Hacker News Reader

Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

SF is funny. If you complain about the crime, lots of long-time residents are loath to admit crime has gone up. "It's been like this since I can remember." "Born and raised fifth generation SFer, no, it's always been like this."

Ideology gets the best of people and they don't want to believe.

Sure, there have been nadirs before, the 80's after all industry left and only some financial services were left downtown --there were vagrants and muggings but for the most part, if you kept away from the bad neighborhoods, you were unaffected.

Now, theft is rampant and unabated. It will take years to recover from "Defund the Police" and No-bail, charge drooping DAs. It takes time to recruit Police and good Prosecutors.

View on HN

Can you provide any... yaknow... evidence that crime is going up on average?

Just a quick Google implies that this is a complete fabrication

https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Francisco-crime-Che...

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

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-crime-r...

>Ideology gets the best of people and they don't want to believe.

The irony of saying this with no data to back up your claim, and the data that exists showing the exact opposite of your claim, is truly palpable

I’m not exactly invested in a side here, but doesn’t the first article concede that people aren’t reporting larceny crimes because the police aren’t doing anything about it?

The article you’re commenting on is evidence and data.

Are you aware that you’re countering data gathered by a long-standing reputable newspaper with data gathered by the police department?

Do you think there’s some other way of measuring theft besides people saying “I am the victim of a theft”?

I don't see how it's useful evidence when there's no time series. What if more people were victims of crime in the past and this number has improved?

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime

And? My links show crime has gotten better over time. Taking a snapshot of crime at one time is useless to understanding the delta.

Would you be able to figure out the acceleration of a body given only it's velocity at one time?

Could your data not be completely accounted for by a decrease in public trust in police effectiveness to address instances of crime at the level of individual instances?

Could you prove this is taking place? If not then I don't see how it invalidates the data. It could just as well be that people are more willing to report crime now.

The only evidence available to us implies that crime is going down. Ideology is the only reason you might believe otherwise without evidence.

I see smoke, but the fire department has not confirmed that there’s a fire. Therefore, there’s no fire, and ideology is the only reason I might believe?

Note that I didn’t say “without evidence” at the end - smoke is evidence, as is an article that you’re commenting on talking about thefts that are common enough to make half of a city’s citizens victims in a five year period. And, you cite a source that notes that people aren’t reporting because nothing comes of it.

I mean, what reason other than ideology would explain your unwillingness to take that stuff as evidence?

> I see smoke, but the fire department has not confirmed that there’s a fire. Therefore, there’s no fire, and ideology is the only reason I might believe?

In this example you cold point to the smoke as first-hand evidence. Can you point to equivalent evidence that people are underreporting crimes?

I'm only asking to see evidence showing underreporting, a claim you made. No ideology here.

The Mayor of San Francisco appointed a tough-on-crime prosecutor who has spoken in public in favor of reviving failed policies like the war on drugs, purged employees hired by her progressive predecessor, and canceled investigations into police misconduct. You already have the most reactionary, cuff-em-and-stuff-em prosecutor you’re likely to get in San Francisco. So if crime is still a problem, you’re going to have to come up with a new excuse.

Also, SFPD’s budget was not cut in the wake of protests against police violence. There was no defunding of police in San Francisco. You can’t blame their inaction on policies that were not implemented here.

Ummm, SF voters voted to make their police force "SMALLER"!

https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21537593/san-francisco-proposi...

Did you even read the article? They weren't meeting these numbers for a long time.

>The proposition also requires San Francisco to end a requirement that there be a specified number of full-duty sworn police officers assigned to neighborhood policing and patrol — a number law enforcement officials say has never been met due to resource constraints.

Yea, I did.

Down from 2398 in 2021.

Voter capped SPO at 1,971.

https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/sites/default/files/2021-...

No, we voted to give the city the authority to reduce the size of the police force. They haven’t actually used that authority. Nor have they reduce the police budget.

You sure?

https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/sites/default/files/2021-...

Chesa left office in early July. That's only a little over 3 months ago. If the situation hasn't improved in a year or two, you would have a point. Right now, it looks more like you are bending the facts to fit a particular political agenda.

The district attorney until last July was a very progressive opposite of tough on crime prosecutor named Chesa Boudin. In july he lost a recall election, and Breed appointed Brooke Jenkins who was also previously a DA but quit to support the recall election of Boudin. Jenkins has to run for the position in November - currently she's only serving the rest of Boudin's term.

So the 'tough on crime' stuff is very new, at the speed the courts move.

As for the police, the people said they hate the police and the police heard them loud and clear, and are leaving on their own. For the same reasons, far fewer people are interested in joining their police force.

Why be a police officer in a place that hates you?

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-grap...

https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-police-department-shortag...

As I point out downthread, it will take time for this to manifest. Compare and Contrast Daly City/San Mateo county. It's not like the USSR where you bring in a show team to convict and send everyone to the Gulags overnight and instill fear through marxist means. No, this takes time and effort to turn around. From Koch to Dinkins to Giuliani --it takes time to tamp down crime.

For things to straighten out support for rule-of-law has to manifest from bottom to top and back. From Citizens, to Public Figures, to Influencers, to Representatives, to Captains, to Prosecutors, DAs and the Mayor. We have some of that. You can't have situations where the police try to arrest someone and you get a mob questioning police motives and then complain when the police don't come.

That’s crazy, I actually show up every morning to do my job without the Mayor personally telling me that I’m brave and handsome every day. There’s a fair amount of stickers outside my apartment that say things like “Die Techie Scum,” and yet, I keep showing up for work to do the job I get paid to do.

Maybe we should find some cops who are capable of doing the job they’re paid to do, instead of insisting on a wholesale cultural revolution to protect their fragile egos at all costs.

> It will take years to recover from "Defund the Police"

There has not been any reduction of the SF police budget in this century.

The Mayor made a speech in 2020 suggesting that some funds would be redirected from police budgets into some social programs, but this did not represent any actual reduction in police funding.

If you are under the impression that SF was in any way affected by “defunding the police,” you are mistaken, because that didn’t happen.

At this point it's basically the monty python "its just a flesh wound" scene.

Anyone who has visited SF knows exactly whats going on.

Anyone who lives in SF also knows exactly whats going on. They'll just desperately point to some statistic from a tiny town they've never been to that actually measures and enforces the law.

Anything to justify continuing to vote for whatever the media tells them to vote for next.

It's not the media or the this or the that -- it's the lack of competition.

In ideas and options.

Groupthink of any ilk leads to death.

The police are no more responsive (if anything, less) after the progressive DA was recalled. You can’t blame the DA or the voters for this one.

Definitely can blame DAs for not brining charges. The rule of law is literally the only deterrence to anti-social behavior.

Crime has increased under the new DA…

Seems like the rule of law isn’t much of a deterrence in this case

Changing DAs is not like deploying a software service. It takes time for changes to propagate.

Crime increased ... or crime reports increased. Perhaps people are now reporting crime because the police and DA will actually do something.

When was the new DA inaugurated?

The situation is not unlike steering a barge. It takes time, lots of time for your actions to manifest (and of course you can overcorrect, or undercorrect as you don't see immediate effect).

Jenkins wasted no time disbanding the group within the DA's office that was responsible for investigating and prosecuting police misconduct. The barge ain't that big.

https://missionlocal.org/2022/08/jenkins-removed-prosecutor-...

  In the latest reorganizational move from appointed incumbent District Attorney
  Brooke Jenkins, the attorney prosecuting former police officer Christopher
  Samayoa for the shooting death of unarmed civilian Keita O’Neil will be removed
  from the case. 

  The announcement came in the form of an Aug. 12 all-staff memo from Jenkins,
  obtained by Mission Local. Assistant District Attorney James Conger was the
  last remaining prosecutor hired by ousted DA Chesa Boudin in the Independent
  Investigations Bureau of the DA’s office. That unit investigates police
  shootings and most police misconduct cases that may warrant criminal
  prosecution.

Do you feel that police are fully supported by the citizenry and DA to enforce existing laws?

> It will take years to recover from "Defund the Police"

Did that actually happen though?

The initiative failed when it came to a vote in Minneapolis, crime was up already anyway, even without such initiatives.

When I first came to SF the city was int he grip of a crack epidemic and. I've seen people get shot in the face broad daylight and been in the middle of a driveby. The city is going through an uptick in crime at the moment but its mainly property crime. I don't feel significantly less safe, though that's partly because I have a lot of experience with unsafe situations.

A large part of this is simply driven by poverty and prices. Policymakers, business owners, and pundits naturally want a city full of high-earning go-getters whose money will increase the general level of prosperity, fair enough. But there's some sort of naive belief that people at the bottom end of the scale magically teleport themselves away to other labor/residential markets where they'll be more competitive, because economics class made it look just that simple.

> Now, theft is rampant and unabated. It will take years to recover from "Defund the Police" and No-bail, charge drooping DAs.

I agree that ideology gets the best of people. For example there is a baffling group of people set on blaming all current and future crime on a previous DA and absolving the current DA, mayor and SFPD leadership of _any_ responsibility for what goes on in the city.

It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me rationally, but I understand the appeal of having a singular boogeyman to blame everything on, kind of like Evangelicals and their fixation on Satan.

Does the city have any will to change?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com