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Comment by wolverine876 | Hacker News Reader

Crime is historically low in many cities, including NYC. Visit and you'll see what I mean.

Not so easy. A lot of crime in zones with high density of immigration goes unreported because immigrants are illegal. A lot of crime in shit neighborhoods goes unreported because of "code of silence" mentality.

Crime is historically low... as crimes like theft are decriminalized.

It's easy to say there's less crime when you make stuff not a crime.

For reference: all the stores closing because of all of the theft not being prosecuted or that's no longer enforced.

IE: California where theft of under $1000 is no longer enforced.

I'm talking about objective facts. You can make up reasons, but so can anyone about anything - they don't mean anything without a factual basis.

Where in NY are these stores closing?

A Walgreens or CVS closed near my GF's flat in NYC. She's within 10 blocks of Central Park. The chain said it was due to too much shrinkage. It's been discussed on WNYC as well, tho those experts claimed most shrinkage is employee related.

I live closer to PHL and hear similar claims / rumours.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/it-s-started-shoplif...

Self-reporting on these reasons from the business itself is basically useless. No one's fact checking their claims nor do they provide evidence when making these kinds of social-narrative driven claims like "taxes are too high!" or "too much theft!". Businesses, including chains, fail all the time and the owners/managers have an inherent incentive to try and deflect any blame on environmental factors so they are looked at more favourably by corporate.

You can call it a "narrative", but then I get to shrink the "food desert" term into just a part of some narrative too, since I've seen personally how theft drives out grocers in MN here. One after another "underperforming".

The progressive D.A.'s and A.G.'s, who own this project of mass downward departure from normal sentencing, do not expect things to change overnight by taking pressure off (mainly) the poor and the young.

But in 5-10 years if crime is worse and society more stratified, their project can be called a failure.

True. But why not just say, "Rent is too high"? At least then, perhaps, the lease can be renegotiated. Or even, "we plan on opening a larger store" and just never do it.

I certainly agree there might be spin, but then why choose theft?

I'm going to fight tooth and nail when someone calls NYC unsafe, but it's going to be very difficult to argue against the store closings because of theft (as at least one factor).

I've personally witnessed three blatant thefts in the last few years from my local Duane Reade (that closed down in April). Every time the clerks are like "pretty sure that was the same guy from yesterday". It's never violent or scary. It's just like watching a fight between homeless people in a subway station -- you look, think that's odd, and move on.

> Where in NY are these stores closing? 4 different pharmacies that have closed down since the pandemic just on my path to work, including two a stone's throw from the NY stock exchange. https://maps.app.goo.gl/fJcHCgjVacP5pEuHA https://maps.app.goo.gl/kmDXnjHruMCvS2CA6

I suspect it's not all shrinkage though. I imagine continued trends where we buy more and more things via online retailers like Amazon and the growth of online/by mail pharmacies has contributed too. CVS/Duane Reade are still opening new locations too, so it can't be all that bad.

> I'm going to fight tooth and nail when someone calls NYC unsafe

Not the main thing I've been arguing, per-se but the fact that the national guard is being deployed into places like the subway seems to bolster the notion that NY isn't doing well.

https://abc7ny.com/subway-crime-nyc-statistics-assault/14381...

"According to the NYPD, there were 570 reports of felony assault on trains or in stations in 2023, that's the highest number in more than 20 years and a 53% jump from pre-pandemic levels."

January crime was up 50% compared to 2023 - and yes, that's a 2 year snapshot. Statistics is the game of picking the two points and saying "SEE! I'M RIGHT!"

but the main points is that violent crime is up.

The main point of my comments is more general crime - its hard to say crime is down when recent decisions to raise the bar to charge people has literally made fewer things crimes so "crime is down" can be true from a "statistically reported" perspective while actual numbers are up.

Look at California that raised the level of misdemeanor to $950... so felonies are down? Gee... I wonder why? Even though objectively more crime is happening, less is getting reported because people won't waste their time on "misdemeanors" that won't get charged by soft on crime DA. Crimes down? True... but also a lie.

Crime is running rampant as criminality is now, for all intents, legal if you're under a threshold. (or, if you're of the right demographics to "atone for past injustice")

The CA $950 threshold is when the theft switches from a misdemeanor to a felony:

https://www.hoover.org/research/why-shoplifting-now-de-facto...

In comparison, Texas has a $2,500 threshold for upgrading from a misdemeanor to a felony:

https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-def...

That doesn't answer the parent's point. It doesn't really matter whether it's upgraded from a misdemeanor to a felony or not if it doesn't get prosecuted in the first place.

misdemeanors are more likely to be thrown out or never taken to court because of court/jail overcrowding. Felonies are likely to get prosecuted if you have a culprit. Misdemeanors... end up getting asked is this trip really necessary?

> Felonies are likely to get prosecuted if you have a culprit

Maybe, maybe not. From a very brief Google search, in 2022, 8% of felonies were not prosecuted, and of the remaining more than half of felony charges were downgraded by prosecutors to misdemeanors in NYC.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/apr/08/ron-desant...

This is a fact check of a claim by DeSantis, and the claim is true... with the caveat that it's totally normal and all the prosecutors are doing it.

8% not being prosecuted would seem to mean that felonies are likely to get prosecuted, felonies getting downgraded to misdemeanors generally happens in the criminal proceedings process as part of a plea bargain and I would consider that as being "prosecuted" which covers a larger area than just being taken to trial.

It's a combination... DAs wont prosecute misdemeanors - which businesses won't then report... and DAs are also not prosecuting those higher crimes as well - which also means businesses won't report.

Part me of wonders... others are saying "all that theft is employee driven" as a talking point (yeah, I've got my own talking points too. Se'la'vie lol) - how much of it is old data - data from a decade ago before the soft on crime, defund the police crowd took over - and how much of it is employees not reporting crimes that waste everyones time in the current climate.

It'll be interesting to see if we get real data over the years and can look back at this failed experiment on "justice" objectively enough to show what an utter disaster it currently is.

So instead of it being $1000... it's $950... that's like me calling an item $10 when in reality its 9.99. The point still stands.

"Texas" Texas also has stand your ground laws and castle defense... so it's a lot easier to stop criminals. IE: Florida where a sheriff said "We have free gun classes so you can help save tax payers money when defending your property by not missing" (paraphrased).

The point still stands: CA took a $50 limit, bumped it up to $950, elects DAs that don't prosecute misdeamenors - and, as such, store owners don't report crimes that won't lead to prosecutions. Why waste the time? - so when you look at it from a statistical perspective? Oh look... crime numbers are down.

Never mind that more stuff is being stole on a more consistent basis... the lack of higher level crimes (Fewer felonies) and the lack of prosecutions (Why prosecute a misdemeanor as a DA... and why report stuff to police that won't get prosecuted as a business owner...) look better on paper but businesses and people are more unsafe than ever.

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