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Comment by huevosabio | Hacker News Reader

I come from Ciudad Juarez. Between 2008-2011, the city was the murder capital in the world and basically unlivable.

My brother and I were no longer living there because we were in college. My parents decided to send my sister, then starting highschool, to a city in central Mexico with friends of the family to avoid having her grow up in what was a life and death environment. My parents stayed.

Mexicans speak a lot about cartel wars and the violence it comes with. What is not often mentioned is that what _really_ kills the city and society is the unorganized crime that pops up when laws are not applied.

The cartel wars laid bare that the police was not going to prosecute anything in fear of retaliation. This opened the door to anyone to commit any sort of crime. Carjacking was increasingly common. My uncle fled one such attempt and miraculously escaped to the US unharmed but with his truck showered with bullets. My mother saw a guy getting shot in the streets just because of road rage. Friends had their parents killed or kidnapped.

Every crime that goes unprosecuted is an invitation for a repeat crime. This is as true in Juarez as it is in San Francisco.

The most basic definition and purpose of the state is to hold the monopoly of violence. It must jealously protect this. The alternative is unsustainable anarchy followed by someone else filling that void.

San Francisco has been ceding its monopoly of violence for years if not decades.

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Thank you for sharing your personal perspective. As a fellow immigrant, have nothing to say except that I totally agree. Many of us come from countries with less than great rule of law, and the entire reason me and my parents came here is for a better life where laws are fairly and equally enforced. That means that if you work hard - you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

That sums up so well. Saving this.

As an immigrant I also agree with this. I think it is mainly immigrants that appreciate how much better things are in the US. Sure they aren’t perfect but law enforcement had m worked extremely well here compared to many of the countries we’ve come From. And in chasing some form of utopian perfection we have thrown off the balance of something that worked quite well in favor of declining standards and opened the door to more crime, which affects the same people we were trying to protect in the first place.

San Francisco has been ceding its monopoly of violence for years if not decades.

Trends suggest otherwise: https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/

The big peak in violent crime in the 1990s is the crack epidemic. I personally saw driveby shooting attacks and personal murders in broad daylight; 24th street (and the Mission in general) used to be considered a no-go area by folk in better-off neighborhoods.

It seems to me that the basic problem in SF is wealth disparity. The city is a great place to make money if you are in the finance or tech industries and have decent social skills. But the wealth that stays in SF tends to build upward rather than lift up less well off neighborhoods. Not only is housing expensive, community space for weird stores/art galleries/music events is also at a premium, which severely limits avenues for grey market enterprise and social mixing/mobility. The unorganized crime exists because regular jobs are not that profitable and there's a large and deliberately-created (at the federal level) underclass of undocumented people with no straightforward path to legal workforce participation.

SF was a remarkably different city prior to 9-11, which ushered in a securocratic mindset in many respects. A simple but telling example is that nearly BART stations used to have toilets, though as you might expect some of them were nasty. After 9-11, these were closed in the name of security, a 'temporary' situation which has persisted for over 20 years. Concession stands like news/candy/flower vendors gradually vanished too, along with buskers. Subway stations stopped being part of the city's social life in favor of pure transit functionality. Likewise bus stops now have all sorts of built-in tech to tell you when the next bus is arriving in 20 different languages, but the bus shelters are deliberately constructed not to provide any shelter from the elements, or even make it easy to sit down.

The state (qua city government) very much maintains its monopoly on violence; police budgets have gone up rather than down. It's just selectively enforced because the police are themselves a political constituency who compete with other agencies for funding.

https://abc7news.com/sfpd-budget-defund-the-police-departmen...

I'd be careful with any crime stats other than like, murder stats. The problem is that people are less likely to report crimes if they don't think they're going to be prosecuted. There's many anecdotes of people asking for police help and they just tell them not to bother.

> In April [2022], [...] the dept issued 338 tickets for traffic violations. By comparison, in April 2014, the year Vision Zero began, the department issued 11,612 tickets.

Does that mean nobody violates traffic laws in SF anymore? Of course not. But if the tickets aren't issued they're not rolled up into stats. Same with all sorts of violent and property crime.

When I lived in the mid-mission a few years ago I had to call in a shooting that happened outside my bedroom window. There were a ton of violent altercations between pimps and prostitutes that were just straight-up ignored. And 24th St became an open-air Walgreens.

> The letter highlighted alarming data backing up many residents’ concerns that police have thrown up their hands. For example, last year the Department of Police Accountability opened 595 cases into alleged police wrongdoing; the largest share by far, 42.6%, related to “neglect of duty.” That percentage has ticked up steadily since 2016, when neglect of duty made up 32% of complaints. [1]

[edit] Your own source seems to back that up. Your source is for all of California, not SF. And one of the big sub-headings is "crime rates vary dramatically by region and category" and specifically calls out SF as having an outsized quantity of property crime.

> The state’s highest rate of violent crime was in the San Joaquin Valley, which had 640 violent incidents per 100,000 residents. The highest rate of property crime was in the San Francisco Bay Area, at 2,718 per 100,000 residents.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article...

That's why I addressed violent crime specifically, where reporting is much more reliable.

Is it? I know of two armed rape cases in SF proper where the police refused to even file a report. Anecdotal yes, but bottom line is officers are encouraged to not report things. Unless there's a body there's enough anecdotal evidence out there to suggest coverage might not be all that perfect.

What the heck are they getting paid for? Contrary to popular belief, the police have never been defunded.

They don’t really get to “refuse”. You just tell them “such and such happened” and you get a case number and (generally) nothing happens. I’ve done it several times, and nothing ever happened, but the case was indeed “filed”.

(They will happily and helpfully suggest that a report isn’t necessary and probably you don’t want to file one anyway. They are human, and lazy.)

Basically, someone in this story is confused.

> The problem is that people are less likely to report crimes if they don't think they're going to be prosecuted. There's many anecdotes of people asking for police help and they just tell them not to bother.

That's 100% speculative. Do you have evidence of their effect on crime stats, and wouldn't that effect also take place when crime was higher in the 90s?

This is precisely why murder stats are used. Murder is a crime we don't see affected much by expectations for solution. That is, murder gets reported one way or another (far longer than petty crime does anyway.)

E.g, someone smashes window and I don't expect cops to do something. So I don't report it. But someone shows up dead on my doorstep, whether or not I expect to them to solve it, id report it because there's a dead person on my doorstep.

By almost any metric, including murder rate, SF is still one of the safest large cities in the country.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/violent-crime-san-...

> But the wealth that stays in SF tends to build upward rather than lift up less well off neighborhoods.

How do you square this statement with gentrification? Feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation...

I think people are realizing more and more that failure to build up is a failure to help less well-off neighborhoods. The bad part of gentrification is displacement, not that some buildings might look new and desirable. SF politicians still need to learn this lesson.

> failure to build up is a failure to help less well-off neighborhoods

How - like tangible, tactical recommendations that have the political willpower to get enacted?

There's been a lot of tangible, tactical legislation that is just gearing up, so I'm optimistic. Look at the record of state senator Scott Wiener. He's proven there's political will in areas that seemed hopeless ten years ago.

> It seems to me that the basic problem in SF is wealth disparity.

Really?

> police budgets have gone up rather than down.

And what do you think the police are supposed to do when the prosecutions by the DA fall off a cliff? Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, if the number of cops remains unchanged, but the percentage of criminals they detain being arraigned/charged/arrested drops, that maybe, just maybe, crime will go up?

The cognitive dissonance is just unbelievable here.

Except they mostly skip the detain step in favor of complaining that the latter steps totally would have been messed up had they actually tried to do their job.

Maybe provide evidence rather than exaggerated statements and attacks (a signal of lack of evidence). Inform us:

What are the stats on DA prosecutions - I've heard that claim in other places about progressive DAs, and they turned out to be false.

Also, it's not clear to me that crime goes up if prosecutions go down; it's possible, but it's possible that looking at all arrests the same, for every alleged crime, is meaningless; it's possible that more arrests means worse cases; it's possible police are providing worse evidence, or the distribution of crime types has changed, or criminals have no idea of crime stats and have other motivations.

Is there some correlation you can point to?

The stats on the previous DAs dramatic reduction in prosecutions are publicly available via Google search. If you actually cared about interrogating your own beliefs you would look this up yourself but you don't.

I don't waste time arguing with far left ideologues.

It's like talking to fundamentalist Christians about evolution: wasted time.

Your statement about it not being clear that crime goes up if less criminals are prosecuted is the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've seen in a long time. Do you even realize how utterly lacking in common sense the statement is?

Okay, I did the google search you mentioned. It says you're wrong:

"Overall Prosecution Rate in SF Remains Largely the Same Under Boudin" - NBC

Here's the raw data from the DA's office: https://www.sfdistrictattorney.org/policy/data-dashboards/

I'll also ask you to consider how this whole thread could have gone differently if you and everyone else had bothered to constructively engage with the discussion, and done the research you so dismissively told others to do.

Did you not see the note at the bottom of the dashboard that says it excludes murder, rape, and domestic assault? Did you unthinkingly look at the aggregate, and not click on specific crimes like commercial burglary and see a massive drop in percentage of reports being prosecuted?

"Guys, you'll never believe it! According to the DA's office, the DA is doing great!"

You're only looking at the first chart, scroll down if you want those other crimes included (you can even filter only on them). It's still level.

This post is a great example of performative outrage and the use of rhetorical fallacies as a distraction from the underlying facts. A+, would nod unthinkingly again.

> The big peak in violent crime in the 1990s is the crack epidemic. I personally saw driveby shooting attacks and personal murders in broad daylight; 24th street (and the Mission in general) used to be considered a no-go area by folk in better-off neighborhoods.

You have your dates and anecdotes off. The crack epidemic was in the 1980s, not the 1990s. There was, however, always a serious heroin trade in that area. After the gang truce in 1992, the Mission was incredibly safe and a great place to live. Going to the bars after work and spilling out into the streets after 2 am was a safe and peaceful affair. Further, a lot of the property crime that people are complaining about has nothing to do with locals; it was perpetrated by organized gangs from outside the city. This is still true today and several investigative news articles on this phenomenon have been published recently. The Mission was never a "no go" area by people who lived in the city. It was an incredibly vibrant place to live and work, with great bars, restaurants, stores, and culture. In many ways, the Mission is the heart of San Francisco given its centralized location and history. For anyone to describe it as a no go area reveals that they never lived there and know nothing about it. That all changed when the tech bros moved out from the Midwest and East coast and chased all the artists out of the city. These people who were forced out were the people who actually cared about their communities and helped each other out and were the spirit and life blood of what the city was in its heart and soul. Now the new blood doesn’t like the new city they helped create, but of course, it’s always someone else’s fault.

No I don't. The crack epidemic continued well into the 90s. I lived in the Mission at the time, loved it, and know the area like the back of my hand. It was a normal thing to get offered crack by 5 different people while walking down 24th from Mission to Harrison; I could BART over there and give you a walking tour of local crimes I personally witnessed. I grew up in a rough town so it didn't bother me much.

For anyone to describe it as a no go area reveals that they never lived there and know nothing about it.

...which was why I said it was considered that way 'by folk in better off neighborhoods.' People who lived in places like North Beach or the Marina were horrified by it.

You are right about the influx of tech people during the first boom (along with the finance bros, though those have shaped SF in various ways since the gold rush) pushing people out. By the 1990s Haight/Ashbury had already become an unaffordable tourist trap with most of the fancy victorian houses being super expensive. In contrast SoMa was a much more industrial than it is today, with enough turnover that there were always empty spaces that could be rented or borrowed for a rave.

How does replacing artists with tech bros lead to more crime ?

> How does replacing artists with tech bros lead to more crime ?

Honestly, if that’s what you took away from my comment, I don’t think there’s anything I could say to explain it to you. From a systems POV, artists are the bellwether indicator for the health of a city. They function to maintain homeostasis and self-regulation of the community. When they are forced out of a city, the city goes into decline. It’s more complex than that, but that’s part of it.

Think about it for 30 seconds: if artists (the general class of writers, musicians, dancers, painters etc.) can afford to live in a city in a sustainable way, that means the economy has achieved a stability where inequality is low, wages meet cost of living, and there’s enough free time for people to create and invent and design without sacrificing their entire life at the altar of a 9-5 job.

And when that niche is disturbed and the artists are forced to leave, you then have a large influx of high earners who replace them and raise the level of inequality for everyone, except this time, there is no real interest in maintaining the community and culture that existed before, but rather a new focus on increasing and preserving wealth. That wealth is than targeted and preyed upon by predatory criminals who before would not have paid much attention to low income artists.

But to put your misinterpretation and misreading aside for the moment so as to focus on something more constructive, there is good evidence that as more money was pumped into the city from newcomers, a new predator/prey relationship arose from organized crime groups which focused on smash and grabs and home robberies.

The so-called South American Tourist Gang has targeted homes throughout California, for example. It’s also of note that organized criminal gangs engaging in smash and grabs are not unique to California.

The popular right wing talking point that blames progressive California laws and lax law enforcement for crime has almost zero support in the academic criminal justice community and is based mostly on fear and anger, not evidence. It makes for good political fodder for conservative candidates but isn’t based on reality.

It seems to me that the basic problem in SF is wealth disparity.

You own data suggests otherwise

https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/

The peak in violent crime was the 90s. The peak of property crime was 80s, and there were 40 years of crime decline at the exact same time wealth disparity was growing. What changed recently was the new lax attitude on crime, decarceration, and hated towards the police.

Truth is, San Francisco did not follow the pattern of the rest of CA and saw rising murders through the 2000's. It finally declined in 2009 after a huge federal and local crackdown on gangs and MS13 in San Francisco.

I'm not arguing that inequality explains all crime, I thought it was clear from the contrast I drew between previous decades and the present that I was talking about it being the main driver of present-day crime (whereas economic mobility and housing space availability was better a couple of decades ago). Sorry for not articulating that more clearly.

> It seems to me that the basic problem in SF is wealth disparity.

Indeed, I hate when wealth disparity breaks into my car.

Broken windows theory

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

They applied that in my suburb and media kept comparing it with racism. They stopped doing that from last year and car jacking and other violent crime is on the rise again. I could never understand how “Broken Window” is racist? And I am a minority.

Whatever the fix for institutional racism is need not be contradictory to Broken Window. They can work together.

Because "broken window" is too often taken to mean "come down hard on loiterers, grafitti vandals, people who lack the money to maintain property standards, etc"... instead of focusing on violent crime.

Now obviously there's a real debate to be had about how severely petty theft and vandalism should be punished. I mean, George Floyd was killed over a counterfeit bill.

But once you get into violent crime everybody is on the same page.

But basically, in order to get all the violent crime under control, you need a hefty police force. And a hefty police force means a lot of cops roving around hassling poor people and people of color who are just trying to live their lives, which is what the left-wing activists get angry about.

Figuring out how to get effective policing without intrinsic racism/classism that always seems to come with that is a big challenge.

> Because "broken window" is too often taken to mean "come down hard on loiterers, grafitti vandals, people who lack the money to maintain property standards, etc"... instead of focusing on violent crime.

The broken windows theory isn’t about violent crime, it’s literally about property crime and offenses like vandalism. The idea is that when that kind of petty crime goes unchecked, the crime situation in the area spirals, both in terms of quantity and severity, eventually leading to more violent crime.

You can disagree with the theory all you want, but to assert that the issue is that it should only apply to violent crime is to fundamentally misunderstand the assertion the theory is making.

I thought the issue was that "broken windows" was used as a metaphor for all low-level infractions, and not literally interpreted as "fix the windows and clean up the graffiti" as the studies recommended. This then got implemented as quotas on police departments, leading to opportunistic, biased policing and the de facto criminalization of poverty.

As a result, the term "broken windows" now carries a ton of baggage, and is sometimes used as a racist dog whistle.

Pretty much every phrase carries a ton of baggage to someone, it’s impossible to speak without offending at least one person.

What some, or even a majority, go on to redefine it as does not change its original meaning. If a place looks like a dump people will treat it like a dump. You and wherever you read this from is conflating the issue with racism.

Language is fluid. You can deny a new meaning, yet if you're in the minority then you may suffer for it.

Most engineers aren't working on siege works any more.

We will quickly end up with no words if we continue this language hijacking path. English is a very contextual language. If a phrase or word is racist then the entire sentence is racist. I can recall an instance where I used the phrase "you people" on the internet. Clearly impossible for me to know the peoples race I was speaking to, yet they claimed it racist because some racist people somewhere also speak English.

How about we listen to what people are actually saying instead of twisting meaning to fit a narrative to further control speech? For those that are offended by speech and are demanding, essentially, the removal of the first amendment, it is a learning opportunity that words don't actually harm, only actions.

The problem that US faces has been solved by other western countries. Australia has way more safer cities than USA. But the key is to not to politicise everything under the sun. Let the police do their job and whenever there is a misconduct it will be handled by the review board.

Though it’s not like Australia is perfect either: https://www.ccc.qld.gov.au/about-us/our-history/fitzgerald-i...

(And that’s just one state, every single state has had similar issues with this in their police forces)

That goes without saying that nothing is perfect. Even Toyota cars breakdown too (see turbo issue in Land Cruisers) but the fact is that they breakdown less than the other brands. Life is imperfect. We have to pick the least imperfect system.

Maybe the key is to be an island? Hard to reproduce in the US. Maybe the key is to not have a legacy of slavery? No something the US can undo.

Could be. But my point is, whatever it is, we need to address it. Living good and safe shouldn’t be a luxury.

You mean like Canada?

Most countries had slavery. Many still do. Using a legacy of slavery to not enforce the law is part of the reason liberal US cities are crime infested

Downvoted but not disputed of course lol

> whenever there is a misconduct it will be handled by the review board.

The core problem is that this very important part hasn’t been happening.

Agree. I should have been more clear. Independent review boards.

Nor do the police do their jobs, if their job is solving and preventing crime.

Might be a chicken and egg problem but countries with low crime rates typically have well educated police who apply deescalation, plus much higher social security and public service standards.

It’s very simple. People who are never looked after by their community, but only harassed, beaten and killed, will not see themselves as part of that community but as an enemy.

Violent criminals do not suddenly appear on the streets from out of a portal from another dimension. They start out as babies, then toddlers then children. Something goes very wrong, neglect and lack of guidance, developing a delusional reality of the world , and by the time they are adults are unable model how the world actually works and cope to sustain themselves. Desperation and short-term thinking sets in, and violent crime follows.

Social values really matter. Countries with low crime rates don't have them because the police are educated about deescalation. That is important too and I support that, but the police are largely irrelevant to the underlying issue. This is coming from someone who grew up thinking social conservative types and people going on about social values needed to relax. I was wrong and realized that when I had children. Children absolutely need stability, reassurance, love and guidance from their mother and father, it's absolutely critical.

"Something goes very wrong, neglect and lack of guidance, developing a delusional reality of the world"

violence is inherent to animal life and it does not require delusion. that's like saying an alligator is delusional for attacking a deer.

Talking about humans here, not alligators.

What percentages of beatings and killings are perpetrated by members of the community vs members of the police force, I wonder.

A test was done (in the Netherlands I believe) where they'd put an envelope with cash in a letterbox (sticking out, still visible). In a street with lots of graffiti, more people stole the envelope than in streets without.

Don't remember where, but I saw an economic paper that said that, while Giuliani's theory of brutalizing vandals to prevent murders didnt have any evidence to support it, New York saw a reduction in murders when the cops started responding to murder calls.

Police are good for exactly one thing: responding to violence with violence

If you're new to the debate, you might want to look up the term "stop and frisk". I think some people group that under the broader umbrella of "broken windows policing", but other people don't, and that difference in meaning can make things more confusing.

Is probably a fallacy of correlation being tied to causation.

> The policy targeted people in areas with a significant amount of physical disorder and there appeared to be a causal relationship between the adoption of broken windows policing and the decrease in crime rate. Sridhar, however, discusses other trends (such as New York City's economic boom in the late 1990s) that created a "perfect storm" that contributed to the decrease of crime rate much more significantly than the application of the broken windows policy. Sridhar also compares this decrease of crime rate with other major cities that adopted other various policies and determined that the broken windows policy is not as effective.

> In a 2007 study called "Reefer Madness" in the journal Criminology and Public Policy, Harcourt and Ludwig found further evidence confirming that mean reversion fully explained the changes in crime rates in the different precincts in New York in the 1990s.[38] Further alternative explanations that have been put forward include the waning of the crack epidemic,[39] unrelated growth in the prison population by the Rockefeller drug laws,[39] and that the number of males from 16 to 24 was dropping regardless of the shape of the US population pyramid.

As always, the wikipedia article is a good place to start to look into further sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

It's time to let "broken window theory," and bloodthirsty, punitive "justice" strategies, die.

I dunno man - to be honest, nowadays it seems you can find a study to back up any side of the debate, especially with highly politicized issues like this. I'm certain that there are studies out there showing that broken windows policing was in fact the main contributor to the decrease in crime.

> to be honest, nowadays it seems you can find a study to back up any side of the debate, especially with highly politicized issues like this

Perhaps this is true, and perhaps this is a part of the issue the usa has with "different facts for both sides."

> I'm certain that there are studies out there showing that broken windows policing was in fact the main contributor to the decrease in crime.

I'm going to challenge you on this because I feel like this basically just contributes to the problem. Think about what you wrote, you're "certain," certain that studies exist showing our that broken windows policing works, and thus you believe it works.

You arrived at a conclusion of the world with, genuinely, no evidence. You don't even know if the evidence exists! In fact you arrived at two conclusions: that your conclusion is correct, and that a lot of other people proved this with good studies.

Now I challenge you to simply read the wikipedia article on the subject in its entirety and pay close attention to the "criticism" section. I've done this because I care deeply about the issue, and I've also read the various studies linked. For me, I found the "for broken policing" studies to be dubious and problematic, and the criticisms to be valid. As a result, my understanding of the world is that broken window policing doesn't work, the basic theory is a misunderstanding of actual mechanisms, and that the application of broken windows policing pulls resources from more effective solutions while also delivering inequitable justice to society. So, when you're read up as well, do you still disagree with me?

I appreciate the thoughtful reply. Now I can tell you that you're probably not going to like my reply much, based on what you have said previously. But I feel I should get it out there, I guess so we can exchange perspectives and see what someone "on the other side" of the issue thinks.

> You arrived at a conclusion of the world with, genuinely, no evidence. You don't even know if the evidence exists! In fact you arrived at two conclusions: that your conclusion is correct, and that a lot of other people proved this with good studies.

Here's the thing - I do have evidence. But it's the evidence I've seen with my own eyes, not something I've read in some paper or study. My evidence is (I see no other way to put it than to be frank) just common sense.

I've met plenty of people in my life. I've seen humans and I know how humans behave. When there is threat of punishment, legitimate actual punishment, people fall into line. You have to know this to be true - it's literally human nature. People will act out as much as they possibly can before things get serious. Go look at any school, for instance. There's a massive difference between the "harsh" teachers' classrooms and the teachers who are known to be pushovers.

Punishments work. Deterrence works. It's something I personally know, as someone who has faced punishments many times. Another thing I personally know is that you can't take any shit. If people start trying to test your shit, test your boundaries, you have to stamp that behavior out immediately, or it will intensify. Again, it's a human nature thing. There exists bullies and sociopaths out there, and they will keep raising the bar of abuse. So in my view, tolerating petty crimes only leads to people pushing boundaries and more and more violent crime. Just like troublemaker students pushing the teacher further and further in poorly run classrooms.

And also, quite frankly, I like clean spaces. I hate grafitti, and drug addicts bothering everyone, and drunks passed out in the subway cars. I feel that our society should not tolerate such disorderliness, and instead should actively shun and punish such behavior, in order to strongly incentivize people to become productive and contributing members of society. Tolerating that stuff is like handing these people the keys to their own destruction. Sometimes other people do indeed know better and society needs to help these people get control of their lives.

Have I seen studies or other acceptable documentation for my conclusion? Nothing that I can specifically remember, or at least nothing that I have at hand. But I don't feel I NEED documentation. It's just so obvious to me that punishing crime serves to deter crime, and the harsher the punishment, the stronger the deterrent. I personally don't commit any crimes, I'd guess that at least 90% of people don't either, and I feel that harshly punishing things like vandalism or burglary will only make society better for all law-abiding citizens.

I'm fascinated by your response. You admit outright that you don't care what studies say, yet you think your opinion on how society should be run is valid. Can we explore that? First, I need to point by point respond to your comment, I simply can't help myself. If you aren't interested, I'd be grateful if you could jump to my TLDR and explore with me my question.

> But it's the evidence I've seen with my own eyes, not something I've read in some paper or study

Known as "anecdotal evidence." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

> "Anecdotal evidence is considered the least certain type of scientific information. Researchers may use anecdotal evidence for suggesting new hypotheses, but never as validating evidence."

> My evidence is (I see no other way to put it than to be frank) just common sense.

No, it isn't, because it isn't common to me and other people that are in favor of evidence-based judicial methods, nor in general, left-leaning people. I notice a tendency of conservative ideology to claim "common sense" for their principles, but this seems to have usually just meant "the traditional beliefs I hold, backed by anecdotal evidence, confirmation and selection bias, and arrived at by refusing to think past the very first principle conclusion of a subject." A good example is "build the wall." Immigrants are coming in and that's Bad, for whatever reason. Simple, build a wall, that'll keep them out. I've seen fences keep my dogs in the backyard. It all works! This example is unrelated to the current topic, more representation of the style of thinking I believe necessary to maintain positions that fly directly in the face of evidence and deeper analysis.

> I've met plenty of people in my life. I've seen humans and I know how humans behave. When there is threat of punishment, legitimate actual punishment, people fall into line.

This argument could be used to justify, for example, corporeal punishment, which has been demonstrated to not work. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/corporal-pu...

It's another great example of why your self-assured "common sense" position fails. "If I threaten to beat my children, they stop stealing candy." No, they simply get better at stealing candy in a way that you don't notice, because you selected for avoiding traumatic punishment, not correcting behavior. Ample evidence holds this to be true and it is now the generally agreed upon medical consensus in child rearing, in short, it is "common sense" for those in the know.

> You have to know this to be true - it's literally human nature.

I don't know this to be true, it contradicts my experience, driven by a considered and researched approach to interpersonal relationships. Dale Carnegie is considered by many to be the foremost expert in interpersonal relationships and effective communication - where does he recommend "threat of punishment" in interpersonal relationships? Instead, he recommends empathy, treating others like equals, calmness, and clear communication. These are incompatible with harsh punishment.

Try this on for size: who gets better results, the asshole boss wielding the stick, or the boss that puts in the effort to get to know their team, communicate expectations, and shares and celebrates wins? Pick up any startup book recommended by all these ycombinator folks, see what type of boss they recommend you be.

Regarding your teacher example, I was once a teacher, and I come from a family of teachers. I'm not arguing for teachers to be pushovers, but the "harsh teachers" don't really get good results, at best they might get a quiet classroom. Is that what you want to measure and select for?

> Punishments work. Deterrence works.

Hammurabi code logic, and punishment + deterrence aren't as effective judicial strategies as restorative justice and rehabilitation of criminals. Example: Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_Norway with the lowest recidivism rates in the world.

> Norway's prison system is renowned as one of the most effective and humane in the world.

Yet somehow this "least punitive" justice system on earth has the best results. This contradicts your "common sense."

> Another thing I personally know is that you can't take any shit. If people start trying to test your shit, test your boundaries, you have to stamp that behavior out immediately, or it will intensify.

Trying to apply your own interpersonal philosophy like this to a society's judicial strategy alone seems flawed. This is vague, which alone means we shouldn't be basing policy off of it. It also doesn't sound to me like a very developed personal philosophy. People have been writing about interpersonal philosophy for a while and I'm surprised this simplistic "smash those that give you shit" style didn't evaporate upon first reading of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

> There exists bullies and sociopaths out there, and they will keep raising the bar of abuse.

Ironically, those in my camp find the "retributive justice" arguments you're making to be sociopathic. You see a homeless drug addict and immediately jump to "throw this degenerate in prison," rather than the more empathetic take of wondering what caused the person's life to fall to such a wretched state. You'd rather spend the money keeping them behind bars, punishing them for their "personal failings," than spend (demonstrably less) money trying to help them. As a former conservative, I believe this is because empathy, especially for perceived degenerates, feels icky and feels like weakness, which is an intolerable personal feeling to have. Forgive me for reaching so far if this isn't how you feel, but this is what I perceive that other still-conservative people believe.

> So in my view, tolerating petty crimes only leads to people pushing boundaries and more and more violent crime.

There isn't evidence to support this, and also this ignores that the definition of "crime" can change. Example, there's no good reason for weed to be illegal, and yet alcohol to be legal, considering alcohol is the far more dangerous drug. We saw exactly what is to be expected when alcohol is made illegal: the formation of alcohol cartels (mafia) that took over the streets. When prohibition ended, their power (income) was cut into pieces and the era of the mafia ended. No, going to war with them in the streets didn't solve it, ending prohibition did. And yet by your logic every person smoking weed on a street in Texas is technically a criminal. By tolerating their action we "tolerate more violent crime." The logic doesn't hold.

> I feel that our society should not tolerate such disorderliness, and instead should actively shun and punish such behavior, in order to strongly incentivize people to become productive and contributing members of society.

We tried that, and it doesn't seem to work. It turns out the best solution to homelessness is simply housing the homeless. "Housing First" is what I'm describing, and evidence shows it works better than what you're suggesting: https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/

It's also gross that what you're arguing for is kicking a beaten dog.

> society needs to help these people get control of their lives.

It's super weird to me that to the extent you're willing to acknowledge society has responsibility to their fellow man (who happen to be homeless), it's only to argue that we must essentially brutalize them to make them feel even worse about being homeless / drug addicts / whatever.

> Have I seen studies or other acceptable documentation for my conclusion? Nothing that I can specifically remember, or at least nothing that I have at hand

That's because there are none. That's because your position is based on feelings, not facts.

> But I don't feel I NEED documentation.

As an engineer, if I said this in a meeting about considering which technology to choose for a given application, I would be fired. I don't know why you think this is an acceptable way to opine about social issues, literally willfully ignorantly.

> It's just so obvious to me that punishing crime serves to deter crime, and the harsher the punishment, the stronger the deterrent

You are partially correct, but then entirely incorrect, regarding harsher punishment being a stronger deterrent:

> "The certainty of being caught is a vastly more "powerful deterrent than the punishment.

> "Increasing the severity of punishment does little to deter crime."

https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf

> I personally don't commit any crimes

I don't believe you. Have you weighed every lobster you ever purchased? Ever picked up a feather without first checking it wasn't a bald eagle feather? Ever divert storm sewer water for fun?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/29/crime-law-...

There may be as many 300,000 federal regulations that carry criminal penalties. What's your bet you've never broken a single one? (hint: you basically can't possibly know, and this is why you should never talk to cops btw)

> and I feel that harshly punishing things like vandalism or burglary will only make society better for all law-abiding citizens.

This is reactionary rhetoric that just "others" undesirables and is why people like me push back so hard, btw. There's no such thing as a "law-abiding citizen" as I explained earlier. I don't want to get too much into the weeds of this, how cops are trained to see everyone as a potential enemy etc etc, but this is where this rhetoric from my position comes from.

TLDR Though you're self admittedly willfully ignorant, as in, by your own admission uninterested in reading into effective judicial strategies (or even really effective interpersonal relationship strategies), you hold strong opinion on how society should be run and believe you know enough that the rest of us should adopt your strategies. Why should we do that?

Just want to say thank you for this level headed analysis, raising the bar for intellectual discourse on HN.

OK, I've posted and deleted a reply to this 3 times now. There's a lot in this post. Here goes the final draft.

First of all, I feel like your post emanates barely-contained anger. Your choice of words and tone kind of betrays your contempt for me and my opinion. You're "fascinated" by my response, my views are "sociopathic", I'm "ignorant," yada yada. I can't say it makes it an appealing prospect to continue the discussion, because we fundamentally disagree, and I have a feeling that more insults will be flung my way. But against my instincts, I'll continue.

The first few segments of your response have to do with rejection of my principle of "common sense" as a guiding principle in my opinions about some of these issues. You go through point by point, rebutting each example I listed with a detailed refutation and a link to some study. There are quite a few strawmans and a lot of insinuations that I'm a conservative. I'll just start this discussion by telling you I voted for Biden, I don't ascribe some umbrella label to myself, so let's just cut this name calling out right now.

Here's the problem. I tell you, "my entire life experience tells me that X means Y. I know this to be a fundamental truth of the universe. I am CERTAIN of this." You reply: "That's totally incorrect. Here's a study or example where X does not equal Y. Here's my explanation of why X does not equal Y. Therefore you are wrong and willfully ignorant for still believing X equals Y." But what you don't understand is that it is very hard to change someone's mind when they are CERTAIN of something. It's like if you told me 2 + 2 equals 5, and linked to some study proving it, and wrote an essay on why it is the case, it still wouldn't change my mind. Because it directly contradicts my reality. My lived experience. My "common sense" position of, for instance, punishments being effective to deter crime is based on literally every experience I've ever had in my entire life. Are they perfect deterrents? Of course not. But I've changed my own behavior to avoid punishment, I've seen a million other people do the same, and there's no possible universe in which I could just read some study online and go "wow, I guess punishments don't work to deter crime!" That's not me being willfully ignorant, that's me not wasting my time with obvious falsehoods. Forgive my being harsh, but the "don't punish crimes" movement is the same as the flat earther movement in my view - so stupid, so obviously incorrect, that it isn't even worth a second of my time. Studies are not the arbiters of truth.

Now onto the next point I want to make. I think it should be perfectly clear to you that when I talk about punishing crimes, I'm talking about SERIOUS crimes. We're on a thread about the stabbing of Bob Lee, after all. For you to suggest my opinion is dumb because I speed or don't correctly weigh my lobster and therefore technically everyone is a criminal... that's YOU being willfully ignorant, dude. Everybody speeds but practically nobody stabs, vandalizes, robs, rapes, etc. THESE are the crimes that I want harshly punished. It's literally common sense, a theme that seems to keep popping up here. I'm honestly just dumbfounded that you seriously think me saying "I don't commit any crimes" is tantamount to me saying "I have literally never sped or broken any law in my entire life." Like god damn. When I talk about law abiding citizens I'm talking about people who don't commit crimes that make life drastically shittier for everyone else. And the vast majority of people on the planet fall into this category.

I could continue on, and go over the Norway thing and how I believe it's a completely different situation than the US, or go over the housing the homeless thing and talk about how expensive that would be in SF, or any of the other points, but I feel this would be a waste of time. Because I would guess it directly contradicts your lived experience. That's the thing. I don't comment to change people's minds. I don't comment to dunk on my political oppponents. I don't comment to show everyone what an idiot the other side is via angry point-by-point takedowns that are dripping with contempt. I literally just comment on HN because I like the discussion, I like hearing how people think and what their insights are. Hence what I originally commented: I wanted to comment "so we can exchange perspectives and see what someone 'on the other side' of the issue thinks." I really think there's no need for the clear contempt of the tone of your reply. We disagree, dude. It's no reason to get emotional. There are a lot of people out there and you'll likely find yourself disagreeing with many of them.

If my tone was insulting I apologize. I am angry though, you're right. I'm watching the predictable cycle. A similar anger after 9/11 because of the tragedy but also because I knew it would be exploited to erode our freedoms, and lo, I was right (I'm not special, lots were warning this would happen).

Same here. People are ignoring the research that highly punitive retributive justice systems don't work, and reformative justice systems do, because of some combination of yellow journalism and cognitive / rhetorical fallacy.

> Studies are not the arbiters of truth.

Certainly not all truths, and I agree with you that we can't expect people to fact check literally every aspect of their lives. However, your flat earth example is fantastic, here's why: the earth being flat is common sense. If you don't fly (many people) and have never seen the ocean (many people), don't think much about orbits or astronomy, why would you think the earth is round? There's a reason flat earthism is so popular, it really does "make good horse sense."

Grant me for a moment that to believe the earth is flat in 2023 requires believing in a massive global conspiracy, maybe instead let's consider a detached farmer in 1920. How about this guy: https://youtu.be/RS27u6IqWt0 . Consider what's necessary to know with certainty that the earth is a globe, and consider how they disagree with "common sense."

A flat earth would allow for seeing all the way to the end of it, right, so since you can't see all the way to new York city from here, the earth must be a globe, right? "No, fog prevents that, and tall trees, and mountains." Ok, the shadow cast on the moon during a lunar eclipse is always round, and the only shape that can do that is a sphere. "Well, that's nice, but I've never seen a lunar eclipse, and I don't really care to sit around moving shapes in front of a candle to see if that's true." Ok, time zones! If the earth was flat it would be the same time in new York and San Francisco, instead it's different. "Is it different? I didn't know, I don't have a telephone."

Without resorting to things completely outside the realm of "common sense," and basically coming up with good explanations for someone's daily experiences, i don't see how you could explain to someone (pre space age) how the earth is a globe. Can you think of a way?

I wish there was a more polite way to say "willful ignorant" but my point is basically, you've had the explanations, with evidence, for why your common sense doesn't align with reality, set before you, and you said "I don't want to read that, I'm good with my view of reality." I'm not trying to sell you essential oils here, this is just something outside your domain and to do it well takes some research and perhaps I guess something that disagrees with the "common sense" of some people. What else can I call that?

And anyway, surely you agree that when it comes to setting up our laws, infrastructure, we want to make sure to be doing so correctly? Before we build a bridge, don't we want some studies done on concrete before choosing the right kind? And isn't it best to have the domain experts doing that? And doesn't it make sense that even though every time you tried to use consumer concrete to build something with a gap, it crumbled, that's ok because we use a different kind for building in industrial applications with techniques involving rebar?

And I still hold the position that the retributive model isn't common sense, I've found great success with never wielding a stick as a leader in various spheres: teacher, social worker, sales leader, engineering lead, scout leader, burning man camp leader. It just seems common sense and agreed with my every day experience that punishment drives shit results. A story from "How to Win Friends": a tech fails to fuel a stunt pilot's plane well, he nearly crashes and perishes. Tech is apoplectic, apologizing profusely, offering to resign, pilot says "why would I fire the tech least likely to make a fuel calculation mistake in the future?" I only use this example to demonstrate that even in the domain you chose, that being business / school / interpersonal relationships, the "retributive " model isn't common sense or effective, though again I don't think it's a great idea to try to draw too many conclusions between handling a fuel calculation error and a premeditated crime or crime of passion.

> "I don't commit any crimes" is tantamount to me saying "I have literally never sped or broken any law in my entire life."

Well, do you see why maybe your common sense is maladjusted? For me I'm genuinely surprised at your surprise. What else is a criminal but someone who breaks the law? That's why I pushed back so hard! Your definition is vague! "Someone that does these crimes I think are really bad." Well the USA doesn't care if you murdered someone or committed certain kinds of white collar fraud, or even something more mundane, all are felonies and you don't get to vote after. You're a criminal in all circumstances. Hence my point that your common sense doesn't map well onto an actual society, or at least not this one.

> We disagree, dude. It's no reason to get emotional.

This is the extraordinary privilege you live with. Imagine the conversation is discussing sodomy laws in Texas. "who cares, doesn't affect me, and anyway isn't that kinda gross?" You have the privilege to not worry about it, other people are literally fighting for their right to exist.

If you're finding anger in response to your position, why is your response to hand wave it? "Damn bro, calm down." Are you not at all curious why someone would be so passionate about this issue? Because what we're talking about is America's bloodthirsty retributive justice system that's resulted in one of the highest incarceration rates on earth and essentially a continuation of slavery (prison labor, for profit privatized prisons), and you're dispassionately making "common sense" arguments for not only how that's great, but we should do more of it, and by the way you don't care about whatever evidence I show you demonstrating that you're wrong, you just want to continue believing it or whatever. No shit that's infuriating lol.

> When I talk about law abiding citizens I'm talking about people who don't commit crimes that make life drastically shittier for everyone else.

There's plenty of things people do that make life drastically shittier for everyone else, that isn't illegal. Banks making bad investments and crashing the economy in 2008. Sending soldiers to die in foreign countries. Locking up refugees. Lobbying to keep minimum wage low. Torpedoing welfare budgets. Driving gas guzzling vehicles. Operating a fossil fuel company. Rejecting health insurance claims. Addicting someone to alert bubble dopamine hits. Harvesting user data.

Seems common sense to me that destroying the Gulf coast through blatant malpractice is just as bad as punching someone in the face, but nobody went to jail after the BP oil spill.

> Are they perfect deterrents? Of course not. But I've changed my own behavior to avoid punishment, I've seen a million other people do the same, and there's no possible universe in which I could just read some study online and go "wow, I guess punishments don't work to deter crime!"

It's worth pointing out by the way that this is basically a strawman, no study I linked said "we should stop punishing crime," the basic argument is that the best deterrent is certainty of being punished, whereas degree of punishment holds basically no effect. In this context that means the SFPD quiet quitting is having a much larger effect on increase in crime than, say, eliminating cash bail. In any case the other arguments are about actually solving what drives crime more than anything else which is economic disparity: improving that doesn't require halting the punishment of crime, my point is that the call to arms are a distraction towards ineffective solutions.

Btw I forget that some Americans consider "conservative" an insult, I didn't mean that in a name calling way, I meant that in an attempt to accurately describe the political leanings of the position you hold. I maintain that retributive justice is a conservative policy position, and indeed is a favorite of your Republican party. Note also though that Biden is also a conservative by most international perspectives, and sf politicians are mostly centrists or at best liberals (a term which here means "moderate centrist," not "progressive"). So I didn't mean to name call you, sorry.

> I could continue on, and go over the Norway thing and how I believe it's a completely different situation than the US

Norway is different but I don't see why that means the usa can't apply the basic restorative justice principles

> or go over the housing the homeless thing and talk about how expensive that would be in SF

First, housing first advocates seem to be demonstrating that housing the homeless would be cheaper than the current solution of cycling them in and out of jail while wasting police resources on tearing down their shelters. Second, so what it's expensive? We're talking about humans living on the street. Society is only as good as it is for those living in the worse condition it offers.

I admire you for having a clearer understanding of why you post here. I enjoy the discussions as well I think, and maybe I'm driven by a desire to seek truth? I guess throughout this thread I've been hoping people had SOME evidence to justify the retributive justice model they're all touting and seeking further implementation of, because otherwise to me it just seems like people are seeking further cruelty, but I haven't gotten that, just people saying "doesn't it just make sense? Cut off the hands of thieves, that'll teach them!" So maybe that's why I'm so frustrated.

So we have two dudes with common sense disagreements. We need to decide whether we punish thieves by cutting off their hands or by making them make society whole through labor or otherwise while investigating why they felt the need to steal at all. How do we resolve that other than by seeking the truest effective method through study, experimentation, publishing results? "We disagreed so we did research and found the right answer." Well that's basically what I'm saying we as a society should do and it sounds like you're basically saying "despite that effort I still prefer to just believe I'm right."

And a final thing I don't think I'm communicating well is so many things that turn out to be good policy violate "common sense," because we humans are bug ridden. Our cognitive fallacies cause all sorts of incorrect observation and behavior. This is so common in judicial theory. Zero tolerance policies at school: let's come down hard on crime in school! Result: huge expulsion rates, and incentives choosing the worse of bad behaviors, because they're all punished the same. Or, three strike laws. Repeat criminals aren't gonna change, let's just lock them up forever! Result: high rates of recidivism, overcrowded prisons. Criminalizing drugs. Drugs bad, lead to crime, ban them. Result: cartels, mafia. Result of decriminalization: drop in crime AND drug usage, drop in diseases like HIV. Rent control: lock prices, protect low income families. Result: high income families lock down low income rates, market overcorrects when housing comes available, etc.

Basically when I find myself thinking "seems like common sense," I have the opposite reaction to you: I believe our rational facilities have documented flaws and so my first instinct is to apply rigid logic and evidence to check my understanding.

I had another thought, because you've got me chewing on this now. You said, oh well, someone disagrees with you. Why get angry? This assumes all that's at stake is a disagreement. "we can agree not to agree" mentality. But that's not what's at stake. What I have to deal with is the fact that there's you, and presumably people like you, who will vote per their understanding of the world, and who, as you say, won't be convinced by study or anything else, because your common sense is "just right" or whatever.

But, I've demonstrated, it's wrong. You're going to vote for things, and build society in such a way, that makes it worse for all of us.

That's probably the most obnoxious thing anybody's said to you in a while but I can't see any way around that fact: my point of view is absolutely correct so far as I have the ability to confirm this. You haven't been able to convince me otherwise (nor are you interested in trying) so I'm safe to assume my point of view is closer to the truth, and my idea (not mine rather but the one I support) of restorative justice is the correct way to build a better society.

You disagree, won't be convinced, won't read evidence contrary to your experience, and want to make the world more like what you think it should be, which will, as per the evidence presented, make it worse. Furthermore since you're not interested in investigative reasoning for certain subjects about which you're convinced you know the truth (my attempt at your words), when the world gets worse as we step further down the path of retributive justice, you won't acknowledge that your ideology is bad, because you've determined for yourself it's correct and won't be convinced otherwise, and will try to implement it even further. With this ideology locked as such I'd say it's not slippery slope fallacy to suggest you may one day find yourself arguing to literally cut off the hands of thieves.

Given these stakes, how could I not be angry? What a frustrating ideology to encounter!

But people don't respond well to anger so I'll say truthfully and earnestly, if you ignore the subject of the conversation and focus only on the logical and ideological framework I think you're applying here, can you see how refusing to consider studies or arguments that challenge your core beliefs can sometimes be problematic? How it can be a recursive and self feeding problem?

I see your point, and I appreciate the replies. You make some very good points and honestly after thinking about it, you're right. When it comes to issues like this the importance is elevated above standard matters of common sense. Further digging is required when the consequence is human lives. I still do trust my intuition, but I'll look into some of the research nonetheless. I get that it is frustrating to encounter this line of thinking because it's very resistant to change, and I apologize.

But of course, things do go both ways. Part of the reason people like me adopt such dug-in positions is because there's just so much stupid shit and terrible ideas in society that some kind of filter becomes necessary, and it's not always easy to tune. For every legitimate, good-intentioned proposition out there that may contradict common sense, there are another 10 idiotic propositions, and it can become very laborious to look through them all to try to find the good ones. And you have to understand that I don't have my position out of malice, it's moreso a greater concern for the welfare of what I'd call "law abiding citizens" than what I'd call "criminals" (now that we have clarified the definitions). You may disagree with this, but I don't think it makes me evil or malicious.

Now I do want to say one thing. It is not IMPOSSIBLE to convince me of something when my common sense tells me otherwise. If I could see an example of a major US city, very similar to the ones I've lived in, that has successfully been lenient on crime and had a crime decrease, then I would certainly be open to reconsidering my positions. But throughout my life it seems like the opposite has happened. It seems to me in fact that the "compassion not conviction" policies directly caused the increase in crime. SF is a city that seems to agree with me, given the Chesa Boudin recall. NYC is another example, where that city was actually quite safe in the 2000s and only seemingly with De Blasio's compassion-focused administration did it start to deteriorate again. Chicago is another example.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I don't feel I'm entirely "refusing to consider" arguments. But when it comes to things that I feel increasingly certain about, it requires an increasingly salient level of proof to convince me otherwise. Like for this particular issue, given that I've been to SF and seen with my own eyes what it's like on the streets there, it would require more than a study to convince me of this, I'd want to go and see the successful policy in action with my own eyes. Because right now my own eyes have seen that the policy was not really that successful, and news stories like the one in the OP reinforce my perception here.

This is kind of off topic, but if I could build my ideal world, I'd begin to do away with cops entirely. Modern technology could enable total, pervasive surveillance of an entire city's public areas. AI could enable automatic monitoring and enforcement. You could build a system of perfect justice, where nobody could get away with anything because it would all be seen. I'd still prefer privacy in the home so that it wouldn't be some hellish dystopia, but otherwise, hell, let's go full Minority Report. The tech is ready and I truly think it would make for a better and safer society, and eliminate lots of problems with human-centric law enforcement such as profiling, brutality, etc. In fact, I'm actually really hopeful that SF tries something like this out. Given the city's impending budget cliff and dwindling police force numbers, they may be faced with a choice between just tolerating increasing lawlessness or starting to use cheap tech to try and keep people safe in other ways.

Well for one I appreciate you sticking around for so long. For another, I admire almost nobody more in the world than a person willing to say "on second thought, you're right." My side, I'm grateful you pushed back on me when my tone was clearly insulting, because I think I'm also here to learn better how to communicate with people, and a big one for me is making sure to watch my tone. Though fwiw I really was and am fascinated by your reply, I didn't mean that condescendingly but you were right to assume so.

I think I don't want to line by line you and link bomb, though the temptation is there, but before we go our separate ways I want to somewhat address what you brought up.

I think you're probably right that the usa is a unique environment to apply the reformative justice principles, as you say and for reasons I've mentioned elsewhere in the thread, such as difficulty of achieving true universal healthcare for example. I think a key reason though is the political divide in America and the outsized ability of various people and organizations to make or break a policy.

This is important in the SF case because my running theory, backed I believe by evidence (I won't link bomb) is that for example a relatively progressive politician like Chesa Boudin can be hamstrung by the cops not making as many arrests. For reasons I can't quite comprehend Boudin seems to be hated by a lot of people, but what I've found is that before he was elected the police union was already putting out hit pieces. In reality, Boudin's prosecution rates were the same or higher than his predecessor. In terms of actually putting people in jail, he was just as happy to do it as any other prosecutor, he just was brought less people to put in jail.

Now maybe he deserved to be recalled for his inability to work with the sfpd, I'm not sure, but that doesn't seem related to the two things in line with reformative justice that he did, eliminating cash bail and pretrial detention. Here's the key: there were iirc one or two high profile instances of a person out of pretrial detention that then committed a heinous crime. This is fodder for yellow journalism and confirmation bias. "See, it doesn't work, and furthermore this is an indictment of reformative justice and progressive politics!"

What is never mentioned is that certain forms of crime, particularly violent forms, did drop during his tenure, and in fact rose again after his recall.

The situation with him also seems fodder for misattribution. How much affect can one DA over the course of, what, two years, really have, in the face of record inflation and a historic pandemic? Property crime rose during his tenure but it rose across America (murder rates did too). I have lots of evidence showing that crime rates correlate more strongly with economic disparity than anything else, so if crime is going up in SF, it's probably because of that, rather than a single polarizing politician.

Basically my point is, yeah, your eyes are seeing things, no way I can deny that, but the news never reports the mundane, and the truth of it is San Francisco is a relatively boring place. There are far more violent cities in America, but for whatever reason the media loves to paste a sensationalist story of every single murder in SF, every single robbery. Your eyes can only see what's put in front of them, and crime stats aren't being put in front of them. Little Rock had 119 murders last year, twice San Francisco's, but the media doesn't tout every single one as either the personal failure of a socialist DA or the collective failure of progressive politics in general, so nobody talks about it.

So that's why I argue so strongly in favor of the boring: awareness of cognitive biases and rhetorical fallacies, research, and statistics, because I don't think the more exciting way of being aware of the world will give you an accurate picture. Maybe the job of people like me is to find ways to get this information in front of people that doesn't involve insulting them on internet forums lol

In any case having previously lived in SF I feel like what you're seeing on the streets there is less to do with murderers and more to do with the outsized homeless population and lack of public restrooms. I suppose the car break-ins thing is bad but from what I've read the sfpd is neither defunded nor under staffed (compared to cities with worse or more crime), so I'm not sure what's preventing them from making arrests? My pet theory is they're just kinda shit at their jobs, maybe on purpose. Plenty of stories on here of people showing them GPS tracking for a stolen bike and them shrugging their shoulders.

As for your ideal world, that certainly agrees with the evidence that certainty of punishment is the best deterrent (though deterrence is not necessarily the best way to reduce crime). Having though lived in a pervasive surveillance police state (the PRC) I hesitate to throw my weight behind it. Then again Taiwan has somewhat pervasive surveillance and I haven't found any privacy issues as a result, perhaps because the digital minister is an advocate for privacy, or maybe because much of the surveillance is from private businesses on their stores. There's other considerations with the AI thing such as AI can fail to face recognize on black people more frequently than white depending on the model which could deepen inequalities of the application of justice in the USA. Also such a tool, if built with good intentions, could be abused upon the election of some kind of fascist, and used to target political enemies. In general I'm on board with ideas that reduce brutality and profiling.

I will drop only one link, a quick fact checking of various crime theories in San Francisco, from I think about 2 years ago now https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Francisco-crime-Che...

Anyway my final question I think is: if you were willing to grant there might be something to my idea that the truth may be more hidden away in statistics and studies, is there a way to bring that truth "before the eyes" of a million people all who have their own things they're worrying about?

> When there is threat of punishment, legitimate actual punishment, people fall into line

Yet there's so many more people incarcerated in the US for such long periods of time than in most other countries. "Life without parole" basically doesn't really exist in Europe.

> Here's the thing - I do have evidence. But it's the evidence I've seen with my own eyes, not something I've read in some paper or study. My evidence is (I see no other way to put it than to be frank) just common sense. I've met plenty of people in my life. I've seen humans and I know how humans behave

Straight out of a Trump speech :)

“I disagree with this person, therefore they are a Trump supporter.” Lol, ok dude :)

I'm American born, but grew up in a high crime area. Something that most Americans who grew up in very safe environments don't understand is that once order begins to decay, it accelerates exponentially. Growing up in highly orderly, safe environments, they completely take order for granted. This leads to them supporting policies that prioritize other things far above order, which basically describes San Francisco's childish, utopian politics for the last 20 years. The SF City Council sounds like a bunch of stoners in Che Guevara t-shirts hanging out in a dorm-room, instead of thoughtful policy makers.

I lived in SF for a year (in Nob Hill) in my early 20s living with my then GF, back in 2002-2003. It was a beautiful, safe, just chill place then. It's disgusting now. I was there in 2019, and one of the things that jumped out at me was how I constantly smelled piss and a big portion of the city looked the way only the Tenderloin used to. And yes, it's the fault of the SF politicians.

Do you have an objective way to tie to SF politicians? What about SF voters?

> Growing up in highly orderly, safe environments, they completely take order for granted.

Do you have evidence for their background and reasoning?

Much of 'order' is often abusing politically vulnerable people, which provides 'order' for the wealthy white population, but not for others.

What boggled my mind about Mexico is how some states are EXCEPTIONALLY safe, while others are EXCEPTIONALLY dangerous. Most folks tend to presume all of Mexico is dangerous.

For me it's weird you think that the origin of crime is lack of order. I mean that's the last step in a deteriorating society, but the actual reason comes much before. It's an unfairness a lack of common narrative of well being. And most of all it's from education being neglected and families being broken. The order part you get at the end, after the rot festers.

A person can reasonably disagree with the comment you are replying to, but is not weird: it is a very common opinion that you've probably seen or heard many times.

So what would you say to the argument that the police are already too violent, and that too many people already get put in jail, especially minorities? That is the motivation behind the progressive policies of not prosecuting criminals. Every person not prosecuted is one less crime statistic; bonus points if that person-kept-out-of-jail is a minority.

I want to be absolutely clear - I am in no way suggesting minorities are genetically inclined to be criminals or asking you to speak for all minorities or anything like that. I'm just curious, given your views and your background, what you think when you hear politicians claim that they are fighting inequality by not prosecuting criminals.

I think the police is very violent in the US in big part because of training but also because how prevalent guns are. We certainly need better accountability and better training.

I still think we need more cops. We lag behind Europe in cops per capita, and have higher crime rates.

The idea that we should stop prosecuting crimes because it affects one type of citizen or another is ridiculous for a ton of reasons, but specially because of this: minorities are more likely to be in the receiving end of a crime.

We can do both invest in the social aspect to level the playing field and prosecute crime wherever it manifests.

>I think the police is very violent in the US in big part because of training but also because how prevalent guns are.

I've heard this excuse before and I don't put much into it. Most of the videos I've seen are bad cops terrorizing people who aren't armed. George Floyd was unarmed, as were countless victims. Karen Garner couldn't hurt anyone. There are many more examples. Also, we're currently a much less armed society than we were before we had this policing issue.

The videos you see are curated to showcase police brutality. In a country with 300 million people and as many guns, its not hard to come up with a video a day depicting things going wrong. That is not the norm though. No one is going to post videos of polite, professional interactions, even though those are, obviously, the vast majority of cases.

There are 700,000 human police officers in the United States. This is a huge bell curve of behavior and interaction. The most reasonable suggestion I have heard is a federal database for police complaints and firings, to help identify patterns and bad actors.

Sure, but the police unions and departments protect the bad police and the prosecutors refuse to prosecute them. If we had a video of a teacher groping a student a day and nobody did anything about it, we'd lose our minds.

It's because these cops are bad people and there is no accountability. I'm sure in some departments this sort of thing is encouraged, many it's excused. We can agree that bad police should be fired and charged right?

I don't get the gun angle, people have always had guns in the US. There are fewer households with guns now than there were since the 1990s.

Someone did a survey of 15K police officers and gun restrictions in 2013 here:

https://www.police1.com/gun-legislation-law-enforcement/arti...

And when it comes to finding ways to reduce gun violence and large scale shootings, most cops say a federal ban on so-called “assault weapons” isn’t the answer.

More than 91 percent of respondents say it would either have no effect or a negative effect in reducing violent crime. This is an overwhelming response by those whose job it is to actually deal with this issue on the front lines.

More than 91 percent of respondents support the concealed carry of firearms by civilians who have not been convicted of a felony and/or not been deemed psychologically/medically incapable.

A full 86 percent feel that casualties would have been reduced or avoided in recent tragedies like Newtown and Aurora if a legally-armed citizen was present (casualties reduced: 80 percent; avoided altogether: 60 percent).

This is easily explained by the fact that police are better educatied about gun violence statistics.

Most gun deaths are by handguns, not "assault rifles". They also know that a federal ban can be negated by 2 minutes of work with a drill bit.

Similarly, police aren't afraid of people pulling assault rifles out of their glove boxes and pockets.

It's a biased sample. American police forces attract gun enthusiasts who want to carry and use guns on people. Go to a police forum and see how often they share and gush about weaponry and moan about what their jurisdiction won't give them. It's like kids in a playground. These are people who write "you're fucked" on a gun they use to kill an unarmed person.

> The videos you see are curated to showcase police brutality

What videos did this person see, that you are referring to? Are you saying there isn't evidence of a problem of police brutality? I recall a survey of Black NY city police; most of them had been harassed when off-duty.

Cops must be under incredible amounts of stress, operating in an environment where anybody could be (legally!) armed. Maybe they start out wanting to improve the world and throw that thought out the window once the first bullet goes flying pas their heads.

> The idea that we should stop prosecuting crimes because it affects one type of citizen or another is ridiculous for a ton of reasons

Could you give an example of who has this idea?

> minorities are more likely to be in the receiving end of a crime

So therefore innocent people should be harrassed and abused, beaten up and jailed?

> prosecute crime wherever it manifests

That's not what happens.

I'd say that bad policing is a big problem, but it is a MUCH smaller problem than no policing.

What is that based on? Where is there "no policing"?

I would say that those are not reasons to embrace a lawless society.

If the laws are bad, fix them. If the police are too brutal, curtail them.

This is the only path towards with a healthy society. This isn't always easy, and sometimes it seems impossible. However, sanctioning lawlessness and giving up on reform is no solution. It is a race to the bottom, and hurts minorities even more. If you think building towards equality is hard, imagine how much harder it is when theft, rape, and murder is rampant in your community.

This is represented in the opinions and surveys of minority communities. People want less bias and police brutality, but they also want more police on the streets and more enforcement of laws.

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. I’m a minority and an immigrant and I agree with you.

>> The most basic definition and purpose of the state is to hold the monopoly of violence. It must jealously protect this. The alternative is unsustainable anarchy followed by someone else filling that void.

Can we re-phrase "monopoly of violence" to maintaining the rule of law. The government has an obligation to maintain the rule of law. Monopoly on violence by itself does not provide real legitimacy.

You can't maintain a rule of law without the state having a monopoly on violence. Violence is the only way to enforce law.

One thing that I want to add, is how much harder it is to live in such environment. Every door needs to be reinforced, bars on windows are more common, expensive locks in residential buildings. Someone stranded on the side of the road, but you don’t want to take chances trying to help. Every transaction is much more difficult and expensive.

I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35454781 and moved it to the top level (just for technical reasons - the first page of the thread is currently too comment-heavy).

Broken windows policing, right?

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