> You seem to negate the fact that the costs are burdened by law-abiding citizens to have them in jail/prison, anyway.
There is a cost yes, but the possibility of jail and all of its restrictions is also a big disincentive for would-be criminals. Right now, the ability of this subset of folks to live in SF on their own terms, appropriating public property, committing crimes, and not facing consequences, is a big incentive for them to become more brazen, and for others like them to come to SF to live that lifestyle (since they would face no consequences).
My point is that it isn't necessarily true that the same number would be jailed, and so the cost tradeoffs are unclear.
> Certainly, the costs of social structures for those people are far less than a for-profit system of incarceration
I'd need to see data on that. But I also think we could reduce the standards at jails to reduce costs further, if needed. And the additional benefit of containment has many benefits that confer utility on other citizens (not having to constantly be alert or think about the heightened risk of crime).
> Finally, since they are petty crimes, in and of themselves, wouldn't facial recognition be rough the equivalent of dropping a bomb on an ant hill? The scope of the effect far-outweighs the supposed benefits.
I feel like this is implicitly adopting a fallacious slippery slope argument. I'm talking about using facial recognition to more regularly identify/track/detain criminals. This would be accomplished by utilizing feeds from public spaces, where it is already legal to record, and simply being more efficient in the processing and analysis of those feeds, which humans already are able to access and view manually.
In the same way that our _existing_ police forces have not turned into some dystopian social negative, the addition of facial recognition to their tools is unlikely to turn into the same. I agree that there is a line that can be crossed, and we should be cognizant of that, but am just saying that I don't think we are there. In adopting facial recognition for local law enforcement, we wouldn't be changing the laws or expanding the legal rights that govern how police operate or removing the processes/avenues against police abuse. We're simply using an existing technology to make them more effective.