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Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

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Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#511

Post by thatguy0900 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #509
thatguy0900 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops are people. How well would you try to do your job after a few months of seeing your boss purposefully undo whatever work you did at the end of every day. How long would you keep actually coding if your boss just deleted all of your code every shift with no acknowledgment.

If my code was mostly harassing and extorting minorities and the the poor then I'd be glad my boss was deleting it and asking me to stop writing more of it. What kind of sociopath would get job satisfaction from felony marijuana busts or harassing queer people trying to have a drink at a bar when you could be going after bigger fish? Maybe the effective Altruism folk can do a law enforcement spin-off to grade the imp…

So stopping bike thefts is harrasing minorities now, or are you on a tangent Noone was talking about? The conversation was about why cops in these areas don't bother investigating crimes and mugging, I would hope you don't think enforcing those laws is racist. If it is, I guess we should just be mad max or something. I agree cops in this country need serious reform, but that's not what this discussion is about.

Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#512

Post by tchaffee »

cjwilliams wrote: post #494
tchaffee wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland and Portugal are the counter examples that prove you wrong. Both decriminalized drugs and treat them as the medical problem that they really are. The heroin problem was especially bad in Switzerland and you could find homeless addicts all over public places.

Yes but they dont allow open drug scenes. And they dont allow the rampant theft and dysfunction that comes with those encampments

That's not right. It's not that they don't allow open drug scenes.

In Lisbon you can easily find the part of town where everyone is smoking weed outside.

With Switzerland if you want your free heroin it's at the doctor's office and you get it injected there. So it's not a matter of not allowing it. Addicts not surprisingly go where the drugs are. Which is inside now.

Back when they treated it as a crime problem they would shut down outdoor drug camps and the camps would just reappear somewhere else nearby.

The theft went down because the addicts don't need to pay. It's not about better enforcement as you implied. The theft also went down because a lot of the addicts are now employed. As long as you can get your daily injections, most heroin addicts are highly functional. Dr. Halsted - one of the founders of John Hopkins hospital and a hard working doctor - was addicted to morphine for most of his long adult life.

Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#513

Post by cudgy »

vkou wrote: post #500
jshzglr wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious, what do you propose to replace them with if anything at all?

No need to replace them, I just want them to actually be legally held to at least the same standards the rest of us are. They routinely get away with assault and perjury, because they are in bed with both oversight bodies and the prosecutors. It's an insane conflict of interest that wouldn't be appropriate for a burger-flipper, let alone someone with a gun and a license to swing it around in people's faces. I'll also…

Maybe you can show them how it’s done? Sounds like you have a great deal of experience.

Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#514

Post by tchaffee »

ratsmack wrote: post #400
tchaffee wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland had a huge heroin problem. They fixed it by decriminalization and treating it as the medical problem it really is. You can now get the addictive drugs injected at your doctor's office. Both petty theft and addiction plummeted. So it's not the addictive drugs causing these things. It's the policy around drugs that is causing it. See also how Portugal reduced a widespread heroin and crime problem.

1) You can now get the addictive drugs injected at your doctor's office. 2) ... and addiction plummeted. Hmmmmmmm... It doesn't make sense.

The numbers speak for themselves. Read more at the link.

Between 1991 and 2010, overdose deaths in the country decreased by 50 percent, HIV infections decreased by 65 percent, and new heroin users decreased by 80 percent. Today, the so-called “four-pillar model” that guides Swiss drug policy—prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement—is internationally recognized as a major step in redefining how to tackle narcotic drugs.

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/inside_switzerlands_radical_...

Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#515

Post by birdyrooster »

systemvoltage wrote: post #474
jcranmer wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has the world's highest incarceration rate (and by some distance--it's about 10% higher than the second highest rate, El Salvador, and 300% higher than the highest rate among the EU countries), and Japan is around the 20th lowest. This strongly suggests that incarceral policies are not the most effective solution to reducing crime.

Yea, we've been telling ourselves this and let's do more of the same for another 2 decades and completely destroy the fabric of society. Put it the other way, if crime rates would increase hypothetically in Japan, you'd see a proportinal increase in incarcination rate. May be, that there are cultural differences and the crime rates are vastly different between Japan and USA. Disincitivization from hard-on-crime polic…

Sounds like propaganda more than reality but regardless, Japan is a de facto ethno-state and that has certain peculiarities that make it a poor example to contrast with the United States. In comparing to Japan, the United States of course also has a history of slavery in its carceral system is not particularly humanitarian.

Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#516

Post by tchaffee »

mcntsh wrote: post #353
tchaffee wrote: post #132

Here's a good place to compare to other cities, if comparing is even a reasonable thing to do [1]. Sort by Total for Property Crime. Notably Albuquerque, Spokane, and Memphis have higher total property crime rates. But perhaps wouldn't make such an interesting headline for those in tech. Also notable that Orlando, FL is high on the list. But Irvine, CA and Tampa, FL are at the bottom of the list. Please also read the…

I guess the shocking part is that you have all of this theft and crime and grit, all happening around people making hundreds of thousands a year living in multi million dollar houses. Go look at the tax revenue of San Francisco vs Albuquerque. It's unacceptable for a city so rich to have such a dismal quality of life.

> a city so rich

Crime goes up when income gaps get bigger.

https://financesonline.com/how-income-inequality-affects-cri...

Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#517

Post by tchaffee »

mhuffman wrote: post #499
tchaffee wrote: post #132

Here's a good place to compare to other cities, if comparing is even a reasonable thing to do [1]. Sort by Total for Property Crime. Notably Albuquerque, Spokane, and Memphis have higher total property crime rates. But perhaps wouldn't make such an interesting headline for those in tech. Also notable that Orlando, FL is high on the list. But Irvine, CA and Tampa, FL are at the bottom of the list. Please also read the…

I mean this could also just be a list of how honest particular police departments are at reporting (or classifying) property crime. Not necessarily the actual rates.

That's a fair criticism. Which is why I questioned the validity of comparisons in my first sentence.

Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#518

Post by ceejayoz »

CPLX wrote: post #344
ceejayoz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copaganda also describes true but misleading statements, and includes things like news organizations naïvely taking the cops at their word, shows like CSI and Law & Order, etc. In this case, "Any item stolen from you?" seems to include having an Amazon package stolen off your porch, which happens widely (including to me) here in suburban upstate NY too.

What’s misleading about asking people if they’ve had something stolen from them and then printing the results? It’s a bizzare criticism given that the usual approach to determining how much crime has happened is to ask the police department.

It’s misleading because headlines like this evoke muggings and breakins more than having your bottle of shampoo disappear from your porch, and because there’s no corresponding rate elsewhere to compare against.

Most of the folks in my very low crime neighborhood have still lost a package once every few years. Are we technically crime victims? Sure. Is our area dangerous? lol, no.

Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#519

Post by cafard »

pempem wrote: post #318
galangalalgol wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My response was "only half?". Seriously, isn't this true everywhere? I've jad things stolen in small towns and in big cities that are "tough on crime" and have citizens that vote for that. Theft is just part of life right? If I've just lived in bad places, where would one suggest that most people don't experience theft?

I can see how you might think that, but no. Have lived in LA, Santa Cruz, SJ, SF, DC, New York and PA. SF is the only city where I have had my car broken into and all of my things stolen. Told the police I found literally at the Starbucks two parking spots away from my car and they legit declined to look into it.

I live in Washington, DC, in a quiet neighborhood. The most frequent victims of theft are not residents, but workers: maids, contractors, landscape crews, almost invariably from cars or trucks. The police do show up and take reports, but I don't know how often anyone is arrested.

In Denver, when I worked for a neighborhood paper briefly ca. 1980, one of my jobs was to check the blotter at the local precinct. I discovered that the Denver police kept two lists: one for burglaries, one for all else. My recollection is that there were usually a dozen or so burglaries each week.

Re: Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says

#520

Post by ZeroGravitas »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #511
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my code was mostly harassing and extorting minorities and the the poor then I'd be glad my boss was deleting it and asking me to stop writing more of it. What kind of sociopath would get job satisfaction from felony marijuana busts or harassing queer people trying to have a drink at a bar when you could be going after bigger fish? Maybe the effective Altruism folk can do a law enforcement spin-off to grade the imp…

So stopping bike thefts is harrasing minorities now, or are you on a tangent Noone was talking about? The conversation was about why cops in these areas don't bother investigating crimes and mugging, I would hope you don't think enforcing those laws is racist. If it is, I guess we should just be mad max or something. I agree cops in this country need serious reform, but that's not what this discussion is about.

As a cyclist myself, one of the reasons I don't support laws about cycle helmets is that police regularly use them (as they do many other laws) to harass people on the basis of race, wealth or other biases via inconsistent enforcement.

And that's a law, that in theory, I might be convinced had some merit. Not some War on Drugs BS.

How can you exist in the year 2022, have strong opinions on law and order on the internet and feel deep sympathy with police officers forced to do a thankless task as public servants and yet be blissfully unaware of this entire concept?

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