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Comment by lxe | Hacker News Reader

Got a $1500 bike stolen from the inside of my locked apartment in Potrero Hill back in 2015 or 16. Was very bitter about that -- it was one of the few things I brought with me to SF. Police ignored it.

For weeks after I was walking through all the homeless chop shops looking for it. About a month after the theft, I received a call from someone who bought a frame (just the frame) with my serial number at a San Jose flea market. Told them to keep it -- at least it's in the hands of someone who cares.

The point of my story is that theft sucks, can happen to anyone, and it takes a toll on our communities. Wish law enforcement took the problem more seriously.

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Law enforcement is useless if they pick and choose which laws to enforce. Laws themselves are pointless if they are not enforced (or even worse: selectively enforced)

Prosecutor's office has a large role here. No reason for cops to investigate crimes that won't be tried.

That's true. But cops also do not get to decide what they investigate based on their own beliefs and biases.

Cops are people. How well would you try to do your job after a few months of seeing your boss purposefully undo whatever work you did at the end of every day. How long would you keep actually coding if your boss just deleted all of your code every shift with no acknowledgment.

If my code was mostly harassing and extorting minorities and the the poor then I'd be glad my boss was deleting it and asking me to stop writing more of it.

What kind of sociopath would get job satisfaction from felony marijuana busts or harassing queer people trying to have a drink at a bar when you could be going after bigger fish?

Maybe the effective Altruism folk can do a law enforcement spin-off to grade the impact of different enforcement strategies in a way that more people would understand.

So stopping bike thefts is harrasing minorities now, or are you on a tangent Noone was talking about? The conversation was about why cops in these areas don't bother investigating crimes and mugging, I would hope you don't think enforcing those laws is racist. If it is, I guess we should just be mad max or something. I agree cops in this country need serious reform, but that's not what this discussion is about.

As a cyclist myself, one of the reasons I don't support laws about cycle helmets is that police regularly use them (as they do many other laws) to harass people on the basis of race, wealth or other biases via inconsistent enforcement.

And that's a law, that in theory, I might be convinced had some merit. Not some War on Drugs BS.

How can you exist in the year 2022, have strong opinions on law and order on the internet and feel deep sympathy with police officers forced to do a thankless task as public servants and yet be blissfully unaware of this entire concept?

I feel like we're not reading the same thread here. Cops going after minorities is a bad thing. But handcuffing the cops so badly that they have no interest in going after organized serial theft rings because they know that no charges will stick is just as much of a problem in the other direction. Unless you think it's fine to live in a place with 0 personal property protection there's obviously a middle ground that should be met here. But whatever, I don't live there, and would move if my local police got that disfunctional, so I'm happy for the people who enjoy living there. May your bikes stay in your possession for at least a year or two, I guess.

Something I didn't spell out, which may explain some of your confusion, there is such a thing as "drug related theft crimes", these are crimes committed by drug addicts to feed their habit.

They have a distinct pattern, and most of the crimes mentioned in this thread fit that pattern. So, if you try to be "tough on crime" by locking up people with addictions rather than helping them break their addiction and/or even just in some scenarios giving them drugs for free, then you are wasting both lives and money.

https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/DRRC.PDF

> Another dimension of drug-related crime is whether the offense is committed to obtain money (or goods to sell to get money) to support drug use. According to BJS national surveys, the most comprehensive information available, an estimated 17% of 1991 State prison inmates and 13% of convicted jail inmates in 1989 reported committing their offenses to get money to buy drugs (table␣3). Offenders convicted of robbery, burglary, and larceny/theft were most likely to commit their offense to obtain money to buy drugs. Offenders convicted of sexual assault and homicide were among the offenders least likely to commit the offense to sustain their drug habit.

I'm suggesting that we should listen to experts, and get the former group medical help, which frees up police time and resources to go after the second group of murderers and rapists, which helps the idea appeal to the tough on crime types even if it has the drawbacks of being more humane, more effective and cheaper as well as actually reducing crime.

But the War on Drugs was never really about the drugs in the first place, so it's not like this was some innocent mistake, it's a problem that got created and is now exploited to push more of the same bad policies.

Cops have the unfortunate position of having to police where the crime is. We have the means to just place a button on a screen. The hackers trying to get in and steal is of no consequence to a programmer.

If in some wierdo universe where programmers had to stop hackers by busting down their door in the middle of the night to stop a hack, maybe programmers would be facing the same scrutiny.

Public: You're going after too many minorities!!!

You: I'm just trying to stop the hackers!!!!

Public: Defund the programmers!

You: Look we stopped 40 white hackers last month! We'll stop going after the others, we promise.

(then you just stop doing anything)

"But cops also do not get to decide what they investigate based on their own beliefs and biases."

Actually they do. It's called law enforcement discretion. They could watch you get murdered and have no legal responsibility to help you (they would likely be fired, but that's about it).

Nah. If you get to pick and choose you are no longer law enforcement. I get prioritization and I get that there are nuances and circumstances but if I break the law and nothing happens and another person breaks the law and they get in trouble, in the same setting, at the same time it's bullshit. Also, cops are not paid to make their own rules or decide which laws are good or bad. We have this entire branch that is responsible for creating/updating/deleting laws.

What you're describing is how it should work. I'm just telling it how it is.

But they do get to decide what they investigate based on the DA's polices. It's a waste of everyone's time to investigate crimes that won't be charged regardless of evidence.

The city affirmatively decided to decriminalize petty crime. Why would you blame the cops for that.

Imho this is about priorities not deciding to not enforce the law. If the cops have nothing to do and a law is broken they should invetigate. They don't get to sit on their buts complaining about the da

This is really up to the prosecutors, not the cops. They tell the cops "we are not charging people for doing X," so the cops don't arrest anyone for X. At least in NYC and SF, there are written statements from the DA's office to this effect.

Can you provide a link to these statements? How old are they?

FWIW I don't live in SF but I've had a couple of car break-ins and I don't even remember if I reported them; it was a formality for insurance purposes if so and I never expected nor saw evidence of any police follow up. Are there cities where that's different?

NYC:

> “Bragg said the office will stop prosecuting people for theft of services, trespassing (unless it accompanies a stalking charge), aggravated unlicensed operation, routine traffic violations not accompanied by felony charges, obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest, and prostitution.“

https://gothamist.com/news/manhattan-da-bragg-tells-staff-st...

The Manhattan DA subsequently claimed to roll back the policy, but they are still not interested in prosecuting. I travel to NYC on business regularly, and I’ve seen 6/6 times in the last 8 months people at various stations openly evading Subway fares. In one case, a dude was holding a gate open and yelling at people to come through and not bother paying - with 2 NYPD sitting there talking about 10 feet away.

In my small upstate city, they’ll only even pretend to investigate a burglary. We have issues with people partying (drinking, smoking weed, having sex, eating and dumping trash in the street) in cars in nice neighborhoods. We have muggings, car thefts, robberies, etc like never before. The cops shrug, as their operating orders prevent them from doing anything.

The “progressive” governance model is to suck up to activists to get the campaign cash. Activists want the cops to stand down to street crime. Ultimately the people who live on the wrong side of the tracks suffer. It’s gross.

Not that Bragg is any good, but turnstile hopping has been happening long before Bragg. Perhaps it’s gotten worse - I don’t have any data

> openly evading Subway fares

Nobody has ever cared about this (nor should they, IMO; disclaimer: I have never lived in NYC). Occasionally journalists go to NYC to interview random residents about fare evasion, and the main response is a shrug.

Frankly, we’d all be generally better off with free public transit. Governments end up paying most of the bill anyway, and increasing transit use would be a big benefit to those most needing help.

> Frankly, we’d all be generally better off with free public transit. Governments end up paying most of the bill anyway, and increasing transit use would be a big benefit to those most needing help.

Not for long. If you turn public transit into a de facto homeless shelter people who have other options will avoid it. No country with good public transport has it free.

Luxembourg has fare-free transit nationwide. Estonia’s capital Tallinn (a city of >400k residents) has fare-free public transit. Dozens (maybe hundreds?) of other cities around the world have made transit free. In the US, Kansas City has fare-free streetcars and bus system, and many other cities are starting experiments with fare-free transit. Generally residents and city officials are happy with the results.

If you don't crack down on free subway rides, next they'll be taking free books from the libraries, helping themselves to health checkups or worse expecting police to investigate their petty crime reports at no expense.

And who ends up paying for all that? That's right, the taxpayer.

I think you’re trying to make a joke, but it’s hard to tell for sure (Poe's law strikes again). Your comment seems like a parody of those “you wouldn’t steal a car” PSA ads trying to discourage copyright infringement.

In case you are serious... Fare evasion vs. stealing library books are clearly categorically different. Routine health checkups should be free for everyone; the US profit-focused healthcare system is totally fucked up: outrageously expensive for society, outrageously ineffective, and outrageously unjust.

Oh whoops, I totally misread the library book part. Okay, unquestionably a joke. Nevermind my response.

I don’t disagree with you, but the fact is the public transit isn’t free in NYC.

Is fare evasion a thing? Sure. But when prosecutorial discretion decides that public transit is going to be de facto free, that’s a governance failure that undermines confidence in government.

If the DA wanted to be the public face of a movement to transform public transit by eliminating fares, that’s one thing. Saying “we’re not interested in prosecuting theft of services”, that’s not the same.

I don't see muggings, burglaries, or car break-ins in that quote.

Not that you were asserting otherwise but it doesn't seem like support for disinterest in theft being a prosecutor choice rather than a cop choice.

That’s a different city (where I live) In my city, the city administration has instructed police not to pursue certain offenses. The DA in my county has to please suburban voters as well, so he projects a little tougher.

Typically, it’s difficult to prosecute things like muggings or car theft.

So using lesser acts that are easily demonstrated is a more scalable process. If you’re in my garage, charging you with trespass and petit larceny will get plead out as trespass. If you have to go to trial for the theft, you need to establish that the property was there, etc. That means witnesses, testimony, etc.

These issues are nuanced. I don’t want to see my neighbors abused by out of control police. But letting criminals run wild isn as bad as letting police run around without accountability. Conservative politicians used to bleat about “the rule of law”. Law requires justice, and that means police and prosecutors must be held to a high standard of conduct and competence.

The fact I learned about NYC fare evasion yesterday is that Andrew Cuomo's crackdown on fare evasion in 2019 cost more in police officer pay than was ever lost in fares. Not just more than was recovered by cracking down, literally more than was ever lost.

That’s about bizarre NY political circus, not fare evasion or enforcement. DA’s don’t give a shit about city budgets - they don’t work for the city or state.

MTA is a public authority with a board controlled by the governor - the mayor of NYC has limited influence over the subways and bridges, but the NYPD (formerly transit police) are the main enforcement. There was an infamous rivalry between the two officials and sending in state police, etc was part of the show.

I'm guessing that if a rich, white or Asian tech worker decided to loot a Walgreens, they would get the book thrown at them. Look at the small business owners in New York who get arrested and charged with everything possible by the DA's office for defending themselves (until public pressure forces them to back down). That's where we are. This is what the people voted for, though.

I mean... Are you saying that there is social inequality?

There is a risk/reward analysis that should go into the decision to loot a Walgreens. If you have nothing to lose or are desperate you're more likely to give 0 fucks and the system just has to deal with you.

I'm saying that the way we run society tilts that risk/reward payoff absurdly in favor of reward for a certain class of people by eliminating their risk. That is, by definition, unjust.

This is total nonsense. Wealthy professionals regularly get away with much more egregious thefts than petty shoplifting, the police do a lot more harassment of poor people than rich people, and lack of response to shoplifting is not about race.

What’s lack of response to shoplifting about? I would like it to end.

Resources, risk v reward. Unless you go with something like broken window theory and wish to use shoplifting to ultimately deter more serious crimes, it's not worth enforcing via government action.

If you want to know where shop lifting is taken seriously, it's Walmart. If you steal from Walmart, they know it, they know who you are and it goes in your file. They will bust you at a felony amount level with all the evidence documented and wait until you are somewhere in a jurisdiction they know will prosecute. They will trespass you and have their LPs hold you and the off duty cop they employ transport you.

"to ultimately deter more serious crimes"

I'd say it's pretty serious when it's to the point that places are going our of business because of it. Any business can expect some shrinkage, but when that number surpasses rhe already low margins in most industries...

Good. It's pathetic that private companies have to take the law into their own hands. Thiefs should go to jail. Crime is bad for society.

There are no Walmarts in SF. I would love to see that approach in SF.

There's a reason there are no Walmarts in SF.

What thefts do software engineers regularly get away with? I've never heard of a software engineer committing wage theft, for example.

I'm not saying that police should hassle someone for sleeping on the street. I'm saying they should arrest people for stealing stuff. That's not harassment. That's justice.

Huh? You don't even know what wage theft is.

I do know what wage theft is, and I am well aware that software engineers aren't generally in a position to do it. The people who commit most of the wage theft are small business owners (who have employees to steal wages from), who are usually poorer than software engineers.

Wage theft is the go-to example of people who say "shoplifting doesn't hold a candle to the thefts the rich do," so I was preempting that argument.

Why would they loot a Walgreens when they could loot the payroll? Wage theft is the most common form of theft[1] in the country and it's almost completely unenforced.

[1] https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo...

Tech workers can't commit wage theft.

I wouldn't consider tech workers rich, rich people tend to own significant assets, often businesses, and don't have to work.

Make no mistake, tech workers are rich. Many small business owners (who do commit lots of wage theft) have fewer assets and lower incomes. Also, tech workers don't commit very many crimes.

Real payroll doesn't work like in Andor, or the old American West. :) You have to be in a position to personally profit by convincing your employees to underreport their time.

> Wage Theft is a Much Bigger Problem Than Other Forms of Theft—But Workers Remain Mostly Unprotected

> wage-theft-bigger-problem-forms-theft-workers/

Swing and a miss on the Clean URL auto-generator

The rampant organized bike theft is particularly obnoxious not only is the theft disproportionately impactful relative to the value since you needed the bike for transportation-- but it's particularly easy to do something about it because its so organized and large scale: Put out bait bikes with trackers and/or surveillance.

(and plus, when you bust a big operation and now have a ton of bikes whos owners can't be located you now have an endless supply of bait)

I think this is much harder in practice. These “honeypots” are often considered entrapment and cause the case to get thrown out.

Really? I though entrapment is more like going under cover saying stuff like "hey wanna help me steal a bike!" "ahhh don't be a chicken!" to someone who wasn't planning to.

They did that here, and had a pretty good track record of convictions:

https://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/bait-bike-program-cu...

Bike thieves are the freaking worst.

Um... no? Entrapment is about being induced to commit a crime you wouldn't otherwise have committed, and it's a lot more relevant for things like drugs or terrorist plots where the government information is outright giving you the things that's illegal for you to have.

For theft, it's quite hard to think of a situation where someone could put you in a state of mind that stealing this thing isn't against the law. The closest I can come is a signed statement by the police department saying "it's not against the law to steal this," and that's more because some jurisdictions will give you the defense if the government lies to you about the law. (And I suspect it still wouldn't qualify because it isn't exactly reasonable to believe that theft could be legal.)

I think example of entrapment for theft is "I'll pay you $10000 for it if you steal that bike for me". ... you wouldn't have normally considered it but now that I stuck a huge windfall under your nose ...

Putting a bike a place and manner an ordinary tourist would, which you just happen to be monitoring is not going to cause someone to steal who otherwise wouldn't.

If we want people to use more bikes, then bike theft should be taken as seriously as car theft.

Law enforcement agencies in the US are infamous for stealing billions of dollars of cash from innocent people using civil asset forfeiture.

You think that's the same thing that we're talking about here?

It's not identical but it definitely demonstrates where the departments' priorities lie. They are self serving monopolies, first and foremost.

Strange that police would ignore a burglary. I get they might ignore a bike stolen from the street. A burglary could easily be a home invasion.

I think the police consider single-family houses more a priority for "home invasion" than apartments. Even if the apartment dweller is a professional, apartments are for "the poors" in the police mentality. At least in my experience from a burglary.

They ignore everything sort of violent crime and easy arrests. In Chicago they even ignore violent crime.

That is not remotely my experience. Someone made a similar comment a few weeks ago and related an experience where their car was stolen and the police refused to initiate a pursuit, which lead to a whole thread about whether it was some kind of new woke policing not to do high speed chases in dense urban areas (spoiler: no). I am more concerned about CPD going nuts if I call them than I am about them blowing me off.

Cops really don't give a shit about property crimes that happen to people they don't think matter. They aren't there to protect your stuff, they exist so the Walmarts of the world don't have to spend even more money on security.

except it's not even working for corporations like walgreens, who are closing stores in san francisco because of excessive shoplifting.

Then why is there so much shoplifting?

Cops know they'll get 50%+ of muncipal budgets whether they stop petty crime or not.

The most important function cops serve is enforcing property restrictions. Someone might be able to walk out with $10 of items from a shelf, but they certainly aren't able to seize the business and do what they want with it. That's how SWAT teams show up and shoot you. I doubt Walmart wants to invest in a standing army, tanks, automatic weapons, seige weapons, etc.

They broke down the door (and destroyed the glass in the process) to get it. The police took the report, gave me a piece of paper, and I've never heard from them since.

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