate is linked to policy. Further, it's bizarre to me that you think comparing San Francisco to Scandinavia makes sense but comparing past San Francisco to present San Francisco doesn't. Neither experiment is particularly good but the latter is better.
Leaving that aside for a moment, if there was "evidence" that not punishing murderers was the "best thing for society" (in terms of rehabilitation, crime rate, etc) would you support that policy?
For most people, a society that doesn't punish criminals is simply uncivilized. I tend to agree.
Except in SF there's no "non-punitive methods of crime reduction". They just declared that it's OK to rob grocery stores or pharmacies, as long as you take less than a grand. At least that's what it looks on the ground - whatever the initial design was, both the criminals know they can steal with impunity, and the cops know it's no longer their business to catch the thieves. And so the thievery thrives, and the stores are collapsing under this assault. We may talk about Scandinavia all day but I don't think that's what is happening there. Whatever nice theory they had about it when proposing it, it is clear from the result that it is a complete failure if reducing crime were any of their goals.
I come from Norway in Scandinavia and I think you are confusing helping people rehabilitate with being soft on crime.
Norway is actually tough on shoplifting. It is not tolerated, and its mitigated by arrest and the police spend resources tracking down sales on online platforms etc. The government also track down the source of money/income that look suspicious, and have the means to do so due to widespread government oversight of all aspects of society.
Police will actually help shops or shopping centers remove non-rehabilitated people that have committed thefts in the past.
I suspect a bit of causation-correlation mixup whenever this topic comes up. I have the feeling that the reason why they don't need much punitive measures is because they have so many social safety nets that erase the need to commit crimes in the first place or help people get back in to society after committing a crime. If anyone has any data about whether this is indeed the case or not, I'd love to read about it.
Is there any evidence that being soft on crime has been effective at reducing crime or improving quality of life in San Francisco?
Our DAs promised “restorative justice” but in practice criminals get caught in released without consequences or rehabilitation. Is there evidence that this approach hasn’t emboldened organized criminals and contributed to the rise in property crime in recent years?
> The problem is that there's no real evidence that being tough on crime is a very effective way of solving the problem.
But this article was just arguing against your point. The crime enforcement laws were relaxed and the crime rose. It is obvious that allowing law enforcers to enforce the law reduces crime. Some people in SF are losing their jobs when the stores close you know? These crimes are not victimless.
There’s been a noticeable decline in rule of law and quality of life since prop 47 and prop 57 passed. I disagree. Many of these people are prolific criminals but there is no cash bail either so they are arrested, released, and then not put on trial for 6-9 months all the while committing more crimes and for the most part the DAs don’t even bother to prosecute.
> You look at jurisdictions that are "soft" on crime - Scandinavia, New Zealand etc. and invariably all of them have figured out non-punitive methods of crime reduction that are far more effective than jail.
You're assuming what works for X works for Y as well, without accounting for an insanely large difference between the culture in the United States and those countries. People are very different here, the education level, the moralities of the society, the concept of "I, me and myself first", the economic conditions, the violence, the mental health issues and many more things.
There is a reason why despite having liberal gun laws in Switzerland, there are way less mass shootings than the United States. But what works there won't work here.
For that matter, UAE is doing equally well and have low crime rates with a policy that’s completely opposite of Scandinavia. UAE has one of the lowest crime rates in the world.
What's interesting is we have a sort of 'natural experiment' in the US, where a significant fraction of the population in Minnesota, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and the Dakotas, are descended from Scandinavians.
They have a very low crime rate, several times lower than the white average. There was a study on this, and Swedish-Americans and Norwegian-Americans commit crime at about the same rate as Swedes and Norwegians, which is to say, not often.
> invariably all of them have figured out non-punitive methods of crime reduction that are far more effective than jail
Well.. large segments of our populations commit very little crime. But when crime is committed, the police and the justice system are useless. Convicted for the 350th burglary? They'll be let out again and maybe be back tomorrow, if the prosecutor even bothers prosecuting them since it's pointless.
So DO look at us for crime prevention but NOT for managing crime when it happens.
It's insane. I had my car broken into, fortunately I don't keep anything in it, so nothing was stolen, but when I called the cops, the basic response was initially along the lines of "Dude why are you even calling?" and when I persisted on filing an incident report, they begrudgingly filed it, but kept dropping hints that this is never even going to get looked at. I mean we have like 5 nest cams around the neighborhood, and plenty of shops also have cameras around, but I doubt they'll even try.
It takes way more investment to do what you're asking. Collecting the video, getting a warrant, tracking down the person, sending a team to arrest them, etc. How much does that all cost the city? Average cop makes over $50/hr in San Francisco. So it probably costs more than the loss typically?[1]
The problem in SF is that we've disbanded the team that tries to catch people in the act[2]. IIUC, it's both because there weren't enough resources and the DA won't prosecute anyway, so what's the point.
{personal Experience}
As a kid in California, we had constant break ins and other such vandalism. I was assaulted several times. 45 minutes for county sheriffs to arrive, as we had no police department. In a major urban center.
Sherif finally told my dad.
“Nothing we can do, buy a gun, just make the body look like it wasn’t running away and police won’t make an issue of it”.
This horrified us on many levels.
We moved to a safe neighborhood. Later on we realized we had a bunch of gun nuts on street.
One of which loved to shoot blanks at trouble makers.
This disturbed me, and left me deeply questioning many things about guns.
As an adult I moved out of state to raise my family near the the pro gun people. Never once had an issue.
Don’t like to touch guns personally. Yet happy to be where criminals fear to tread.
> The hearing did not answer a crucial question: Why San Francisco? If the problem stems in part from a change in California law, why aren’t other cities in the state seeing similar spikes in shoplifting?
>Why San Francisco? If the problem stems in part from a change in California law, why aren’t other cities in the state seeing similar spikes in shoplifting?
Does Los Angeles count? Last I checked six months ago with LAPD Pacific Division most forms of crime were up, significantly. That was just listening to them take questions at the Venice Neighborhood Council meeting and looking at their reported crime stats documents. Solution: I moved out of LA.
Problem is, most of these types of petty crimes aren't reported because LAPD can't do anything. Plus, it's below the insurance deductible for most retailers. I speak from experience as a former retailer in LA (Culver City) on a major street, Sepulveda Blvd, for twelve years managing my own decent sized store.
I had tens of thousands stolen year after year. Even with video, I couldn't do anything. It's exceptionally difficult to catch and recover the money, so what's the point in trying, or even reporting it? It's a complete waste of time. I did my best with prevention, but even reveiwing videos to figure out what's happening takes a long time... And you need to know it's gone in the first place!
When you have $500k to $1mm in inventory, which really isn't much, and tons of product coming and going every day, how are you to keep up? Even with cycle counts, we were always behind the thefts.
I finally sold the shop in 2016 after a series of heart breaking thefts by employees, customers, and an electrician. Sure you can say it's my fault for not having a better system, and you're probably right. Still it takes honest employees and honest customers for it to work.
Prop 47 seems self fulfilling: Expand misdemeanors to cover twice as much product, so then less crimes are reported by the community, finally claim crime is down!
If technicalities were equivalent to reality this would be great policy, but it's different on the ground than what most people see from a report on their computer.
The article itself disagrees with this assessment of cause and effect:
> The hearing did not answer a crucial question: Why San Francisco? If the problem stems in part from a change in California law, why aren’t other cities in the state seeing similar spikes in shoplifting?
Whenever we read about people antagonizing masks or vaccines and their usual political alignments let's remember this, because it's fundamentally the same thing
It's a "feel good" position, it's a "I'm in your tribe" position even if it makes no actual sense in reality (and both sides are not lacking in crap arguments to support those)
No, you missed the most important part. Before they stopped pursuing the theives they already were the target of organized crime. Their security guards were regularly assaulted.
The problem started long before the change in policy.
I don't think "we" (the people?) are forgetting they are still crimes. They are, and are supposed to be still prosecuted as the minor crimes they are.
The problem is that police and DAs have taken the position that if they can't go for bigger charges (which is what DAs like to put on their resume) then they won't pay any attention at all. That's the root cause of these lesser crimes being completely ignored.
> The retail executives and police officers emphasized the role of organized crime in the thefts. And they told the supervisors that Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that reclassified nonviolent thefts as misdemeanors if the stolen goods are worth less than $950, had emboldened thieves.
You are quoting the police and business owners, who are very much a biased source. How do they know what the causes are? Do you think they've commissioned a survey or done research? It's just as possible they were against Proposition 47 to begin with and the NYT is supporting their agenda for their own reasons.
You must have missed the 8 million dollars in stolen merchandise they recently recovered from a retail theft ring here. You don't need a multi-year study to figure out that this shit is getting out of control.
I feel if we had Godzilla invading the city and start ripping people apart there would be still people questioning "hey is it even Godzilla doing that? I'm not convinced by the evidence"
I'm planning to move to SF for a job. A friend told me to sign up for a neighborhood facebook group to one of the nicer neighborhoods in SF, Cole Valley, because I might see a message about a good place to rent. Cole Valley is a small neighborhood on the south east corner of Golden Gate Park.
In the 3 weeks I've been on the list 5 cars have had their windows busted and things stolen, 2 garages have been broken into and things stolen. 2 garages have had their doors damaged from attempted break-ins costing the owners hundreds to get fixed. There's been videos of people staking out places to rob (people walking from house to house inspecting garage door locks and trying to peak inside the garages). And ~10 or so posts about various other thefts or results of thefts.
This sounds more like one of those lawless 3rd world countries than a major city in a first world country. And worse, many people on the list just react as "that's life in a big city", no big deal.
It's not, having lived in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Singapore were property crime is extremely low. People get defensive whenever I bring this up, making excuses why crime needs to be high where they live. It doesn't.
Screw anecdata. Here are some statistics/resources.
SF Chronicle (an SF based newspaper) tracks break-ins in SF [0]. Here is a more general crime dashboard as well [1]. For reference, here are some statistics in Chicago [2].
YTD, SF has had 8500 property theft cases. Chicago-- 3000. Per crime capita, SF is astronomical.
Many people don't have cars in SF for this exact reason.
Other commenters are right that it varies slightly by neighborhood (e.g. cars in Russian Hill/Cole Valley are by far more touristy than others), but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous.
Don't let the doom porn get to you. I lived in bernal for 5 years and never had a problem. Cole valley is right next to haight ashbury which attracts a fair amount characters. There's other neighborhoods that aren't in the middle of everything. Bernal heights, glen park, noe valley, pacific heights, the richmond and the sunset will be a little less crazy.
I think any American city will have some culture shock compared to Japan or Singapore. Just don't leave stuff out in the open, lock your stuff and maybe don't drive a prius, people like to steal the catalytic converters.
> Just don't leave stuff out in the open, lock your stuff and maybe don't drive a prius, people like to steal the catalytic converters.
IME this is becoming an increasingly common attitude in many cities besides SF. And it’s a problem of social decay - fear of being considered an asshole by calling some behaviors just unacceptable. Americans are (somewhat ironically) terrified of being perceived as assholes, and we’re letting our social standards erode more and more each decade.
We don’t have to relent to this. Expecting to be able to leave something out and it not be stolen is not unreasonable. Expecting not to be assaulted is reasonable. Expecting people to not shoplift is a reasonable expectation in any civilized society.
In bernal heights, someone smashed my window and stole my camera out of the back seat of my car while I was in the car. It was quite traumatizing, and I don't really like going to San Francisco anymore. (They knew we were in the car, but went for it anyways. Pretty brazen, and they got away with it.)
Living near Boston I can tell you we often leave stuff outside, like a Weber grill, strollers, kid bikes and scooters, etc. If it's something expensive like my $1500 bike we do lock it even in the basement. It's been years and nothing was stolen. I know bikes are stolen in the neighborhood, but that mostly cases where people left their bikes unlocked in their yard for a while.
What I'm trying to say is that there are major US cities that are relatively safe. Fortunately not every city in the US has been following the CA politics.
It's really not that bad. If you go looking for something, you are going to find it, which is exactly what you did by going to the neighborhood fb group. I've lived in potrero hill and lower Haight for over three years and only have and some packages stolen, and I lived right next to the projects when in potrero.
This "crime problem" has little to no effect on my daily life, other than needing to press a button so an attendant can unlock the shampoo cabinet when I'm at CVS every other month.
Neighborhood FB groups in low crime places don't have people posting about actual crime. It's usually either social stuff, or posts by Karens about random "suspicious looking" people.
> which is exactly what you did by going to the neighborhood fb group
Is it uncommon to have a neighborhood fb group that's just full of old people posting that it looks like it might rain and people trying to offload extra rhubarb from their garden?
No, this is not more like one of those lawless third world countries. I don't understand how some people have such little life experience to make these sorts of comments.
There aren't exactly many cars to be broken into in lawless third world countries, there aren't many garages with things in them to be broken into along with said things stolen in lawless third world countries, and there aren't many garages with doors to be damaged in lawless third world countries.
I lived in San Franciso for a few years (2010 to 2015) and hung around with some of the "low class" people, and this theft spike doesn't surprise me at all. It was already astronomical while I was there.
San Francisco is a strange place, where the only places you're allowed to be poor are in the tenderloin, 6th and market, or the projects. It's the only place I've lived where I regularly had to dodge human excrement on the sidewalks, car windows are all smashed, deodorant is locked down in the stores etc.
The poor don't consider themselves of the same people as the rich. The infrastructure is not for the poor, the police are not for the poor, the parks and sidewalks and houses and cars are not for the poor. Hell, while I lived there the poor weren't even allowed to sit or lie down! So why should they feel any civic pride or duty or identification at all? It's like some sort of Elysium and Deponia. The Elysians are so far removed from reality that crimes against them are hardly crimes at all as far as the poor are concerned. They'll never taste of the good things Elysium has, so why even care? Better to just grab whatever you can from them and try to eke out whatever existence you're able to. It's similar in many ways to the bandit camps and highwaymen of the Roman era.
I've traveled and lived in many places, and this sort of behavior only happens when there's massive inequality, tempered a small amount by the severity of the law.
I know this will get downvoted to hell because almost everyone on HN is rich, so they're blind to this. For you, the answer is better policing and stronger laws, because those are the only things that can help keep you separated from the rest unless you're rich enough to afford private security.
Doesn't cut for me. Because other people have more doesn't mean you can act anti social, just like I don't tolerate incel tier thoughts, despite understanding for some people it very well might be impossible to meet partners.
Oh, right, because poor people outside SF feel like they're one step away from living the good life. It's only in SF that people feel forever locked out of the pleasure dome.
IDK, I think it's because SF was heavily influenced by freak culture in the 60s and while that mode of thinking died out in the rest of the world it found refuge in NorCal. NorCal has, since the 60s, been a bastion of drugs and freakiness. The culture behind that tolerated a crime society because of the disdain for law and order, with its authoritarian, conservative, anti-drug values. They were more naive than, say, New York liberals who knew you couldn't just let people do whatever they wanted.
Once upon a time, when friends or acquaintances would complain about judgementalism, I’d tell them that to judge is normal and natural, that we as human beings are equipped with judgement for a very good reason, and that they truly would not want to live in a judgement-free society.
It makes me wonder, what the owner could do in that environment to prevent such theft, ie in the circumstances where the police cannot be bothered. I wonder if making extremely loud, directed noise to cause a discomfort for thieves is legal or effective.
It’s a CVS, they can decide to close that store if they want and it would be fine for them. The real issue is for small shops or for the employees who have to deal with this kind of bs. I live in SF and I avoid downtown and convenient stores for this exact reason. And Don’t tell me about public transport.
If you watch the video to the end, you see how it escalates from shoplifting to violence when the thief doesn't get his way - essentially he doesn't know the word "respect" beyond "I demand you respect me", even in the midst of a robbery.
Having seen similar shoplifting incidents around SF, I feel bad for the security guards. They're not allowed to physically stop thieves at larger chains, but they're expected to follow and hinder them. It's a very tough job, ad prone to injury.
It's fascinating to watch the change in behavior when the "security guard" flashes his SF Police badge and says, "Actually, I'm a real cop." Then the thief drops everything, stops mouthing off, and heads for the door..
And the solution that many stores have been doing is to put basic cheap items behind a lock and key.
The last time I went to a Walgreens I needed to buy:
1. Mouth wash
2. Tooth paste
3. Shaving cream
I had to drag some poor employee over for all three items to either unlock a lock, or go into the back to find the item because they only had a display box.
Another time I went and I couldn't find anyone with a key. The person behind the counter said they didn't have one and they didn't know where the person with the key went. After waiting around for a few minutes I left to go to the Safeway nearby to try there instead. Only to find the item I needed was also locked down. I gave up. No one wanted my money.
I just drive out of the city to do my shopping now. It's a much better experience.
Walgreens have started to respond by closing stores. Good on them. No one can survive with widespread unmitigated and unprosecuted shoplifting.
Once shops start closing down, people will ask and complain why stores don’t exist in their neighborhoods, or they’re too expensive but low quality. It’s cost of doing business.
‘Cheesy Pudding’, the DA, is high on the list of everyone’s favorite target for a recall, but sadly, I think most people won’t bother with the recall effort and the downward spiral will continue.
Some of the people who espouse these policies see Marxism as an example but Marxism would never ever put up with rampant delinquency.
The same thing is happening in Seattle. For example an Asian grocery store here filed nearly 600 police reports in a 1.5 year period, in addition to all the incidents they never reported (https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/repeat-shoplifters-continue...). As the article notes, drugstores have also begun closing locations. The only grocery store in the downtown core also closed (https://thepostmillennial.com/downtown-seattle-loses-its-onl...) - the shoplifting was bad enough but that compounded with rioting and COVID was too much for them to stay in business.
Marx referred to such delinquents as the lumpenproletariat, an: "essentially parasitical group [that] was largely the remains of older, obsolete stages of social development, and that it could not normally play a progressive role in history. Indeed, because it acted only out of socially ignorant self-interest, the lumpenproletariat was easily bribed by reactionary forces and could be used to combat the true proletariat in its efforts to bring about the end of bourgeois society. Without a clear class-consciousness, the lumpenproletariat could not play a positive role in society. Instead, it exploited society for its own ends, and was in turn exploited as a tool of destruction and reaction."
The Walgreens near where I life (Bush and Fillmore) has a padlock on the red bull fridge. It was pretty shocking to get back from spending awhile in Korea where convenience stores are plentiful, 24/7, and fast to find this new development.
Please don’t chalk me up as some kind of Marxist activist, but: that padlock probably says a lot about the addictive nature, pricing, and perhaps engineered scarcity of Red Bull.
I used to live right near Union Square in SF (the heart of downtown). Police are prevented from enforcing laws because of the constant backlash and outrage from the very vocal, but minority of people. I never understood this ideology of anti-police and laws that seems to permeate the bay area. Eventually after 5+ years I decided I'd had enough and moved out of SF and California for greener pastures and couldn't be happier. "You reap what you sow."
To the point that Fremont PD had to bust a crime ring operating out of SF, the politics there is ridiculous at this point. Also moved out a few years ago.
Late to the party, but I just saw a FB update from a (liberal, anti-cop) friend in SF who is flabbergasted that, in her words, "downtown SF doesn't exist" now, and all shops are boarded up or empty except for Swarovski and Skechers, and the smell of urine is much stronger.
Eventually shops in eastern San Francisco will need to implement mantraps and buzz customers in to browse. Another is to only offer kiosk service.
Think of it like always having to go to the pharmacy counter to get anything from CVS or Safeway. Call ahead, app, delivery, or curbside are the other options.
Since law enforcement doesn’t appear to have the tools to stop shop lifting, the stores will need to adapt to stay in business.
One last thing, not in the article, but gangs will rob Walgreens delivery trucks in broad daylight too.
No, you will just not be able to shop in San Francisco. This is a massive country and San Francisco is a tiny city that doesn't even have a million people. There are over 9,000 Walgreens locations nationwide. The company will do just fine after closing a few dozen of them.
That's a little extreme. Walgreens may shut down in SF, but some local business will step in to fill the demand and they'll likely use techniques like the parent suggested. Either way, I don't think you will "just not be able to shop in San Francisco".
A guy I know was an assistant manager for Walgreens. He would get called in to pinch hit, sometimes in the less optimal parts of the city. He told me a story about a guy who was methodically hacking his way through the steel shutter they used to close the store at night. They had called the police an hour ago and they had not come. He had gotten a hole in large enough to get his arm through and was flailing about. The police finally showed when he was shoulders-in.
I'd be suprised if they'd go with any system except their current one. They probably make a good chunk of money by having people walk around the store and impulse buy things like magazines and snacks, and this also seems to be a local issue. The Walgreens near me has titled mirrors high up on the walls so staff can see down every isle no matter where they are, and I've seen the manager catch somebody stealing, so he made them empty their pockets then kicked them out of the store.
>I've seen the manager catch somebody stealing, so he made them empty their pockets then kicked them out of the store.
And what if they refuse? From the other comments here it sounds like the manager won't be able to do anything if the thief didn't copmly, continued putting things in his pocket and walked out.
> Eventually shops in eastern San Francisco will need to implement mantraps
This seems like one of the easiest things to do and the banks in California do this even if they're in low crime areas.
Why haven't the stores done this rather than closing?
I suspect the answer is that this is a nice excuse to get rid of underperforming stores that they would get dinged for racism if they closed them wholesale without a PR excuse.
The size of the store and the number of employees needed to maintain adequate mantraps would be too many - and you’d basically need to shadow every customer anyway.
Well, there's an interesting point that a ton of SF residents cannot legally vote at all. So it's harder to claim that the average SF resident voted for him.
Readit News
And that's really it. We've put to the people in ballot initiative after initiative to reduce crimes and penalties for 'nonviolent crimes', which people will happily vote with good conscious for because of the word non-violent.
But nonviolent to whom? We're forgetting that they're still crimes, that they add up and degrade quality of life, and can violently ruin lives without striking a blow. Whoever worked in these Walgreen stores now need to find a new job, and had they been small businesses, closing up shop could ruin their entire career. I had someone come into my garage in the middle of the night in December, who woke me up and I confronted him. He ran away, so it was technically a nonviolent crime, yet I couldn't sleep for weeks and haven't felt fully safe in my home ever sense. The psychological damage is done.
We have a tendency to focus on the criminals with open arms trying to reintegrate and not overly punish people, and completely lose track of the victims. And when there's no credible consequences for bad actions, criminals become emboldened.
You look at jurisdictions that are "soft" on crime - Scandinavia, New Zealand etc. and invariably all of them have figured out non-punitive methods of crime reduction that are far more effective than jail. This is reflected in crime statistics.
(and before you mention Singapore, it's worth pointing out that they have many, many policies in place to alleviate poverty and social unrest - government housing, world class education, a strong economy, national service etc. in addition to their strict laws. I'm not arguing that the laws do nothing, but you can't just beat an uneducated, poor, fatherless person with a stick and expect them to be a productive member of society.)
Leaving that aside for a moment, if there was "evidence" that not punishing murderers was the "best thing for society" (in terms of rehabilitation, crime rate, etc) would you support that policy?
For most people, a society that doesn't punish criminals is simply uncivilized. I tend to agree.
Norway is actually tough on shoplifting. It is not tolerated, and its mitigated by arrest and the police spend resources tracking down sales on online platforms etc. The government also track down the source of money/income that look suspicious, and have the means to do so due to widespread government oversight of all aspects of society.
Police will actually help shops or shopping centers remove non-rehabilitated people that have committed thefts in the past.
Our DAs promised “restorative justice” but in practice criminals get caught in released without consequences or rehabilitation. Is there evidence that this approach hasn’t emboldened organized criminals and contributed to the rise in property crime in recent years?
But this article was just arguing against your point. The crime enforcement laws were relaxed and the crime rose. It is obvious that allowing law enforcers to enforce the law reduces crime. Some people in SF are losing their jobs when the stores close you know? These crimes are not victimless.
You're assuming what works for X works for Y as well, without accounting for an insanely large difference between the culture in the United States and those countries. People are very different here, the education level, the moralities of the society, the concept of "I, me and myself first", the economic conditions, the violence, the mental health issues and many more things.
There is a reason why despite having liberal gun laws in Switzerland, there are way less mass shootings than the United States. But what works there won't work here.
Whats does it mean soft? Sweden has no parole you go straight to jail.
Deleted Comment
They have a very low crime rate, several times lower than the white average. There was a study on this, and Swedish-Americans and Norwegian-Americans commit crime at about the same rate as Swedes and Norwegians, which is to say, not often.
Well.. large segments of our populations commit very little crime. But when crime is committed, the police and the justice system are useless. Convicted for the 350th burglary? They'll be let out again and maybe be back tomorrow, if the prosecutor even bothers prosecuting them since it's pointless.
So DO look at us for crime prevention but NOT for managing crime when it happens.
Dead Comment
Elect a real DA who respects the law and law-abiding citizens, and the police will be able to do their jobs. Until then it’s a lost cause.
The problem in SF is that we've disbanded the team that tries to catch people in the act[2]. IIUC, it's both because there weren't enough resources and the DA won't prosecute anyway, so what's the point.
[1] - Maybe not in the case of a-rod: https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Half-million-in-lo...
[2] - https://www.sfweekly.com/news/authorities-hustle-to-curb-s-f...
Sherif finally told my dad. “Nothing we can do, buy a gun, just make the body look like it wasn’t running away and police won’t make an issue of it”.
This horrified us on many levels.
We moved to a safe neighborhood. Later on we realized we had a bunch of gun nuts on street.
One of which loved to shoot blanks at trouble makers.
This disturbed me, and left me deeply questioning many things about guns.
As an adult I moved out of state to raise my family near the the pro gun people. Never once had an issue. Don’t like to touch guns personally. Yet happy to be where criminals fear to tread.
> The hearing did not answer a crucial question: Why San Francisco? If the problem stems in part from a change in California law, why aren’t other cities in the state seeing similar spikes in shoplifting?
Does Los Angeles count? Last I checked six months ago with LAPD Pacific Division most forms of crime were up, significantly. That was just listening to them take questions at the Venice Neighborhood Council meeting and looking at their reported crime stats documents. Solution: I moved out of LA.
Problem is, most of these types of petty crimes aren't reported because LAPD can't do anything. Plus, it's below the insurance deductible for most retailers. I speak from experience as a former retailer in LA (Culver City) on a major street, Sepulveda Blvd, for twelve years managing my own decent sized store.
I had tens of thousands stolen year after year. Even with video, I couldn't do anything. It's exceptionally difficult to catch and recover the money, so what's the point in trying, or even reporting it? It's a complete waste of time. I did my best with prevention, but even reveiwing videos to figure out what's happening takes a long time... And you need to know it's gone in the first place!
When you have $500k to $1mm in inventory, which really isn't much, and tons of product coming and going every day, how are you to keep up? Even with cycle counts, we were always behind the thefts.
I finally sold the shop in 2016 after a series of heart breaking thefts by employees, customers, and an electrician. Sure you can say it's my fault for not having a better system, and you're probably right. Still it takes honest employees and honest customers for it to work.
Prop 47 seems self fulfilling: Expand misdemeanors to cover twice as much product, so then less crimes are reported by the community, finally claim crime is down!
If technicalities were equivalent to reality this would be great policy, but it's different on the ground than what most people see from a report on their computer.
> The hearing did not answer a crucial question: Why San Francisco? If the problem stems in part from a change in California law, why aren’t other cities in the state seeing similar spikes in shoplifting?
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Whenever we read about people antagonizing masks or vaccines and their usual political alignments let's remember this, because it's fundamentally the same thing
It's a "feel good" position, it's a "I'm in your tribe" position even if it makes no actual sense in reality (and both sides are not lacking in crap arguments to support those)
There’s not only 2 sides.
I stopped reading any news or social media (outside HN or stocks) since New Years. I don’t feel on a side anymore.
The problem started long before the change in policy.
I don't think "we" (the people?) are forgetting they are still crimes. They are, and are supposed to be still prosecuted as the minor crimes they are.
The problem is that police and DAs have taken the position that if they can't go for bigger charges (which is what DAs like to put on their resume) then they won't pay any attention at all. That's the root cause of these lesser crimes being completely ignored.
> The retail executives and police officers emphasized the role of organized crime in the thefts. And they told the supervisors that Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that reclassified nonviolent thefts as misdemeanors if the stolen goods are worth less than $950, had emboldened thieves.
You are quoting the police and business owners, who are very much a biased source. How do they know what the causes are? Do you think they've commissioned a survey or done research? It's just as possible they were against Proposition 47 to begin with and the NYT is supporting their agenda for their own reasons.
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/10/06/major-san-franc...
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In the 3 weeks I've been on the list 5 cars have had their windows busted and things stolen, 2 garages have been broken into and things stolen. 2 garages have had their doors damaged from attempted break-ins costing the owners hundreds to get fixed. There's been videos of people staking out places to rob (people walking from house to house inspecting garage door locks and trying to peak inside the garages). And ~10 or so posts about various other thefts or results of thefts.
This sounds more like one of those lawless 3rd world countries than a major city in a first world country. And worse, many people on the list just react as "that's life in a big city", no big deal.
It's not, having lived in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Singapore were property crime is extremely low. People get defensive whenever I bring this up, making excuses why crime needs to be high where they live. It doesn't.
SF Chronicle (an SF based newspaper) tracks break-ins in SF [0]. Here is a more general crime dashboard as well [1]. For reference, here are some statistics in Chicago [2].
YTD, SF has had 8500 property theft cases. Chicago-- 3000. Per crime capita, SF is astronomical.
Many people don't have cars in SF for this exact reason.
Other commenters are right that it varies slightly by neighborhood (e.g. cars in Russian Hill/Cole Valley are by far more touristy than others), but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous.
[0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/sf-car-breakins/
[1] https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crim...
[2] https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_C...
I think any American city will have some culture shock compared to Japan or Singapore. Just don't leave stuff out in the open, lock your stuff and maybe don't drive a prius, people like to steal the catalytic converters.
IME this is becoming an increasingly common attitude in many cities besides SF. And it’s a problem of social decay - fear of being considered an asshole by calling some behaviors just unacceptable. Americans are (somewhat ironically) terrified of being perceived as assholes, and we’re letting our social standards erode more and more each decade.
We don’t have to relent to this. Expecting to be able to leave something out and it not be stolen is not unreasonable. Expecting not to be assaulted is reasonable. Expecting people to not shoplift is a reasonable expectation in any civilized society.
Californians should be ashamed but they continuously vote for this shit.
No one wants to hike bernal to rob someone.
These are not things you should have to do in a sane first-world country
What I'm trying to say is that there are major US cities that are relatively safe. Fortunately not every city in the US has been following the CA politics.
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* Ring
* Nextdoor
This "crime problem" has little to no effect on my daily life, other than needing to press a button so an attendant can unlock the shampoo cabinet when I'm at CVS every other month.
Is it uncommon to have a neighborhood fb group that's just full of old people posting that it looks like it might rain and people trying to offload extra rhubarb from their garden?
There aren't exactly many cars to be broken into in lawless third world countries, there aren't many garages with things in them to be broken into along with said things stolen in lawless third world countries, and there aren't many garages with doors to be damaged in lawless third world countries.
Like, come on.
San Francisco is a strange place, where the only places you're allowed to be poor are in the tenderloin, 6th and market, or the projects. It's the only place I've lived where I regularly had to dodge human excrement on the sidewalks, car windows are all smashed, deodorant is locked down in the stores etc.
The poor don't consider themselves of the same people as the rich. The infrastructure is not for the poor, the police are not for the poor, the parks and sidewalks and houses and cars are not for the poor. Hell, while I lived there the poor weren't even allowed to sit or lie down! So why should they feel any civic pride or duty or identification at all? It's like some sort of Elysium and Deponia. The Elysians are so far removed from reality that crimes against them are hardly crimes at all as far as the poor are concerned. They'll never taste of the good things Elysium has, so why even care? Better to just grab whatever you can from them and try to eke out whatever existence you're able to. It's similar in many ways to the bandit camps and highwaymen of the Roman era.
I've traveled and lived in many places, and this sort of behavior only happens when there's massive inequality, tempered a small amount by the severity of the law.
I know this will get downvoted to hell because almost everyone on HN is rich, so they're blind to this. For you, the answer is better policing and stronger laws, because those are the only things that can help keep you separated from the rest unless you're rich enough to afford private security.
This is a west coast phenomenon largely driven by IMO west coast policies.
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IDK, I think it's because SF was heavily influenced by freak culture in the 60s and while that mode of thinking died out in the rest of the world it found refuge in NorCal. NorCal has, since the 60s, been a bastion of drugs and freakiness. The culture behind that tolerated a crime society because of the disdain for law and order, with its authoritarian, conservative, anti-drug values. They were more naive than, say, New York liberals who knew you couldn't just let people do whatever they wanted.
Today, they can live in San Francisco.
Your comment comes across as that of an apologist.
Warning, there is nothing NSFW, but it's just sickening to watch.
That's brazen. Some of the shoplifters were even wearing masks, but pulled them down to their chins.
A guy came in and started grabbing things from the shelf, and putting them in his bag.
The ladies started shouting “Thief! Shame! Shame! Shame!”
The guy left quickly.
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Having seen similar shoplifting incidents around SF, I feel bad for the security guards. They're not allowed to physically stop thieves at larger chains, but they're expected to follow and hinder them. It's a very tough job, ad prone to injury.
It's fascinating to watch the change in behavior when the "security guard" flashes his SF Police badge and says, "Actually, I'm a real cop." Then the thief drops everything, stops mouthing off, and heads for the door..
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The last time I went to a Walgreens I needed to buy:
1. Mouth wash
2. Tooth paste
3. Shaving cream
I had to drag some poor employee over for all three items to either unlock a lock, or go into the back to find the item because they only had a display box.
Another time I went and I couldn't find anyone with a key. The person behind the counter said they didn't have one and they didn't know where the person with the key went. After waiting around for a few minutes I left to go to the Safeway nearby to try there instead. Only to find the item I needed was also locked down. I gave up. No one wanted my money.
I just drive out of the city to do my shopping now. It's a much better experience.
Once shops start closing down, people will ask and complain why stores don’t exist in their neighborhoods, or they’re too expensive but low quality. It’s cost of doing business.
‘Cheesy Pudding’, the DA, is high on the list of everyone’s favorite target for a recall, but sadly, I think most people won’t bother with the recall effort and the downward spiral will continue.
Some of the people who espouse these policies see Marxism as an example but Marxism would never ever put up with rampant delinquency.
And the answer by the people who implemented this policy will, no doubt, be “institutional racism” by walgreens…
Once in control, yes, Marxists would not allow rampant delinquency. But until that day file this under "by any means necessary".
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Think of it like always having to go to the pharmacy counter to get anything from CVS or Safeway. Call ahead, app, delivery, or curbside are the other options.
Since law enforcement doesn’t appear to have the tools to stop shop lifting, the stores will need to adapt to stay in business.
One last thing, not in the article, but gangs will rob Walgreens delivery trucks in broad daylight too.
That Walgreens isn't there anymore.
The Burberry store near Union square buzzes you in at all hours. Well at least the two times I visited.
And what if they refuse? From the other comments here it sounds like the manager won't be able to do anything if the thief didn't copmly, continued putting things in his pocket and walked out.
This seems like one of the easiest things to do and the banks in California do this even if they're in low crime areas.
Why haven't the stores done this rather than closing?
I suspect the answer is that this is a nice excuse to get rid of underperforming stores that they would get dinged for racism if they closed them wholesale without a PR excuse.
https://stanfordreview.org/chesa-boudin-san-francisco-crime/