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San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

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71–80 of 229 posts

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#71
Happening in cities across the country. Philadelphia just rejected the more "woke" candidates in our mayoral primary (de facto winner, Dems outnumber Republicans 8+ to 1 here) in favor of a black woman who plans on being tough on crime: https://www.cherelleparker.com/244-2/

Similar to SF, we have elitists / idealists (mostly white people) who want to experiment with ideas like abolishing the police, a hands off approach to crime, and diversionary programs. Our current mayor and DA have been a disaster. We've been ignoring the world's largest open air drug market (Philly leads the nation in drug OD deaths... one spot ahead of SF). You can see a bunch of interviews with some of the addicts/dealers on youtube at this channel (amongst others): https://www.youtube.com/@alltimemedia .

It's not been going well for us. I myself had a neighbor who, despite being caught multiple times with drugs (he was a heroin and meth user and dealer), illegal weapons possession, threatening his partner with a gun in her face, caught on camera constantly stealing packages from neighbors, and committing other crimes, was consistently released with charges withdrawn. Or we were told by police that they couldn't do anything. Absurd.

It's easy to be an idealist when you don't have to live with the consequences because it's not affecting you. But for those who are affected, who are building things for ourselves, building communities, just trying to live in peace, it matters. We can't have peace with addicts stealing everything that isn't tied down, people speeding through red lights next to the local daycare and park, blasting music as they ride dirt bikes at 2am and pulling guns on people, with used needles everywhere waiting for a toe or child to prick, people stealing your car at gunpoint, and with mentally unhinged people threatening you with violence just for being within screaming range.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be stopping people from taking the aid and stealing the scooters anyway? You can only rely so much on the inherent goodness of humans. Add organized crime into the mix and you run into the problem that might makes right for plenty of people, specially if there's easy money and "respect" involved.

What is driving people to steal the scooters if not the need to pay for food and housing?

Money? Plenty of people exist that lack any sort of empathy, and theft is just a risk vs reward calculation. If there's no punishment for getting caught, and reward for not getting caught, then you should always take that gamble. When you completely eliminate all social trust in a society, all empathy is lost and theft just becomes a mathematical equation of risk and reward.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#73
post #29

You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco. Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing a…

You're making the mistake that everyone does, which is confusing progressive policies with being lax on crime. The former "progressive" DA actually pushed pretty hard on organized crime like this - and you won't find any progressives pushing against prosecution of organized criminals.

What you will find is that progressives are pushing against harming (including by jailing) people for being poor - which is what DA Jenkins and the mayor Breed are doing. You'll notice for example that Jenkins won't prosecute the daylight murder of Banko Brown, because Brown was homeless.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#74
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity Wouldn't it make more sense and be potentially more cost effective if the focus was on giving people food and other essentials so they could survive without having to steal scooters? Police and prison are super expensive. You're going to be paying for the food,…

I don't know if you've met a lot of criminals, but many are not committing crimes purely for survival. They want phones, TV's, cars etc. Crime is a way to get those things. If there is no disincentive (i.e. punishment) for committing crime, then many will still do the crime.

I have, and to an instance they come from impoverished and damaged home lives. Often their parents were in prison or extremely poor. People living with dignity will lower crime and make them less antagonistic to those who aren't suffering often generational damage.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#75
post #57
post #29

You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco. Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing a…

> You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia From what I have seen (as someone who frequents and pays attention to American cities) making this comparison is unfair to both SF and the other cities in the comparison. It's not like "crime is kinda up and SF is leading the pack", it's more like "crime is kinda up and - holy shit SF is off the charts". The problem is so much more acute in SF, and it needs to be…

That is fair - I've only seen other cities firsthand since the pandemic, not SF.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#76
post #29

You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco. Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing a…

"You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco." I'm not sure about that. There were 53 shootings in Chicago last weekend alone.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#77
post #65
post #29

You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco. Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing a…

> You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco I don't think this is true at all? Where are you getting this statistic? San Francisco (and a few other west coast cities) are the only ones in the country I've been to that feel _dramatically_ worse with each passing year.

Feelings are influenced by political media coverage. Let's see data. Maybe it's true, but I'm not advocating for policy change based on how one person feels.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#78
post #22
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great history professor I had at university was very interested in California politics. His take after years of research was that the thing holding California back is Prop 13, which has to do with taxation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 Dear HNers, please note: I understand Prop 13 is hugely controversial and the "third rail" of California politics. I don't have a dog in this fight, I…

Is the argument basically just "arg if only we could collect even more taxes we could use the money to fix all our problems"? California already has super high taxes that are skewed towards taxing the rich more. Seems like a joke at this point saying that they need even higher taxes. Also California's system of propositions is one of the closest forms of direct democracy available anywhere, if you like democracy then…

It's not just more taxes. It's that Prop 13 effectively means your taxes go down over time. This encourages people to stay in housing units as long as possible. It also creates a big divide between people who bought early and those actually supporting the government through up-to-date tax rates. Most sickeningly is that privileged tax status can be passed parents and children, effectively creating a separate caste of people with lower taxes.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#79
There's certainly an elitist bubble ignoring a crime epidemic. But its all around us.

The number of mass shootings in the south has risen exponentially. I'm talking Oklahoma, Florida, Texas. But they wanna distract from their own issues and blame the cities.

I think the cities, for all of their faults, publish and are open about the crimes that occur on their streets. But crime is up all around the country. Its unfair to pretend that its just the cities that are dealing with this.

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Case in point: everyone was quick to pretend it was a homeless guy who killed Bob Lee. But when the facts came in, it was Nima Momeni who was within Bob Lee's social circle.

When the facts come down, murderers almost always know their victims personally. Crime is 60+% a self-served justice problem, when people grow untrusting of the local criminal defense system and decide to take things into their own hands (rightfully, or wrongfully). And we can see the growing number of people who want to take things into their own hands by simply watching gun-purchases over the past couple of years.

Re: San Francisco: An Elitist Bubble Ignoring a Crime Epidemic?

#80
post #29

You're seeing this everywhere. Chicago, Philadelphia, and so on - although the problem may be worse in San Francisco. Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity, mostly around theft. This is happening at the same time where many cities are also trying more progressive, reform-based approaches to policing a…

> Cities are struggling in the post-pandemic era as the rising cost of living due to inflation in food and other essentials has driven more criminal activity Wouldn't it make more sense and be potentially more cost effective if the focus was on giving people food and other essentials so they could survive without having to steal scooters? Police and prison are super expensive. You're going to be paying for the food,…

Are police & prison super expensive or are they massive income generators? They provide a large funnel of fines and slave labor.
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