Looters strike high-end San Francisco-area stores for third day in a row
thehill.com
thehill.com
It's true that some races and classes are more likely to receive unfair treatment from the police and the justice system. It's true that they may receive disproportionate sentencing. It's true that those things need to be corrected.
But stopping prosecuting theft is not "correcting". It's insane. It's creating a a new set of injustices to try to "fix" the old. But that doesn't fix anything. It just creates more injustice.
I don't live in the Bay area, but I'd imagine that a local outlet like the Chronicle would be better situated to report on this than a Washington, DC based outlet focused on government/politics.
That's not a swipe at The Hill at all, just that local news organizations likely have more boots on the ground, and better access to local officials/law enforcement.
[0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Dozens-of-robbers-...
I also feel like there's way less discussion around this topic than most topics. I find myself with almost nothing to say about this. What it means, what it indicates, what we do, how to feel about it... I got nothing. This feels unknown, less clear to me, than the regular stream of current events that break across this planet & the west in specific.
Crime definitely feels up, but I live in the bay area and I don't really feel at all unsafe.
We're likely to see a lot of new anti-social behavior as a follow up from a year and a half or more of social and physical isolation, but I don't think it's a dramatic change towards some new normal of roaming bands of teens robbing stores in the bay area. Give it some time to make an example of the ones who were caught, and bring their friends to justice too, and others will do less of it.
Basically just avoid SoMA, Civic Center, Financial District, Tenderloin, and any immediate surrounding areas. I also avoid the Mission but some people like it.
There's no question police need to be reformed, also no question there are a ton of criminals exploiting the situation. Prediction: it gets even worse for minorities and other overpoliced groups.
What you appear to be suggesting would very much be against that.
If I misunderstand you, please correct me.
Perhaps they should just lock up all the expensive stuff like Home Depot does.
People are doing massively parallel theft, betting that they are too many for the police to arrest. So far, it seems to be working. If it continues to work, there are only a few options:
- Businesses accept this as a price of doing business.
- Businesses close because they can't live with this as a price of doing business. Now, if it's high-end stores, that may not be a huge loss to society. But something similar is also happening to drugstores, and people actually need drugstores.
- Businesses beef up their physical security. Maybe something like outside security cameras plus electronic locks on the doors that can only be opened by the people inside.
- Businesses beef up their security by hiring guards. But there probably aren't that many people who are willing to go the rounds with intruders armed with crowbars while unarmed themselves. Sooner or later, that's going to result in looters getting shot. And when it does, that's going to result in widespread outrage, at least among some segments of society.
If you (as a society) won't provide sufficient policing to protect stores, and you won't let the stores protect themselves, then you're either going to have very expensive stores, or you aren't going to have stores. And even the very expensive stores option is facing a feedback loop: They're expensive, so more people feel justified in stealing, so the store becomes even more expensive... That's not sustainable.
So the end result will be no stores. That's a kind of post-capitalism, but I'm pretty sure it's not what most people have in mind by the term.
The ultimate root cause is extreme inequality driving some people to act out. If people's lives are generally tolerable, fewer will feel justified in stealing a luxury item. I think it's less about the handbag and more about giving a middle finger to the established order. And no, I'm not saying we should give criminals carte blanche, or that the status quo is fine. But there is certainly a correlation between inequality and crime and focusing only on security isn't the whole answer.
Inequality isn't driving opportunistic looting. Inequality really doesn't drive organized retail crime rings. Those are convenient excuses for persons who have chosen not to participate in mainstream society.
The number of zeros in Elon Musk's daily net worth has nothing to do with the actions of opportunistic criminals who are able and willing to rationalize their actions with no need for anyone's help ("insurance will pay"; "big corporations" "they have lots of money anyway"; "the stores overcharge"; "I have Righteous Anger"; "only violence and crime draws attention to protests"; and, of course, "I want that now").
But: do you generally associate a calm peaceful society with a lot of security or little? Typically it's dictatorships that have soldiers with automatic rifles patrolling the streets, or failed states that are being run by the military. Tons of security, but does it feel safe?
Sure, tons of security feels unsafe. But a mob charging into a store with crowbars and smashing things doesn't feel very safe, either. (I mean, so far they're just smashing display cases instead of customers' heads, but still...)
Canada doesn't need to pick either of these extremes. Most of Europe used to not have this problem until they had an influx of people in desperate conditions. Small towns in the US didn't need to pick between these extremes (most people never locked their doors) until recently. Somehow it used to work. Rather than asking what broke we'd rather apply a bandaid fix to the most obvious issue.
It just seems bizarre that the same people who rightly call out a "let's ban all guns forever" type of knee-jerk reaction have knee-jerk reactions of their own when it favors their biases. Security good, welfare bad. Experience from other places could never work here. Never look at the broader picture, if someone tries to then they are changing the subject.
So maybe I should say that at the moment we don't seem to have the option of picking a calm and peaceful society without a huge security presence. That's based on the available evidence. But you're right, let's try to make that untrue in the future.
Also, the UK has famously saturated their streets with CCTV. It's unclear how effective that's been. For a nation whose subjects often criticize the militarization of US policing, their armed police and CT police in major cities look like black- and grey-suited cop-SAS operators, sometimes driven around on the backs of motorcycles (which, admittedly, is kinda cool). And I've noticed that even with CCTV, crime's not great, though it doesn't hurt that the locals there seem to complain less about privacy than we do here.
To your question: if we want things to be better without constant patrols, we need enforcement: early, often, and vigorous. NYC cleaned itself up from what it was to how it was when I lived there (I can't speak to today). Other cities can, too. Hammer the offenders — don't give them the kid glove treatment and then apologize for how their unfortunate circumstance in life really makes this all the victim's fault. Give them some Quiet Time behind bars to reconsider their life's choices. Give 'em the tough love they didn't get as children. It's pretty much too late to fix a blown childhood because their parent wouldn't read to them, at least until offenders age out naturally. When are we going to get realistic?
That said, what with The City's leadership and the habits of our fellow voters, I fear Union Square is going to empty out even more and our economy will continue to hemorrhage dollars towards no real effect (except good feels). And life will get measurably worse for our service industry workers and many others.
It seems to be having a positive effect. Looking at the recent case of Sarah Everard [0] the suspect was very quickly tracked down via CCTV.