Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Good for him, standing up for his employees who clearly must be very alarmed.

B8ta has stores around the globe, and Norby told SFGATE last month that the crime in San Francisco is unlike anything the company experiences elsewhere. “This actually doesn’t happen anywhere else in the country,” he said. “We have 17 other stores, including three internationally. This just doesn’t happen anywhere else. It’s only here.”

Why do the stores in SF attract violent crime compared to, say, a store in another West Coast city? Is there a gang that specializes in this sort of crime in the Bay Area, or is the level of all kinds of violent street crime off the charts? Or something else?

View on HN

Proposition 47[0] in 2014 substantially reduced the penalties for shoplifting, grand theft, forgery, fraud, and other crimes.

Stealing <$950 is a misdemeanor regardless of how often someone does it.

It would be surprising if this didn't lead to a substantial increase in the crime rate.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47

> It would be surprising if this didn't lead to a substantial increase in the crime rate.

Probably doesn't make a big difference to San Francisco vs other major West Coast cities, since most of the major West Coast cities are also in California.

that makes sense - I suspect it’s this in addition to local prosecutors failing to prosecute.

There was an article last year about how the thieves know to stay in san francisco county and not cross into san mateo county, because the chances of being arrested and prosecuted is much higher in san mateo county

Right. Daly City is next door and crime gets prosecuted there therefore fewer of these types of crimes.

I personally think it leads to this theory which my life experience tends to agree with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

Broken windows policing doesn't directly address crime rates, it artificially inflates the levels of perceived crime in order to boost police reputation through reported statistics.

Real crime rates have been falling ever since they started measuring it, and there is no demonstrable correlation with increased police presence or strength/brutality of their weapons.

I lived in SF proper for many years. The lack of prosecution for smash & grabs absolutely led to an increase of more smash & grabs. Here's an article Google found for me easily: https://sfist.com/2017/08/31/massive_jump_in_san_francisco_c... (and don't skip the comments) - people simply stopped reporting smash & grab because they knew it was useless.

While the broken windows theory was popular in the past, the research doesn’t support it: https://news.northeastern.edu/2019/05/15/northeastern-univer...

I think that the study you refer to is open to interpretation.

Since this is talking about armed robbery, I don't think this has anything to do with it.

The armed robbery was the event that pushed them over the edge. The other robberies/thefts they mention were just people stealing stuff. I think it's also possible that a community that ignores theft isn't too harsh on more serious crimes too.

It’s also the way SF deals with crime. Daly City borders SF and they don’t suffer these crimes at the same rate. Their prosecutors prosecute. They don’t play the restorative justice game —which SF pushes on victims.

"If we could just teach prisoners to code and stop with this retribution nonsense" as so many HNers pontificated a few hours ago...

Unfortunately people want quick-fix solutions that mollify their conscience too. It's become ideological.

In SF the climate is such that officers only pursue the most egregious cases where they think their work will have results. They know the DA will pull punches and drag their feet and drop lesser cases so they don't even bother. The DA often times pushes the victim to agree to restorative justice. It's not a deterrent.

Restorative Justice can work in some special cases. We can work to make prisoners more ready for the workforce when they get out. But we need lots of support in the way of social pressure and also some brainwashing/reconditioning. Most criminals will not want to go through the effort of turning things around, unless you change them via stick and carrot. It's hard to change course. It's hard to change course for anybody.

Now, some people are salvageable. We have to get better at spotting potential and providing tools and support for those people who want to change for the better.

Since when is even stealing anything excusable? Stealing $300 purse or $30000 car is exactly the same thing morally. The value of the item is in some ways orthogonal.

Theft should be punished in the strongest forms possible so no one even thinks about doing it. Minimum 1 year in prison for stealing anything.

Convince me otherwise.

I mostly agree with you. But...

Let's say someone steals a $300 purse or a $30000 car. Nobody needs either a $300 purse or a $30000 car. But let's say someone steals $10 of food from a grocery store. They may legitimately need that. (Or they may just have poor self-control.) If someone legitimately needs food, I could bend my mind far enough to call that "excusable".

Then the society should make provisions to directly provide food for the needy.

Allowing stealing is not tackling the problem head-on and instead squirming on a morally questionable line and thereby breeding crime and ill in the society.

That's perfectly reasonable to say that society should do that.

In the meantime, though, society doesn't do that, at least not consistently enough. So in the current circumstances, I still have some compassion for someone in genuine need who steals food.

From this thread, it seems like the society itself has voted to allow crime.

So, let me get this straight and state curtly - A city allows crime, then complains about rising crime!?

May be people of this city should question their understanding of how to run a good society.

Whilst I don't live in California or even America. I'm about 95% sure you guys have food banks, as my company has donated to them.

I think so too, and it is also defensible for the store owner to protect his 10$ with 0.50 cent shotgun shells.

Are you suggesting that stealing $10 worth of food is an executable offense?

Nope

And what of the local business owner who has invested his life saving in a business, and needs the income from the business to feed his family? How is it okay to let people steal from him because "it's only $10". Thats figuratively food being taken from his family's mouth.

This is why laws need to be enforced uniformly.

> But let's say someone steals $10 of food from a grocery store

If you allow that, you will soon enough be without grocery stores!!!

If there wasn't food banks, food stamps or penhandling, maybe.

One problem with this is that most cases don't go to trial and miscarriages of justice are a regular occurrence.

Many cases 90+% ([0], [1]) are plea-bargained out, e.g. the accused couldn't afford representation, the public defender takes the offer, etc.

Some of these people were innocent but serving a year in prison will make it hard for them to rebuild their lives.

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/prisons-are-packed-bec...

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocen...

It costs $50k to house someone for a year.

Statewide crime rates in California fell consistently in the years subsequent to the passage of Prop. 47, and in 2019 the state’s statewide crime rates reached their lowest levels in recorded history

If you don't arrest anybody, then stats will go down.

I live in SF, and it's pretty dangerous. So whatever stats you're quoting don't apply to SF.

I suggest you watch some of the antifa/BLM downtown attacks on pedestrians to see what lawlessness looks like - that happens daily in SF.

This is actually the main reason I left California. Legalized lawlessness. Law enforcement fought like crazy to convince people that this was terrible legislation. Unfortunately, it passed and I packed up my stuff a few months later. Most folks in other states don't realize how bad the situation is in the Bay area.

Guarantee you if the Seattle store was in Downtown, you would see the same thing. The physical environment is right - huge population of drug addicts and homeless and less populated due to COVID. The political climate is right - the Attorney General barely prosecutes violent assaults, and flat out doesn't prosecute property crimes. The voters are fine with this.

The B8ta store here is in an upscale mall in the University District. If violent crime starts affecting these more affluent areas, then maybe voters will care.

There is no real "upscale" shopping area in San Francisco. Hayes Valley, where this store is located, is actually considered quite fancy. Union Square, the tourist/shopping hotspot, is in an even worse condition.

SF leads in all areas of innovation, including crime. In the Covid era, tourists are not present in the quantities required to sustain various career populations, including criminals.

Guns aren’t really necessary in SF, so there may be some gang initiation threshold.

> SF leads in all areas of innovation, including crime.

Not anymore they won't. And you think criminals from outside the city/state don't know that people have no guns there? That's attractive to anyone trying to break the law.

Do people really travel any kind of distance to commit crimes? I thought that most crimes were committed in one's own neighborhood, then nearby ones.

That would be a very bad tactic In fact touring crime seems like a better approach, you commit a bunch of crimes in a city and move on, never to be seen there again

That's what I had assumed too, but there are several factors that dominate, statistically:

When you do a crime close to home you blend in, you are more likely to know about the opportunities, and you can more quickly/easily escape home.

Crimes of passion and opportunity are by definition done where you happen to be, which is likely to be where you typically are anyway.

Many "crimes" are really defined to control populations, so the people committing them aren't really criminals and of course such "crimes" are enforced where the target population lives.

Of course crimes are also committed by people who don't live nearby, but they seem to be a small minority of crimes, though a large majority of book/movie crimes (otherwise...how boring those stories would be)

Same difference, the city becomes a honeypot because authorities decided it was a good idea to advertise their intentions.

I just started reading Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood"[0] - I'm only a few pages in so please no spoilers.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Cold_Blood

Public transportation is frequently used for commiting crimes around Baltimore, to the point that they've started to shut down train stops outside the city. It's sad too, because the bus and train stops were added so people in the city had wider access to employment, but violent crime rates spiked in the areas surrounding the stops, so now the people that live and work around the stops are trying to get the government to shut them down. I can't really blame them though, because a local mall added bus stops, and now the mall has guard towers throughout the parking lot because of the muggings and shootings that came along with the bus stop.

They often go to where it is most optimal to commit a certain crime. For instance, a bank nearby was robbed this morning. It’s close to a freeway. Another example, a bunch of cars near the freeway had their catalytic converters taken out. Lastly, package thieves are quite common in my neighborhood (the packages are dropped off in front of doors visible from the street). In all these cases, the criminals case places from their cars. Also when the police do catch them, they are usually not residents of the city but often but not always live maybe 10-20 miles away.

I traveled to SF a number of times with work 2 years ago. I'm not trying to sound like a smug social democratic European, but I couldn't get over the homelessness, the petty vandalism, the rubbish, and the overall air of menace in the place.

This is a fair characterization, particularly for the parts of the city you were likely to see on any business trip. There’s both better and worse in other parts.

On an episode of 99pi, I heard even visiting New Yorkers are shocked.

That was my sense as well, when I visited in 2019 for a conference.

My boss said it was like watching the walking dead with 'zombies' everywhere.

To be clear, its absolutely tragic that 'zombies' are walking around everywhere

What would your social utopia be like if most of the rest your country and most the rest of the states made homelessness a crime?

Your trying to compare apples to apples. SF is an apple, but the US is one big orange.

lack of response by police and indifference of city residents towards store owners

Lack of response by police is expected, warranted, and even desired if the reason for this lack is that they are neglecting property crimes to prevent violent crimes elsewhere.

In my experience, police are more likely to focus on corporate property crimes than violent crime. It seems to be a sick game of incentives gone wrong... the police department just needs to grow, so it needs more money.

So it protects the corporate taxpayer over everyday victims.

But this very case is an example of a corporate taxpayer getting screwed over by municipal indifference (to the point where they were hiring private security, but even that was not enough).

You're right, it does seem like a strong counterexample. But I'm not sure how cops would fix this one directly either - they surely can't station an officer at the store all the time.

Part of my point is that they spend so much time on things like traffic tickets and civil forfeiture, little time is left for actually prosecuting these criminals.

https://priceonomics.com/how-police-officers-seize-cash-from...

It's a big cultural change that could take months or years to see the difference in daily shoplifting amounts.

So armed robbery doesn't qualify as a violent crime in SF now?

I believe the crimes in question are muggings and an armed robbery in which a gun was pointed at an employee. It is a stretch to call those strictly property crimes.

It got defunded while the state simultaneously reduced the consequences of a large number of smaller crimes and "quality of life" crimes.

Could it be the extreme wealth and extreme poverty that the Bay Area has? We have California’s highest levels of income inequality, not sure how we compare with the rest of the us [1].

1: https://www.kqed.org/news/11799308/bay-area-has-highest-inco...

What are you saying? These people are stealing and pointing guns at people only because they feel it's "unfair" that other people have more money than they do?

I think that's part of it. Imagine doing demanding or demeaning labor all day and making a tenth of what the guy spending 7-8 hours a day typing on a computer and playing Ping Pong makes. That would certainly seem unfair to me. Can't afford nice stuff, but you could take it...

On top of that, SF refuses to punish crimes like theft, so...

I doubt that the people doing the robbery do demeaning or dema ding labor all day.

They are probably career criminals or drug addicts or both. It seems that those groups flourish in such neighborhoods in SF.

And how does one become a career criminal or a drug addict? Not saying it's the only cause, but poverty and societal dysfunction definitely play a major role.

That's true. I totally agree. I was just thinking that most of the hard-working poor people should not get lumped in with the criminals.

But I think it's important to point out the strong link between crime and poverty. And personally I think that the best ways to address crime start with addressing structural inequality.

I also personally think we should have a lot more mental institutions rather than relying on prisons or just letting everyone with problems fend for themselves. As long as they don't start lobotomizing people again or something.

I can assure you, the people who are robbing electronics stores are not the ones serving lattes or driving ubers. SF has a huge issue with career criminals. And it’s easy to be one. I have never seen such blatant drug dealing and robbery in my life, and I have lived in supposedly “dangerous” cities outside of the US.

Maybe they are drug addicts and criminals because they don't want to do hard work for low pay.

Assume that is true, what do you do when they pull a gun, pay them more?

I think it's more productive to think about what you'd do in the typical case.

I am sure that’s part of it. Minimum wage jobs are hard. But there are plenty of people who work hard jobs or come from hard situations without turning to crime. Sf does it’s best to make crime and drugs an appealing option when the law isn’t enforced.

> Why do the stores in SF attract violent crime compared to, say, a store in another West Coast city?

Because the people of San Francisco allow it.

Because criminals know they won’t be prosecuted or arrested or convicted in SF. This emboldens crime.

> Why do the stores in SF attract violent crime compared to, say, a store in another West Coast city?

Vast wealth right next to abject poverty and hopelessness. Like a spark that, with sufficient potential, jumps a gap.

I don’t think this is the full explanation (or even the biggest factor). I have lived in foreign cities with FAR more income inequality than sf, and I never saw the blatant crime I see in sf. It’s to the point where seeing live shoplifting or robbery isn’t even a surprising or notable occurrence for most people. There is simply no will to enforce the law.

What is crazy is that the vast wealth doesn't defend it's own skin here.

Some day some tech figure will get stabbed for an empty wallet and people will be shocked.

> Why do the stores in SF attract violent crime compared to, say, a store in another West Coast city?

Population density and economic inequality are probably the big factors.

Manhattan is much more dense, and even in the 70s and early 80s, when I was there, it wasn't as bad as San Francisco. I live 40 miles south of SF and I refuse to go there.

> I live 40 miles south of SF and I refuse to go there.

Then how do you know it's worse than Manhattan in the 70s/80s?

Liberalism.

Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. We want curious conversation here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Reply on news.ycombinator.com