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San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2022)

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Re: San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2022)

#31

Post by Schiendelman »

bushbaba wrote: post #26
fzeroracer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you need to board a plane there's a ton of security you need to go through and you need to be thoroughly investigated. So obviously criminals causing issues on planes is a big problem. It's all security theatre. Theft does exist and happens, but it becomes an excuse by management to lock up toothpaste behind glass cases so that they can pretend their store isn't falling apart.

Safeway, Target, CVS all have extra security precautions in place only in SF than these retailers aren’t implementing in the surrounding Bay Area. CVS in Palo Alto doesn’t lock up goods. Target in EPA doesn’t lock up drugs or formula. Etc. SF city has a theft problem that is clearly worse than other Bay Area towns.

Excuse me - CVS in San Jose does lock up goods. Your assertion doesn’t hold.

Re: San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2022)

#32

Post by psychlops »

15457345234 wrote: post #16
nailer wrote: post #6

> “The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There’s something wrong with the way you are measuring it” -Jeff Bezos The article quotes this and responds that people need to come up with their own data for crime. I’ve visited SF every few years for the last 20. On my last visit about 6 weeks ago it looked like Covid was still a thing. Streets that were previ…

The obvious issue being that, on the internet, it's impossible to differentiate genuine anecdotes from agendapushing. On a reddit city subreddit that had bubbled up to the frontpage this morning I noticed three or four people claiming that a certain bus route had basically become a mobile homeless shelter constantly full of migrants playing music and being obnoxious. About two or three other people were chiming in sa…

How would you know it's a "genuine anecdote" on the internet? Seems like it's only garbage in.

Re: San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2022)

#33

Post by 15457345234 »

psychlops wrote: post #32
15457345234 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious issue being that, on the internet, it's impossible to differentiate genuine anecdotes from agendapushing. On a reddit city subreddit that had bubbled up to the frontpage this morning I noticed three or four people claiming that a certain bus route had basically become a mobile homeless shelter constantly full of migrants playing music and being obnoxious. About two or three other people were chiming in sa…

How would you know it's a "genuine anecdote" on the internet? Seems like it's only garbage in.

That's literally restating the point I made in the very first line of my comment...

If you want to gather genuine anecdotes you've basically ruled out the internet as a source of data.

You also can't do a townhall or call an assembly as you'll have people being bussed in (I remember a video of a Florida school board meeting in which literally every speaker had a different regional accent)

You basically have to canvass the streets and buttonhole people, and that's automatically excluding people who WFH etc.

Re: San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2022)

#35

Post by ot1138 »

jansan wrote: post #25
ot1138 wrote: post #12

I wonder what all these areas where major retailers are pulling out have in common?

With all the data available it should be an easy task for a data scientist to find out the correlations. Why is nobody doing this?

It seems like it would be such an easy thing to figure out.

Re: San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2022)

#36

Post by DragonStrength »

fzeroracer wrote: post #18
jansan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if in drugstores most of the products must be locked away and you need to ask a clerk to get them, there is obviously a problem, regardless of what the statistics say.

When you need to board a plane there's a ton of security you need to go through and you need to be thoroughly investigated. So obviously criminals causing issues on planes is a big problem. It's all security theatre. Theft does exist and happens, but it becomes an excuse by management to lock up toothpaste behind glass cases so that they can pretend their store isn't falling apart.

Why would they need to lock up items to keep the store looking good? What is making those products move and leave the store without payment except social disorder?

I was just in (bigger) US city where the pharmacy was picked over for what I wanted but none of it was locked up except the razor blades or whatever you'll find locked everywhere. They didn't feel the need to put plastic barriers up. They also didn't have a security guard at the front. In SF, I know you need both because I have seen dozens pile into the residential Walgreens at once and clean it out. But yeah, it's all theater and just marketing to make SF look bad.

I understand SF Bay Area residents are embarrassed of what they created, but denying the problem isn't helping.

Re: San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2022)

#37

Post by iamandoni »

I believe there is a fallacy in the analysis of SF vs neighboring counties. The author is comparing YoY change; however, if the adjacent counties have less baseline nominal crime the YoY change could be less while hiding the magnitude of crime in SF. The author also doesn’t differentiate the types of crime in the analysis which makes a substantial difference. This section is in reference to the lenient theft laws, whereas these numbers commingle that data with violent crime and all other crime. And lastly, COVID is an outlier year where the population of the city dwindled, there were massive store closures, & there was less opportunity for non violent crimes.

Re: San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2022)

#39

Post by nailer »

atq2119 wrote: post #13
nailer wrote: post #6

> “The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There’s something wrong with the way you are measuring it” -Jeff Bezos The article quotes this and responds that people need to come up with their own data for crime. I’ve visited SF every few years for the last 20. On my last visit about 6 weeks ago it looked like Covid was still a thing. Streets that were previ…

> Streets that were previously safe, around what was DSO bar and Monarch, were dangerous. Whenever I read something like this, I wonder what it's actually based on. Did they personally observe somebody getting stabbed or gunned down? Or is it vague vibes that may not actually be backed up by anything? I've often made the kind of experience where comparable sheltered people claimed that, say, some part of a city was r…

> Whenever I read something like this, I wonder what it's actually based on.

Why wonder, rather than ask? People sizing others up to rob them, people abusing others to start a fight, human shit and piss (in public, not alleyways). Basically SF downtown now = Tenderloin 2005.

> comparable sheltered people claimed that, say, some part of a city was really bad

If you think I'm sheltered ask where else I've visited.

Re: San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know (2022)

#40

Post by nailer »

15457345234 wrote: post #16
nailer wrote: post #6

> “The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There’s something wrong with the way you are measuring it” -Jeff Bezos The article quotes this and responds that people need to come up with their own data for crime. I’ve visited SF every few years for the last 20. On my last visit about 6 weeks ago it looked like Covid was still a thing. Streets that were previ…

The obvious issue being that, on the internet, it's impossible to differentiate genuine anecdotes from agendapushing. On a reddit city subreddit that had bubbled up to the frontpage this morning I noticed three or four people claiming that a certain bus route had basically become a mobile homeless shelter constantly full of migrants playing music and being obnoxious. About two or three other people were chiming in sa…

> it's impossible to differentiate genuine anecdotes from agendapushing.

You're right. I had a friend from Malmo, Sweden who talked about the weirdness of the city being used as a talking point both left and right wing Americans.

Her feeling was the left were saying everything was fine, the right were saying it's a dystopian nightmare, and neither were accurate. It's a city with unique problems.

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