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Comment by lubujackson | Hacker News Reader

Low because they don't arrest anyone. But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone.

Property crime is sky high... if you happen to get caught breaking into a car the penalty is a warning. That is the policy. You have to break into many cars and be caught (which is hard to do) many times for any action.

Boudin has indefensibly ignored violent criminals, too. Like a woman being assaulted while trying to open the door to here condo, fully on video and there was no prosecution. Even a few cases of murder from repeat offenders who were let go repeatedly after violent assault.

If you live in SF, try the Citizen phone app for alerts near you. There is some crazy stuff happening all around the city. Lately, cars keep inexplicably flipping over on city streets.

The craziest update I've seen was an alert about man dressed like a clown wielding a sword-cane.

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Police inaction is a long-standing problem that pre-dates the current DA by quite some time. SF police have not responded to garage break-ins or car break-ins for some time. They might show up 5 hours later, very annoyed, and take a report. Even if you have good quality HD video evidence. Even if you have a tracking device on the stolen property proving where it is. They will not gather evidence, collect fingerprints, or bother trying to solve the crime in any way. Even if you had them the case on a silver platter. Forget trying to get a detective involved. This was going on long before Chesa Boudin.

Part of it is housing costs and the department's difficulty filling open positions. Part of it is bad management of the police department: not having competent detectives dedicated to solving quality of life and property crimes. Some part is probably trying to make the current DA look bad because they're fighting.

SFPD has so far resisted any attempt at reform toward community policing or setting up dedicated QOL units. The city's broken NIMBY planning process ensures newly hired officers are not likely to be able to live in the community where they police. Fix those problems, then we can worry about prosecutions.

This response strikes at the heart of the issue. Until the wild distortions in the property market are fixed (imo, specifically until Prop 13 gets repealed or significantly amended) big, expensive cities in California will continue have increasing crime problems.

As you can probably imagine, community policing is difficult if you're not a member of the community. And as the cost of living goes up while property taxes remain artificially depressed due to prop 13, the disparity between what municipalities are able to pay for police (which is partially funded by property taxes), and how much those police will need to afford to live there, will continue to grow. It seems like a slow, self-reenforcing downward spiral that will only get re-set if the quality of life deteriorates to the point where people actually start moving out of these communities.

So take away prop 13, and crime will disappear?

San Francisco has plenty of cops. They like to write tickets, do crossword puzzles, and play chess. (Go to the basement of any precinct.). Let's not forget drinking too much, and lucky if they finished a community college. I imagine those last few sentences are common observations at most Police Squads across America.

It's not prop 13.

As to homelessness---it's bad all over the west coast for obvious reasons. And no it's not because the widow whom rents out a room to a scary stranger so she can stay in the home she raised her kids in. I guess prop 13 is an easy target? There's a part of me that would like you Know it All's whom didn't live through opening a ever increasing property tax bill your wish of repeal.

Let's be real. Tech hate all unions. Many of you guys will be politely shown the door at 50. If you save a bit, and happened to score a home when younger; when you are puttering around the garage ruining the iPad with tools brought from Amazon, while wearing a fishing vest, calling your wife mom; you will cherish prop 13.

I’ve witnessed more SF police doing traffic-duty at Embarcadero parking lots than anything I’ve seen related to crime.

>But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone.

This always struck me as a BS excuse, because if you're trying to demonstrate that the DA is the problem, wouldn't you want to be making arrests and creating a paper trail to prove your point? Apathy by the police just makes them look bad to anyone who's on the receiving end of it.

And getting arrested is still a deterrent without charges. Hell, even "A cop might begin asking me some questions" is a mild deterrent.

It’s also demonstrably false. You can look at clearance and prosecution stats from both the PD and DA and you’ll see little too no change from pre and post Chesa.

https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/clea...

https://sfdistrictattorney.org/policy/da-stat/

Some court activity dropped in 2020, but filing rates are higher in 2021 already, highlighting the impact closed and reduced court capacity has had. Filings, even in 2020, though lower that 2021, were not out of the norm of the last decade. This year, rates are at 2018/2019 levels and close to a high for the decade.

Lots of people come out and like to point a finger at our new DA when the data just doesn’t support it. If there is a problem with prosecutors in SF, it’s existed before Chesa.

I assume they would feel that sticking their neck out like that would put themselves at personal risk, either literally or figuratively.

In what way would doing there job put them at risk that they didn’t sign up for with the job itself?

You’re not going to convince me to pay you more if you do a shit job. Same issue as with the SF school district.

You're asking them to publicly humiliate an office that is politically incentivized (in SF) to throw them under the bus if they see the opportunity to do so, opportunities which might come along more frequently the more they actually arrest people.

I'm asking them to stop publicly eroding our trust in their ability and willingness to do the job we pay them for.

Making an arrest is not risk free for a cop, the career lowlifes who have been arrested dozens of times aren’t afraid of anything (including incarceration), and burnout affects even tech workers, of course it affects cops who want to make arrests to get people in jail, and can’t find the motivation when it’s to “create a paper trail.”

Except no one takes life threatening risks to assemble a paper trail.

It’s also a BS excuse because by any reasonable definition the DA is part of the police.

Indeed. The behavioral science would agree with you. There is no theoretical framework backed up by evidence that would suggest that prosecution and prison works as a deterrent. For punishment to actually work as a behavioral modification tool, it has to be consistent and immediate. Prosecution is neither. At lest getting caught red handed is immediate.

This is a pretty bold statement. And as the poet said: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Do you have evidence to back up your claim that low prosecution rates actually leads to more crimes?

Your current anecdotes sound like hearsay to me, I would need to see some credible sources before I can start believing them.

Lol. Now it’s bold to suggest no enforcement of the law leads to people violating the law more frequently.

First you’re putting words in my mouth. We are talking about petty crime not the entire law, and we are talking about prosecution not all enforcement. Prosecution is not the only way to enforce the law, so nobody is talking about “no enforcement”.

And the statement is because it is a falsifiable with no evidence to back it up. Wegner’s statement about plate tectonics was bold by the same measure (although he offered some evidence; but apparently not enough).

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