It's been amazing just how many high profile crimes have happened in the past few months where the suspect was a repeated offender of serious crimes. And as well, they had often last been arrested in the few months but for some odd reason were immediately released only to commit another serious crime.
And we're sure that this is statistically different than any other period of time and that the policies of the DA are behind it?
Despite this being Hacker News, I see a lot of people here reacting to sensationalist single data points and not a whole lot of discussion about trends on this issue.
Not sure how that’s relevant? If people in SF are unsatisfied with policing matters, then recalling their DA seems reasonable whether or not it’s a recent problem or one that’s been on-going.
And Chesa hasn’t done himself any favors in his response.
The latest issue is pretty disheartening with a women being raped by a guy who had attacked another woman only a few weeks prior.
Some woman was attacked and restrained by some guy known to the police then 2.5 months later rapes a woman while wearing an ankle monitor and you're trying to dismiss those concerns as "reactionary"?
This is just one example. There is the young woman run over by a driver who had a string of serious crimes in the past. There are others.
How often does the nightly news report on the person who didn't go to prison for some minor crime and was able to turn their life around via other interventions?
The safest thing to do would be put everybody in prison, then there would be no crime, but we don't do that. You have to judge the system in a global context. I'm not suggesting that the system is perfect, but measuring it based exclusively on the existence of repeat offenders isn't fair. A lot of people's lives are ruined due to overly harsh prison sentences for minor crimes, and their situations matter as well.
These are not minor crimes. That’s the point. We’re talking people committing serious crimes like assault, firearms violations, sexual crimes, etc being released very quickly and then victimizing someone else.
This is amazing. I hope San Francisco residents pull through and get to elect someone who can help turn the city around. The existing policies are in part driving record numbers of people away from the Bay Area.
I left. I think the area is beautiful but I couldn’t believe it when I called the cops as two men had broke the windows of a CVS down the street from salesforce tower and we’re making drugs on the sidewalk out front when the 911 operator said “what do you want us to do?” in response.
Police have limited resources. It would be inefficient of them to spend much time investigating crimes that the DA has clearly stated he will not prosecute. It makes much more sense for them to investigate crimes that might actually lead to prosecutions.
Traditionally, when things go bad, the public doesn't really have the ability to figure out who specifically did what that caused which problem. They just start rolling people until the situation improves.
You’re very misinformed on the situation. Like many cities across the country, special interests successfully ran an unqualified activist DA who fires all of the prosecutors and refuses to charge criminals. And they’re all paying the price as crime goes to shit.
It’s true that like in almost every city in America in 2020, some categories of crime went up in San Francisco in 2020, and I am still waiting for anyone to make a convincing argument that it’s because of the DA, or offer any proof that people stopped reporting crime because of the DA.
What’s interesting to me is that violent crime has indisputably not increased since Boudin was elected, yet his critics are constantly using the details of specific violent crimes as a rhetorical cudgel, insinuating that Boudin personally caused a wave of violent crime that simply is not happening.
> What’s interesting to me is that violent crime has indisputably not increased since Boudin was elected, yet his critics are constantly using the details of specific violent crimes as a rhetorical cudgel, insinuating that Boudin personally caused a wave of violent crime that simply is not happening.
Isn’t that amazing? Wait until you see the data behind the black lives matter narrative. It too says precisely the opposite of what everyone thinks.
I haven't read the Chronicle article, but the linked KRON4 article (which I understand is unavailable in Europe) says that violent crime was down in 2020, but burglary[0], arson, and vehicle theft is up.
Also, it's hard to make comparisons between 2019 and 2020; the pandemic has changed a lot of things, including crime patterns. The petty crimes that are up are often crimes of opportunity[1], and people being locked up in their homes has provided a lot of added opportunity. But I feel like there's less opportunity for violent crime when people aren't out and about as much.
[0] Someone broke into my garage last summer and stole my bicycle; given where I live, it's not something I'd expect pre-pandemic when there was a lot more foot traffic and fewer people desperate for cash. Edit: to corroborate a sibling's comment, I didn't bother reporting the theft as I didn't expect anything useful to come of it. In hindsight, I probably should have, just to keep crime stats more accurate.
[1] On the flip side, muggings are also a crime of opportunity, but require people to be out and about, often late at night, which hasn't been the case so much over the last year, so I imagine muggings are down.
I am extraordinarily well informed on both Chesa Boudin and the broader movement to elect progressive DAs across the country. I am also very informed of San Francisco’s current and historic crime rates, as the former editor of 2 different local news outlets. San Francisco is not “going to shit” and crime has not increased to the degree Boudin’s critics imply it has. And to the extent that it has, nobody has made a convincing argument that it’s his fault.
Normally I would think your point a strong one, and that the police should just do their job regardless. But it's difficult to exaggerate how radical are Boudin's policies.[1] It's so bad that I think the police are justified in this case in letting some problems openly fester so Boudin can take the heat now, rather than playing a game of musical chairs, complicate the story, and give Boudin plausible deniability. I mean, it's an inevitable consequence of his policies, so why bother trying to thwart the "will of the people"? This is especially true when the police could be using those resources to patrol residential neighborhoods in an effort to try to prevent some residential burglaries, which are also sky rocketing.
The interesting thing is that Boudin only won because of instant run-off voting. Both the moderate and conservative candidates won more votes, but not 50%, and Boudin had the name recognition to be many people's second choice.
[1] It's not just the policies of trying to avoid unnecessary and ineffective incarceration, it's that Boudin offers zero alternatives. For example, to justify failing to press felony charges for a violent burglary against a repeat violent offender who would a week later kill two people, Boudin explained that his office had forwarded the matter to the person's parole officer. But did they ever follow up to see if the parole officer had decided to revoke parole or attempt to reign in their parolee at all? AFAIK, no, the DA's office simple threw the matter over the fence. It just boggles the mind. Boudin's policies are simply a dereliction of his responsibilities, pure and simple. It's a real-life Batman movie where a corrupt or inept DA simply stops enforcing the law. Or like if the Joker was elected the DA. It really puts the cops in a bind. Why bother arresting someone when you know they're going to walk that same day, return to doing exactly the same thing, and with little chance the DA would prosecute? (Zero chance of prosecution for property crimes, mind you.) I mean, in this absurd context such an arrest could be argued to be a form of harassment. And, to reiterate, that's not an exaggerated or hyperbolic characterization of the situation. It's gotten so bad that the police are using Twitter to name and shame some of the more egregious cases (of which there are many), and AFAIK nobody else in city government nor the press is chastising the police for playing political games that in any other context would be unacceptable.
Just to be clear here: you’re saying that it’s OK for the police to not arrest criminals or prevent crime, which is their only job, because they dislike the DA.
Are you also saying that it’s OK for political opponents of the DA to then use bad outcomes caused by the police, purposefully not doing their jobs in order to sabotage the DA, as a reason to recall the DA?
If the police really are standing aside and allowing people to be victimized, and threatening to do it until they get what they want, that sounds a lot like a hostage situation to me, and I don’t think there’s any way to justify that.
If you arrest someone for an offense you know they won't be prosecuted for, that's just harassment. It'd be exactly like arresting someone for smoking pot in a jurisdiction where the DA's office has a policy of never pressing pot smoking charges. That's the sort of disproportionately minority-biased policing that even many conservative criminal justice reformers have railed against.
Except in this case the DA adheres to a criminal justice theory that is so absurdly radical that their policy is to, e.g., never press serious charges (i.e. charges that potentially come with incarceration) for property crimes because they believe (not entirely unreasonably) the criminal justice system is irredeemably corrupt, property crimes are less harmful to society than the incarceration norms (not nearly as reasonable), and that by taking such a radical approach he might induce structural change elsewhere in the system (notwithstanding that, like in the parolee case, he doesn't actually try to make sure that change is happening). Moreover, robbing people at gun point is a property crime, not the type of violence exception that warrants prosecution and incarceration. That's Boudin. I've never actually heard a meaningful defense of his decisions. At best his small cadre of supporters seem to rely on their faith in his abstract principles to quietly console themselves, including the wife of the famous private investigator recently killed in the street by thieves, whom he was photographing while they robbed someone else.[1] Everybody else in the city, left, right, and center, is basically just slack-jawed. But he's an elected official with independent powers. The process for removal is well underway. I'll eat a hat if the removal fails.
FWIW, he seems like a very intelligent person with strong convictions, and while too radical for my tastes, I could respect someone who put in the effort and followup required. He seems to have many of the qualities needed for someone to have any chance of succeeding in that regard.[2] But like conservatives who advocate and practice malign neglect in a misguided attempt to subvert and extinguish the administrative state, his approach is indistinguishable from nihilism, and that's indefensible for somebody entrusted with a public office, particularly the DA's office, which at least in principle is only quasi-political.
[1] Of course, since they actually ended up killing someone, Boudin's office is prosecuting them. But when you invite so much risk-free property crime, these sorts of "accidental" physical assaults and murders are inevitable.
[2] Though, his credibility is increasingly suspect as he fumbles to explain his office's decisions and square them with facial claims about prosecuting all crimes. It's clear he's begun playing semantic word games. His office may nominally have a policy of prosecuting all property crimes, but if you only require a fine or restitution and take incarceration off the table for failure to meet terms or even to show up to court at all, especially when people are what civil trial lawyers call "judgment proof", the claim has no substance.
“At best his small cadre of supporters seem to rely on their faith in his abstract principles to quietly console themselves, including the wife of the famous private investigator recently killed in the street by thieves...”
Just so we’re clear on the facts — Homicides have not increased under Chesa Boudin. Did you write melodramatic prose about any of the homicides that occurred under the last DA? Do the homicides that have occurred under Boudin just “feel different” to you? What is it exactly? Because homicides are not getting worse in any appreciable way in San Francisco, but suddenly, a certain kind of person loves to talk about them.
That's a remarkably disingenuous reading of the OP's post.
No, they are saying 1) it makes sense that the police would stop arresting people if they know they'll just be released, 2) it makes sense the cops wouldn't try and cover for the DA when he will use them as a scapegoat later.
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If anyone can prove to me that this is an effect of Chesa Boudin being elected and not, say, a global pandemic causing social distress that led to increased crimes nationwide [1], I might see some justification for this. All I see now is correlation without causation.
The trend of the pandemic is that homicides are up, but property crimes are down. In SF, violent crimes are down, but property crimes are way up.
According to the original article:
> When looking closer, city police data shows that violent crimes like homicide, rape and robbery were down in 2020 compared to 2019. However, burglary, arson, and vehicle thefts rose.
This contrasts with the trend indicated in the article you posted:
> Rosenfeld says there has been some respite since property crimes took a nosedive as the pandemic began.
"Burglaries were down. Larcenies were down. You know quarantines kept people at home and burglaries tend to avoid occupied households," he explained. "When the shops are closed, there's no shoplifting, so larceny is reduced."
Boudin's controversial policies relate largely to property crimes, and some of the press coverage and outrage resulted from people who were released from custody for property crimes and went on to hurt/kill people soon thereafter.
To that point, though, property crime and auto theft of SF appears to be lower in 2020 compared to previous years as well. But I did not look into it too deeply.
42 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadDespite this being Hacker News, I see a lot of people here reacting to sensationalist single data points and not a whole lot of discussion about trends on this issue.
And Chesa hasn’t done himself any favors in his response.
The latest issue is pretty disheartening with a women being raped by a guy who had attacked another woman only a few weeks prior.
This is just one example. There is the young woman run over by a driver who had a string of serious crimes in the past. There are others.
https://abc7news.com/potrero-hill-attack-san-francisco-crime...
The safest thing to do would be put everybody in prison, then there would be no crime, but we don't do that. You have to judge the system in a global context. I'm not suggesting that the system is perfect, but measuring it based exclusively on the existence of repeat offenders isn't fair. A lot of people's lives are ruined due to overly harsh prison sentences for minor crimes, and their situations matter as well.
https://komonews.com/news/local/man-released-in-assault-case...
https://www.q13fox.com/news/seattles-100-prolific-offenders-...
I left. I think the area is beautiful but I couldn’t believe it when I called the cops as two men had broke the windows of a CVS down the street from salesforce tower and we’re making drugs on the sidewalk out front when the 911 operator said “what do you want us to do?” in response.
So yes, the DA definitely has a big hand in this.
2. It’s a pandemic with much of the last 9 months in lockdown.
3. The numbers in certain categories are much higher than reported because most people have given up and don’t bother reporting
What’s interesting to me is that violent crime has indisputably not increased since Boudin was elected, yet his critics are constantly using the details of specific violent crimes as a rhetorical cudgel, insinuating that Boudin personally caused a wave of violent crime that simply is not happening.
Isn’t that amazing? Wait until you see the data behind the black lives matter narrative. It too says precisely the opposite of what everyone thinks.
Also, it's hard to make comparisons between 2019 and 2020; the pandemic has changed a lot of things, including crime patterns. The petty crimes that are up are often crimes of opportunity[1], and people being locked up in their homes has provided a lot of added opportunity. But I feel like there's less opportunity for violent crime when people aren't out and about as much.
[0] Someone broke into my garage last summer and stole my bicycle; given where I live, it's not something I'd expect pre-pandemic when there was a lot more foot traffic and fewer people desperate for cash. Edit: to corroborate a sibling's comment, I didn't bother reporting the theft as I didn't expect anything useful to come of it. In hindsight, I probably should have, just to keep crime stats more accurate.
[1] On the flip side, muggings are also a crime of opportunity, but require people to be out and about, often late at night, which hasn't been the case so much over the last year, so I imagine muggings are down.
The interesting thing is that Boudin only won because of instant run-off voting. Both the moderate and conservative candidates won more votes, but not 50%, and Boudin had the name recognition to be many people's second choice.
[1] It's not just the policies of trying to avoid unnecessary and ineffective incarceration, it's that Boudin offers zero alternatives. For example, to justify failing to press felony charges for a violent burglary against a repeat violent offender who would a week later kill two people, Boudin explained that his office had forwarded the matter to the person's parole officer. But did they ever follow up to see if the parole officer had decided to revoke parole or attempt to reign in their parolee at all? AFAIK, no, the DA's office simple threw the matter over the fence. It just boggles the mind. Boudin's policies are simply a dereliction of his responsibilities, pure and simple. It's a real-life Batman movie where a corrupt or inept DA simply stops enforcing the law. Or like if the Joker was elected the DA. It really puts the cops in a bind. Why bother arresting someone when you know they're going to walk that same day, return to doing exactly the same thing, and with little chance the DA would prosecute? (Zero chance of prosecution for property crimes, mind you.) I mean, in this absurd context such an arrest could be argued to be a form of harassment. And, to reiterate, that's not an exaggerated or hyperbolic characterization of the situation. It's gotten so bad that the police are using Twitter to name and shame some of the more egregious cases (of which there are many), and AFAIK nobody else in city government nor the press is chastising the police for playing political games that in any other context would be unacceptable.
Are you also saying that it’s OK for political opponents of the DA to then use bad outcomes caused by the police, purposefully not doing their jobs in order to sabotage the DA, as a reason to recall the DA?
If the police really are standing aside and allowing people to be victimized, and threatening to do it until they get what they want, that sounds a lot like a hostage situation to me, and I don’t think there’s any way to justify that.
Except in this case the DA adheres to a criminal justice theory that is so absurdly radical that their policy is to, e.g., never press serious charges (i.e. charges that potentially come with incarceration) for property crimes because they believe (not entirely unreasonably) the criminal justice system is irredeemably corrupt, property crimes are less harmful to society than the incarceration norms (not nearly as reasonable), and that by taking such a radical approach he might induce structural change elsewhere in the system (notwithstanding that, like in the parolee case, he doesn't actually try to make sure that change is happening). Moreover, robbing people at gun point is a property crime, not the type of violence exception that warrants prosecution and incarceration. That's Boudin. I've never actually heard a meaningful defense of his decisions. At best his small cadre of supporters seem to rely on their faith in his abstract principles to quietly console themselves, including the wife of the famous private investigator recently killed in the street by thieves, whom he was photographing while they robbed someone else.[1] Everybody else in the city, left, right, and center, is basically just slack-jawed. But he's an elected official with independent powers. The process for removal is well underway. I'll eat a hat if the removal fails.
FWIW, he seems like a very intelligent person with strong convictions, and while too radical for my tastes, I could respect someone who put in the effort and followup required. He seems to have many of the qualities needed for someone to have any chance of succeeding in that regard.[2] But like conservatives who advocate and practice malign neglect in a misguided attempt to subvert and extinguish the administrative state, his approach is indistinguishable from nihilism, and that's indefensible for somebody entrusted with a public office, particularly the DA's office, which at least in principle is only quasi-political.
[1] Of course, since they actually ended up killing someone, Boudin's office is prosecuting them. But when you invite so much risk-free property crime, these sorts of "accidental" physical assaults and murders are inevitable.
[2] Though, his credibility is increasingly suspect as he fumbles to explain his office's decisions and square them with facial claims about prosecuting all crimes. It's clear he's begun playing semantic word games. His office may nominally have a policy of prosecuting all property crimes, but if you only require a fine or restitution and take incarceration off the table for failure to meet terms or even to show up to court at all, especially when people are what civil trial lawyers call "judgment proof", the claim has no substance.
Just so we’re clear on the facts — Homicides have not increased under Chesa Boudin. Did you write melodramatic prose about any of the homicides that occurred under the last DA? Do the homicides that have occurred under Boudin just “feel different” to you? What is it exactly? Because homicides are not getting worse in any appreciable way in San Francisco, but suddenly, a certain kind of person loves to talk about them.
No, they are saying 1) it makes sense that the police would stop arresting people if they know they'll just be released, 2) it makes sense the cops wouldn't try and cover for the DA when he will use them as a scapegoat later.
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[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/01/06/953254623/massive-1-year-rise...
According to the original article:
> When looking closer, city police data shows that violent crimes like homicide, rape and robbery were down in 2020 compared to 2019. However, burglary, arson, and vehicle thefts rose.
This contrasts with the trend indicated in the article you posted:
> Rosenfeld says there has been some respite since property crimes took a nosedive as the pandemic began.
"Burglaries were down. Larcenies were down. You know quarantines kept people at home and burglaries tend to avoid occupied households," he explained. "When the shops are closed, there's no shoplifting, so larceny is reduced."
Boudin's controversial policies relate largely to property crimes, and some of the press coverage and outrage resulted from people who were released from custody for property crimes and went on to hurt/kill people soon thereafter.
https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rat...
https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crim...