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Comment by j_walter | Hacker News Reader

That was real and everyone can agree on that based on what they see as well as the data. However you can't go to a single SF neighborhood and find people that think crime has dropped recently. There are boatloads of articles about people having their cars broken into so often they leave them unlocked because replacing windows was so expensive. Videos of people shoplifting while security stands by and does nothing because of the laws. Articles about criminals that kill someone but had been in and out of the system for years with fairly severe crimes but always let off by a rouge DA or out on bail (or without bail because bail is racist).

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/sf-da-announces-homici...

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> That was real and everyone can agree on that based on what they see as well as the data

It’s a pretty well-observed fact (opinion polls etc) that most people across the country think crime has been going up over the last few decades, even as the crime rate has been going down.

So I don’t think “just ask people what they think” is a sound approach here. Most people are just wrong on this point.

That said I’m open to the general causal chain we’re discussing here; I’d just like to see some actual data on prosecution rates and crime reporting in SF.

You should change, “I’d just like to see some actual data…” to “I’d just like to see someones hand chopped off for stealing.”

Maybe if the CVS/Wallgreens/etc took a different tactic. Don't let people inside. Take orders online or line outside, deliver or pick up at the door. Distribute more intelligently.

This should not be necessary in a first-world country. Public institutions should actually do their jobs, or we should stop having to pay for them

> Public institutions should actually do their jobs, or we should stop having to pay for them

There's been a rather noteworthy series of protests over the past summer on the subject of whether or not it's worth it to pay for some of these institutions.

Everywhere else, stores can let people inside without crime being rampant, so obviously this isn't the problem.

What about only letting in people in who have phones attesting to a unique id.

Don't let in people without a device and ban people who are caught stealing once. If they force the doors and come in call the cops and prosecute for felony burglary even if they were only originally banned for stealing socks originally.

Share bad lists and stealing socks means that you are suddenly banned from every store in 100 miles.

Make exceptions for curbside pickup and pre scheduled trips to the grocery store/pharmacy where you will pay for the security that will walk around with you.

Expire people off the list after 5 years of one theft or never after a string of thefts.

For the normal customer nothing happens your phone silently attests from your pocket that you aren't on the list by pinging a service and retrieving a token not sharing your info with the store.

Losers here an alarm sound and a voice telling them to buzz off on penalty of jail.

> Losers here an alarm sound and a voice telling them to buzz off on penalty of jail.

If they're not going to jail for openly shoplifting, why do you think they'd go to jail for this?

Forcing your way into a place to commit a crime is automatically a felony in almost all states. This is true even if the planned crime would be a misdemeanor.

Why does it matter whether it's a misdemeanor or a felony, if Chesa is going to drop the charge either way?

At some point the government actually has to enforce the law. There is no system that can be imagined that obviates that.

That's exactly my point. But once we have a prosecutor who actually prosecutes criminals, then the crime levels will reduce without needing the phone ID system.

You’re making a mistake in thinking something has to happen. It may not, and things may just continue to go downhill.

>let off by a rouge DA

By rouge do you mean red, as in left-leaning? Or rogue?

??? A couple of months ago I literally saw a man get tackled for stealing ties from a high end store in SF nearby union square.

every time I go to target in the metreon, I see someone shoplifting a substantial amount of merch.

every. single. time.

usually what I see is someone with a roller luggage fill it up and then calmly walk out the door

No one considers that perhaps ever-increasing inequality in the Bay Area has also increased both the incentive to commit crime and the disincentive to prosecute it. It would stand to reason that the people who are desperate would be more desperate than ever, while the people who are well-off would be more able to eat the costs than ever. No one is happy but the dynamic is grotesquely sustainable.

> the people who are desperate would be more desperate than ever

This does not follow from increasing inequality. The poor do not get poorer, rich just get richer (faster).

> This does not follow from increasing inequality. The poor do not get poorer, rich just get richer (faster).

The poor stay poor. The lower-middle class becomes poor.

Why unvoting? Of course it would be too easy for themselves justifying their actions blaming inequality, but if in some place life isn't sustainable for others but the super-rich... That's of course going to push people to commit more crimes.

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