Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

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The reduction of quality of life is already happening in permissive cities like SF, Portland, and Seattle. Public spaces are taken over by those breaking the law, and yes that very often includes “drugged low-lifes”, and it brings a host of other problems with it. As examples: a popular jogging path near me is now being avoided by women I know because men from the encampments that have taken over the park the path runs through, and sexually harass them sometimes. There are frequent posts on Next Door where some homeless person will be on camera stealing things out of peoples porches or yards, to feed their lifestyle, and police simply don’t have the resources to solve those crimes and deter further criminal acts. Graffiti and littering have increased substantially, despite littering in green spaces carrying a big fine for any law abiding citizens. Criminals that are arrested are mostly simply released in the spirit of restorative justice or similar policies, going on to repeat the same crimes against new victims.

This last year has involved a lot of blind hatred of policing and poorly thought out calls to reduce police funding all based on very rare anecdotal incidents which have been spun as data. The reality is that police forces in America have hundreds of millions of interactions with citizens and almost none of them are problematic. It do surprise that surveys show public perceptions of police brutality are incredibly skewed, far from resort (https://nypost.com/2021/02/27/cases-of-police-brutality-agai...).

I can only describe the current trend as a mass hysteria driven by biased news media and dedicated true believers, who organize on social media and real life, and end up influencing the masses into believing the same things.

> This last year has involved a lot of blind hatred of policing and poorly thought out calls to reduce police funding all based on very rare anecdotal incidents which have been spun as data.

This is interesting, because the evidence for your claim is anecdotes and “posts on NextDoor” — what statistical evidence do you have that crime is increasing more in “more permissive” cities vs “less permissive” ones? I would also invite you to consider that COVID may have more to do with this than anything else.

I also invite you to consider people who commit crimes as human beings with needs like you and I — needs that are often unmet: housing, healthcare, community, and which are not resolved by locking them up.

I don’t have broad statistical evidence on this at this moment, but this has been an issue well before COVID. I was able to find a past article highlighting data about crime following homeless accommodations in a particular neighborhood in Seattle (https://www.q13fox.com/news/crime-rate-rose-103-in-a-two-cit...). Business associations in Seattle have also published reports with data about these issues for several years as well, and numerous articles have been written about it (example https://www.seattlebusinessmag.com/tourismhospitality/downto...). You might be able to dig up more and find the actual reports with some dedicated Googling.

But regardless, truth starts with observations and anecdotes. In Seattle, reliable data measuring crime is hard to come by since people have become jaded and simply don’t report crime any longer. The police are understaffed (well below median police officers per capita in the country) and are directed by city leadership to deprioritize such investigations, so residents don’t see a benefit from reporting. I’ll admit I am part of the problem - the other day I saw a homeless person expose herself in front of children and I didn’t bother reporting it to any authority because nothing will be done and I am just exhausted by all of it. The only time residents bother is if they are victims of property crime that is large enough to make the insurance deductible worth it.

In the case of police shooting unarmed blacks, we already have the data. The Washington Post has maintained these records (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...). It gives us a clear sense of the magnitude of the issue at hand. This is also why surveys are able to say that people overestimate the frequency of police brutality.

> I also invite you to consider people who commit crimes as human beings with needs like you and I — needs that are often unmet

They are free to meet those needs the way anyone else does, by showing personal responsibility for their life choices. I have little sympathy for those who decide to live a drug centric lifestyle. And likewise, people shouldn’t move to a desirable, expensive location unless they have a plan on how to make it work. Existing residents should not have to subsidize either group, with their money or by giving up their quality of life.

> They are free to meet those needs the way anyone else does, by showing personal responsibility for their life choices. I have little sympathy for those who decide to live a drug centric lifestyle. And likewise, people shouldn’t move to a desirable, expensive location unless they have a plan on how to make it work. Existing residents should not have to subsidize either group, with their money or by giving up their quality of life.

Look up “just world fallacy”

As is well known, crime follows economic poverty, not the other way around. Do you think that this is more about the massive economic downturn we are experiencing, rather than police getting their massive budgets trimmed a bit?

It’s been an issue in Seattle and these other cities well before COVID, so my instinct is it doesn’t have to do with economic downturns. These cities had strong economies for the last decade but my take is that their permissive criminal justice policies induced a large population of drug addicted vagrants and other homeless cohorts to migrate here, since they know they’ll be left alone to do whatever they want. Thus far the city has not even collected strong data on who the homeless are and where they come from, and instead they tout self reported data from an annual “point in time” survey. Homeless advocacy groups coach survey respondents to claim they are from here so that they’ll garner more sympathy and political support. It’s hard to characterize the problem in provable ways when the authorities are not interested in the truth.

As for policing: Seattle’s police force was too small even before the calls for defunding. It severely lagged the median police officer counts among cities in America. That, combined with an ideologically driven city attorney’s office, has led to a revolving door of criminals that signals to other criminals that they’ll face no consequences for their actions. That in turn has induced more and more criminality.

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