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Comment by jmspring | Hacker News Reader

For communities already pushing the extremes of what Prop 47 and Prop 57 allow, this will be one more blow to the common citizenry. Places like Santa Cruz have a very high recidivism rates where serial bike thieves, petty theft, even violence towards common citizens are maybe ticketed and at best brought in and released in a couple of hours will use this as further excuse to do nothing.

Examples - woman assaulted in front of her child at a city park with a ranger near by, perp didn't even get a ticket. Known bike thieves carrying a bike while riding another - nothing done.

This happens in a number of CA cities (Berkeley, SF, Santa Cruz). It's always interesting to see how ideals of one party left unchecked drive a city/state in to the ground.

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I'm not disagreeing specifically but it seems a bit hyperbolic to say that CA cities or the whole state are being driven into the ground. Last time I checked despite some of the highest state income and property taxes people still really want to move here and stay for awhile.

What does this have to do with one party? How is a primary system in one party different than a general election amongst two parties?

California did better with balanced government. Republican Gov and democratic legislature. There was some semblance of balance.

Without that balance, we see prop 47 and 57. Local communities using those as an excuse to not really do much in the way of law enforcement — the city government of Santa Cruz was actively hostile toward the police well into the 90s. An individual casing bikes with bike tools in the east bay would have an “encounter” with PD, in Santa Cruz PD actually told me in a meeting - they won’t engage unless they actively see an incident in progress or the owner reports it.

> California did better with balanced government. Republican Gov and democratic legislature.

No, it didn't. It was nonstop crisis.

Seriously, though, what would you have the cop do in that case?

The obvious class and racial disparities in the current justice system means the city/state has already been driven to the ground for a long time. It's time to pick ourselves backup.

> Known bike thieves carrying a bike while riding another - nothing done.

your choice not to use the word convicted but instead known strikes me as really interesting.

So your argument is that the police should focus on enforcing your perception of order despite the fact that the social contract (and the law is a social contract) has been changed because the populace viewed the existing version to be structurally racist and unfair?

Not to mention this has nothing to do with a police officer's failure to act. The 'one party' that has fought for the police to not be legally required to enforce the law is not the 'one party' you are referring too.

Convicted yes. Known - arrested over a dozen times for such in one case. Santa Cruz mostly doesn’t give tickets or cite in cases of misdemeanors these days given nothing is done.

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