Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional • Hacker News Board

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#261

Post by iammisc » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

Talanes wrote: post #235

lubujackson wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low because they don't arrest anyone. But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone. Property crime is sky high... if you happen to get caught breaking into a car the penalty is a warning. That is the policy. You have to break into many cars and be caught (which is hard to do) many times for any action. Boudin has indefensibly ignored violent criminals, too. Like a wo…

>But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone. This always struck me as a BS excuse, because if you're trying to demonstrate that the DA is the problem, wouldn't you want to be making arrests and creating a paper trail to prove your point? Apathy by the police just makes them look bad to anyone who's on the receiving end of it. And getting arrested is still a deterre…

Except no one takes life threatening risks to assemble a paper trail.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#262

Post by runarberg » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

Talanes wrote: post #235

lubujackson wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low because they don't arrest anyone. But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone. Property crime is sky high... if you happen to get caught breaking into a car the penalty is a warning. That is the policy. You have to break into many cars and be caught (which is hard to do) many times for any action. Boudin has indefensibly ignored violent criminals, too. Like a wo…

>But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone. This always struck me as a BS excuse, because if you're trying to demonstrate that the DA is the problem, wouldn't you want to be making arrests and creating a paper trail to prove your point? Apathy by the police just makes them look bad to anyone who's on the receiving end of it. And getting arrested is still a deterre…

Indeed. The behavioral science would agree with you. There is no theoretical framework backed up by evidence that would suggest that prosecution and prison works as a deterrent. For punishment to actually work as a behavioral modification tool, it has to be consistent and immediate. Prosecution is neither. At lest getting caught red handed is immediate.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#263

Post by iammisc » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:36 AM UTC

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #213

muh_gradle wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those that are mentally ill, and especially if they are violent, you force them to get the psychiatric help that they need. It's an unpopular opinion. But frankly it's long overdue. For those that have the option to go to shelters, receive plenty of benefits (which SF most definitely provides) but prefer to be homeless, they need to be separated from major city areas where tourists, business people, and every day…

For better or for worse, homelessness in America can largely be attributed to Regan-era changes in policy [1] that prevented people from being committed against their will to psychiatric hospitals. It was done in the name of human rights, but naturally there were ulterior motives. It's time we reverted it. About 10% of humans have been addicts across most cultures throughout most of recorded human history, and they d…

The first step against mental institutions was by Kennedy who's family had bad experiences with the mental health system. Blaming this solely on Reagan is misguided. Reagan just went with the flow.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#264

Post by tshaddox » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

Talanes wrote: post #235

lubujackson wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low because they don't arrest anyone. But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone. Property crime is sky high... if you happen to get caught breaking into a car the penalty is a warning. That is the policy. You have to break into many cars and be caught (which is hard to do) many times for any action. Boudin has indefensibly ignored violent criminals, too. Like a wo…

>But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone. This always struck me as a BS excuse, because if you're trying to demonstrate that the DA is the problem, wouldn't you want to be making arrests and creating a paper trail to prove your point? Apathy by the police just makes them look bad to anyone who's on the receiving end of it. And getting arrested is still a deterre…

It’s also a BS excuse because by any reasonable definition the DA is part of the police.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#265

Post by runarberg » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

lubujackson wrote: post #172

ecf wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are incarceration rates low because people behave or are they low because SF police don’t bother to arrest people?

Low because they don't arrest anyone. But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone. Property crime is sky high... if you happen to get caught breaking into a car the penalty is a warning. That is the policy. You have to break into many cars and be caught (which is hard to do) many times for any action. Boudin has indefensibly ignored violent criminals, too. Like a wo…

This is a pretty bold statement. And as the poet said: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Do you have evidence to back up your claim that low prosecution rates actually leads to more crimes?

Your current anecdotes sound like hearsay to me, I would need to see some credible sources before I can start believing them.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#266

Post by xenadu02 » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:41 AM UTC

lubujackson wrote: post #172

ecf wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are incarceration rates low because people behave or are they low because SF police don’t bother to arrest people?

Low because they don't arrest anyone. But that isn't on the police - they don't arrest anyone because the DA doesn't prosecute anyone. Property crime is sky high... if you happen to get caught breaking into a car the penalty is a warning. That is the policy. You have to break into many cars and be caught (which is hard to do) many times for any action. Boudin has indefensibly ignored violent criminals, too. Like a wo…

Police inaction is a long-standing problem that pre-dates the current DA by quite some time. SF police have not responded to garage break-ins or car break-ins for some time. They might show up 5 hours later, very annoyed, and take a report. Even if you have good quality HD video evidence. Even if you have a tracking device on the stolen property proving where it is. They will not gather evidence, collect fingerprints, or bother trying to solve the crime in any way. Even if you had them the case on a silver platter. Forget trying to get a detective involved. This was going on long before Chesa Boudin.

Part of it is housing costs and the department's difficulty filling open positions. Part of it is bad management of the police department: not having competent detectives dedicated to solving quality of life and property crimes. Some part is probably trying to make the current DA look bad because they're fighting.

SFPD has so far resisted any attempt at reform toward community policing or setting up dedicated QOL units. The city's broken NIMBY planning process ensures newly hired officers are not likely to be able to live in the community where they police. Fix those problems, then we can worry about prosecutions.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#267

Post by mc32 » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:41 AM UTC

bodyfour wrote: post #247

mc32 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, I met a RE agent who told me back in the early 90s RE agents were leaving SF because business was so bad. It's hard to imagine, but at least an anecdote. But so was San Jose. Apparently the "downtown" was boarded up in many places till the late 90s when it began emerging from a mini-Detroit like state. MacEnary was feverishly trying to resuscitate it, I don't think it was his effort so much as it w…

That is completely true, but it's by no means confined to SF. In SF in the 1980s, SOMA was one of the cheapest places even in a cheap city like SF... lost of broke creative types living in old warehouse/industrial space that would otherwise be going derelict. In lower Manhattan whole neighborhoods were in a similar state -- bohemian artists occupying loads of space that nobody else would touch. And in London plenty o…

I was told alphabet city was like that. Squatting and soup kitchens; semi abandoned buildings.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#268

Post by fnord77 » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #123

bastard_op wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I would ever call San Francisco "beautiful" - it was a dirty, beat-down city when I lived there in 1999/2000. Unless you can afford a view to just stare over the actual city to the waterfronts, pretending a bum isn't taking a shit on your doorstep right now and leaving their heroine needle for you to clean up. Working in Manhattan many years later, I expected much the same arriving for the first time, but su…

Underrated observation. S.F. has always had a scraggly personality since the Gold Rush days. It's where Dirty Harry and tons of '70s police procedurals were set in, after all. The issue is that despite tech wealth since the late 2000s, none of it has seemed to better the city and in some ways has increased wealth inequality. Manhattan's answer is because of Giuliani's authoritarian mayoral reign. Cleanliness came at…

> Probably not a price that S.F. is willing to pay.

a few years ago? definitely not.

today? possibly. people are getting really fed up

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#269

Post by akomtu » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

Hermitian909 wrote: post #207

As someone who's family has been in the bay area for over a century I was disappointed the article didn't mention any of the old money families who've controlled SF politics for decades. This article[0] mentions some, though not all of the families (The Aliotos aren't mentioned here for example). While I haven't fully kept up, I know in the 90s at least a quarter of the financial district was held by two families. Th…

Are Pritzkers involved in "SF management"? They manage Illinois and Chicago in particular, and the politics style is similar to that in SF.

Re: Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

#270

Post by fnord77 » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #118

flyinglizard wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I’d call a city which had one ruling party for forty years “diverse”.

San Francisco (and much of California) has effectively a one party system. This means that often the real elections are primaries or along party lines. Chesa Boudin and Gavin Newsom are both in the same political party, but their political views are vastly different.

yeah newsom could be characterized as a classic lib where as boudin and several supes are closer to being tankies