San Francisco Safeway cuts hours, allegedly due to 'off the charts' theft

How does the level of social services in San Francisco compare to other cities that don't have these problems? I would have guessed it's dramatically higher.

I think you correctly diagnosed the problem but not the cause. There are LOTS of social services (far more than most other cities... we even give them monthly cash on debit cards) offering free clothes, hot meals, showers, and even rooms at a shelter (but they don't want to obey those rules...) and this attracts more homeless here since it's an easier city to be homeless than say somewhere in the South. And this was going on well before COVID--although that gave the city an excuse to do even less than it already did.

This is happening because theft under $950 is a misdemeanor, which means if it's reported to 911 it's a low priority response. As a result, you see rings of people going in grabbing as much as they can which is usually still under $950 and then moving on to the next place. Because there's very little investigation, literal crime rings are doing this and then re-selling on Amazon and Walmart.com and other e-commerce sites. This goes on because it's a low priority to cops, and even if the cops catch them, prosecutors go easy (thanks to Chesa Boudin), and even if they're convicted the judge and jury usually go easy. So if you're a career criminal, SF makes it especially appealing to target. We've allowed "social justice" to be defined as legalizing theft rings and open drug use.

San Francisco probably has one of the most generous social service provisions of any city in the world. The latest one I’ve heard of: a bunch of basic income programs explicitly limited to certain races and also artists for some reason.

> This pilot program will be the first guaranteed income project in San Francisco to focus solely on artists. The other guaranteed income programs include funding for San Franciscans training to become EMTs, Black and Pacific Islander expecting mothers as part of the Abundant Birth Project, and members of San Francisco’s Black and African-American community as part of the Mayor’s Dream Keeper Initiative.

Somehow a city like Tokyo manages to make do without many of these supposedly necessary programs. Weird, right?

This is has been the pattern for a long time. I’ve lived in SF for 20 years and the cops don’t go after small time thieves.

Less than 15% of all thefts result in an arrest. Prosecution is not making the difference. This has been a problem for literal decades.

> Chicago has decided to follow in this folly. I expect it to rapidly implode as a result.

Are you saying it hasn't long-since imploded already?

C'mon, prosecuting people stealing basic necessities[1], and small personal use items[2] are not gonna keep rich corporations from going out of business. We have to defend the marginalized, or else late stage capitalism will turn us all into slave wage laborers.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEuoSmW4DRw

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhCTrcTzFYQ

I don't understand not prosecuting theft at all. There are like 2 things which are super clearly bad and the government should stop (1) theft and (2) violence.

People shouldn't get life sentences for petty theft, but they should get a pretty severe punishment.

Tossing desperate people into prison makes them desperate people with a criminal record that makes them more desperate. Have you ever known anyone with a felony on their record trying to get their life on track? It's hard, and you might be surprised at what can get you charged with one. Even a non-felony conviction can cause trouble getting decent work.