
The High Cost of Low-level Crime in San Francisco - mancerayder
https://www.city-journal.org/san-francisco-crime
======
wpietri
Crime's definitely a problem here, but parts of this strike me as exaggerated.
I live in the Mission, and have for almost 20 years. I don't think crime is
noticeably worse. This is also the first time I've heard a claim that crime is
a significant reason for stores closing. When I talk with actual business
owners, the big reasons are 1) massive rent increases, and b) difficulty
finding staff at $15/hr.

As an example, Allan Beats, who has run the specialty sci-fi shop Borderlands
Books, just closed down his adjoining cafe. He was clear about the problems,
and crime doesn't come up: [http://borderlands-
books.blogspot.com/2019/04/borderlands-ca...](http://borderlands-
books.blogspot.com/2019/04/borderlands-cafe-to-close.html)

Or Lucca Ravioli, just down Valencia Street, closed on the same day. The owner
was selling the building, and there's no way anybody could buy the business
without having millions to buy the building too. In sum, it was real estate
costs: [https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/94-year-old-
Lucca-R...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/94-year-old-Lucca-
Ravioli-Company-to-close-in-13571326.php)

I absolutely agree that crime is a problem; I've had 7 bikes stolen over the
years. I also agree that the insane rents guarantee people will end up on the
streets, and homelessness is comorbid with addictions, which are often fed by
crime. But this strikes me as overdramatic. It makes me wonder who funds the
organization that produces this.

~~~
keithly
It's a politically conservative publication funded by the Manhattan Institute
think tank [https://www.manhattan-institute.org/](https://www.manhattan-
institute.org/)

~~~
ben_jones
I've also started to see NRA sponsored youtube channels [1] doing in-depth
reporting on San Francisco's problems. It's not a bad documentary actually,
but conveniently leaves out the whole NIMBY movement while featuring a real
estate agent as a primary source focusing instead on the failures of local
(liberal) government.

I fear we're seeing a massive ramp up in propaganda leading up to the 2020
elections. San Francisco will play a prominent role of "look how bad $FOO are
at government!".

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSNBxnnawq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSNBxnnawq4)

~~~
icxa
Wait, but you just admitted it was in depth, and not bad, parent gp said
similar, so my question to both gp and you and those that think like this: why
does that automatically equate to propaganda? Because it's not 'your side'?
Why is the fact that it is a conservative think tank relevant? Evaluate the
content on its merits and evidence. The fact that it doesn't cover one angle
as extensively as you would have liked doesn't make it propaganda.

~~~
wpietri
I'll answer, as I guess you're addressing me with this (although I'm not
totally sure what "parent gp" means).

As I said, the article, which is on a topic where I'm reasonably well
informed, seemed at best badly written to me. When an article is a) bad, and
b) bad in a way that's convenient to somebody, it's worth asking how it got
published.

Personally, I think "evaluate the content on its merits and evidence" is a bad
heuristic for general-audience media like this. If somebody is going to cover
a topic like "20+ years of the history of San Francisco crime and its economic
and social impacts, plus the implications for urban policy" in 1000 words,
they're leaving a lot out. This article lacks both an explicit argument and
real evidence. It's basically saying, "Trust me, the writer, that I know what
I'm talking about."

That can be fine when the person is an expert who works for an organization
that is very good at producing solid journalism. But when it's disinformation,
propaganda, or just the sort of bias-confirmation piece that many agenda-
driven publishers put out, then it can be enormously harmful. So it's
absolutely worth asking who paid for the piece to exist.

~~~
masonic
You say it's "bad" yet fail to point out a single inaccuracy.

~~~
wpietri
Scroll up, bub. I already pointed out some inaccuracies I saw.

------
travisjungroth
I grew up in Sonoma and lived in San Francisco for three years. I’m near the
end of a two month stay in Medellín, Colombia. I’m looking to make the move
out of SF permanent. People here ask me why I’d move to a city like Medellín
from SF. It’s because there’s less crime, less drug use, less homelessness and
less street harassment for my girlfriend.

~~~
xltk
While I sympathize with your position, this feels a little misleading and
lacking in perspective.

I’ve lived all over San Francisco and am now in the Inner Richmond. It’s
easily my favorite place I’ve ever lived. Amazing food, easy access to two of
the more incredible city parks in the country (Golden Gate and Presidio), and
very safe [1]. I’ve gone for many a walk listening to music after midnight
with no threat of danger.

Though I’ve never been to Colombia, I’ve been to Tijuana, Mexico City, San
José, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Saigon… in none one of those places would I want
to walk around with AirPods, take pictures with a nice digital camera, or have
my phone out in public for more than a few seconds. There’s simply too big of
an income disparity between you and the average citizen.

[1] [https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-
California/...](https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-
California/crime/)

~~~
andreshb
That’s like saying “I’ve never been to Manhattan, but I’ve been to Baltimore,
Detroit, and St Louis and I wouldn’t feel safe in Manhattan”

~~~
xltk
Baltimore, Detroit, and St. Louis have the three highest murder rates in the
U.S. [1]. If you’re implying the cities I listed have higher rates of murder
or violence than Medellin, that is only true of Tijuana. Medellin has a murder
rate of roughly 25/100,000 people [2], more than double any of the other
cities I listed.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Colombia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Colombia)

------
jarjoura
I had an interesting experience the other week, as I went to Montreal in
Canada. It was still super cold up there, barely getting above freezing this
late into the year. Holy hell, the sheer amount of homeless people I saw on
the streets, the crazy amount of drug dealers trying to sell me shit, it was
next level.

Now, I'm not trying to suggest it's any better or worse than San Francisco.
It's bad for the simple reason that Montreal is in this climate zone where
it's fucking COLD for 50% of the year.

Anyway, the point I'm getting at is, I had always been under the assumption
that San Francisco, (and Oakland) were unique in the temperate climate that
enabled the insane amounts of homelessness you see here. Instead what I've
just come to realize, it's 110% SF's policies that have enabled this culture.

If its a problem in Montreal, a place where no one should ever be allowed to
sleep outside because, quite honestly, they would die, then they too lack the
proper policies to deal with it.

For SF to ever fix this problem, they have to first admit that it's not OK,
and for all of us here in Hacker News though it seems obvious to us, it's
clearly not obvious to the city.

~~~
jefft255
Homeless people actually sleep outside in Montreal even in the winter. It is a
problem as many die from hypothermia during particularly cold periods.

Some refuse to go to homeless shelters. Cops will sometimes try to find some
bullshit reason to arrest them so they don’t freeze to death.

------
gibolt
I generally agree with reduced sentences, if any at all, for minor offences.

Once someone becomes a 3+ time offender, it is worth removing them from the
street. The majority of cases are caused by a tiny number of people who do it
serially because they can.

~~~
the_snooze
In Berkeley there's a woman on the streets who has a long history of assaults
and property crimes. She obviously doesn't have the mental health care she
desperately needs, but I feel the local government is giving up its legitimacy
by keeping her on the streets and being all "surprised Pikachu" when she
whacks a stranger over the head with a tree branch.

[https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/11/01/woman-arrested-in-
do...](https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/11/01/woman-arrested-in-downtown-
berkeley-after-unprovoked-tree-branch-attack)

~~~
orthoxerox
How come no one has shot her yet in self-defense?

~~~
owyn
So your solution for homelessness is ... shooting random homeless people? Even
"self defense" carries with it a test for proportional response.

~~~
creato
> So your solution for homelessness is ... shooting random homeless people?

That's not even remotely what the parent said. Random homeless people !=
Homeless person assaulting you.

~~~
jopsen
True, so.... Only shoot the "homeless person assaulting you"... Hmm... I'm not
sure that's a lot better, hehehe :)

Wouldn't it be easier to just help the homeless person to not be desperate,
offer treatment, and home with TV..

(A room with a TV is a cheap way to prevent crime)

------
immichaelwang
I've wondered if what San Francisco needs is a Rudy Giuliani type mayor.
Someone to come in a shake up the status quo with valid right leaning polices
when it comes to crime.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
The US crime rate went down when Rudy was mayor, because in part the
population age bubble of the baby boomers among others got older. Crime rates
went down all over the us, conservative or liberal mayors.

A thing that also happened with the police doing almost certainly illegal
frisking of people on the street in nyc was that they disproportionately were
doing this to minorities - this is hugely damaging to our democracy. I think
conservatives are mostly white people and they don't see it happening to
them,or if it did rarely they were treated better because they are probably
white. If you are a young black man and this happens many times it really
hurts your psyche, makes you mad.

~~~
immichaelwang
Absolutely some policies went too far.

But the current status quo of not enforcing laws isn't working either.

------
lscotte
Good thing SF banned plastic straws! Great to see they've got their priorities
straight!

------
DevKoala
In SF, there is major organized crime. It’s very obvious. I remember that
during my first year in SF, a travel bag was found with a man mutilated
inside.

I live in a cheap studio in the Mission to save on rent. The things I see
remind me of my childhood in South America. I just wonder when the kidnappings
will start.

Also, even professionals have lost all respect for the city. People with a six
figure salary urinating on the streets, why?

~~~
seattle_spring
There are basically zero public restrooms there. If you need to pee, what
exactly else are you supposed to do? Tough it out for the 1.5 hours it takes
to ride a bus 5 miles back to your apartment?

~~~
DevKoala
Go into a McDonald’s or another restaurant.

Are you honestly excusing drunken wealthy people coming out of bars and
treating the streets of the Mission like it’s a public urinal?

~~~
anigbrowl
Kinda, yeah. There used to be more public restrooms (not least in every bart
station) but they shut them down after September 11 for 'security reasons' and
have never been able to figure the problem out since. Sure, you could hide a
bomb in a public toilet, but on the other hand that's probably the least-bad
place for an explosion to occur if someone ever decides to do that.

If you don't have public toilets, then drunk people are gonna relieve
themselves in alleys and the like. That's just a fact of life, not a moral
issue.

------
joelrunyon
SF is a weird place.

From a distance, it's really really beautiful and there's a lot of nice things
about it.

But walking around it on the ground, the only place I've been that's felt
dingier than it was Kuala Lumpur (and I still felt safer there).

Maybe if you live there - you get used to it - but man, was it unappealing.

------
idlewords
I used to go running in the early morning near Dolores Park. I remember a
period of about six weeks when the entire row of cars there parked overnight
would reliably have their windows broken every morning. I also struggle to
remember ever seeing an SFPD officer patrolling this neighborhood (two blocks
from a major police station) on foot.

~~~
purple_ducks
> I also struggle to remember ever seeing an SFPD officer patrolling this
> neighborhood (two blocks from a major police station) on foot.

Footbeats have been cut back from pretty much all police incl. in Europe.

Policing(even moreso with reduced personnel) is more reactive than
preventative. Getting from A to B and dealing with issue in B is generally
quicker and safer by vehicle than having somebody run to B and then dealing
with issue. Limited energy stores etc.

~~~
masonic
It's hot even reactive, when it comes to property crime. Police don't respond
to property crimes below a Grand Theft threshold; they just have you file a
police report online, and that is only used for insurance purposes.

------
DoreenMichele
It looks to me like a great deal of this is rooted in the homeless issue in
San Francisco, which is directly related to the very high cost of housing in
SF.

Studies show that simply building more housing of any kind whatsoever helps
alleviate the problem, even if you build more luxury housing. Lack of
affordability is tied to straight up lack of availability. (Seems easy enough
to infer that lack of availability should be directly to tied to incidence of
homelessness as well.)

------
Simulacra
Low level crime slowly becomes a drain on the entire neighborhood. Theft,
vandalism, taking a crap in the street, it all adds up. Eventually the police
will find a way to reduce such crime, or citizens will start building gated
enclaves and hiring guards, creating the burbclaves that Neal Stephenson
warned us about.

------
duxup
Is there a real increase in these sorts of crime?

The temperature of the story and stats provided by the police don't seem to
match.

------
ryanmarsh
Going to be there next week. Lived there twenty years ago. Haven't spent much
time in the city since. All I hear is horror stories. I hope everything is ok?
I was going to try to break in my new hiking boots after work each day. Any
suggestion on safe places to walk with my pack on? I'm camping in Montana the
following week.

~~~
mc32
In traditional residential neighborhoods it’s still ok. It’s the tenderloins,
SoMA, areas of the mission, etc., that have above average street crime. In the
residential neighborhoods it’s petty theft, car break-ins and such. Nothing to
worry about, but if you live there it can weigh on you after a while.

~~~
chrisseaton
> it’s petty theft, car break-ins and such. Nothing to worry about

Why are people so chilled-out and blasé about having their things taken or
damaged? Are you genuinely not bothered about the destruction due to a
political belief about property or do you think it's unavoidable? It doesn't
happen in most places - it doesn't have to be that way.

~~~
asveikau
I grew up on the east coast. My inclination has always been: don't leave
valuables in cars, especially not visibly so. Keep your stuff in sight and
typically on your person. Here in SF, I often see people leave laptops on
tables as they go to coffee shop bathrooms and I think, "wow, that person is
crazy". (Even though I have never seen their laptops be stolen.) And it wasn't
SF that did that to me.

Where are people from that they don't feel they have to be vigilant of
opportunistic property crime? I disagree that it doesn't happen everywhere,
just that the amount or frequency varies with the place.

~~~
masonic
Blaming the victims is insulting.

Cars are broken into without _even without any valuables in view_. There is a
common technique for breaking into Teslas, for example, such that the rear
side window is broken to gain immediate access to the trunk release. Teslas
get broken into on sheer speculation.

~~~
asveikau
I was not blaming victims. I am saying people take precautions wherever they
live, it is most certainly not just SF as the parent claimed.

For you to call that victim blaming is ... Rather insulting.

> Cars are broken into _without even without any valuables in view_

I live in San Francisco, you think I don't know this?

------
intopieces
Which of the high-crime areas have rent control? What would the crime look
like if the market had let the rents rise? It's my intuition that people
rarely commute 1hr in bumper to bumper traffic to smash windows.

~~~
gibolt
I believe a large amount is attributable to the homeless (or near homeless)
population. Everything around them exploded out of their range, and this is
the only power they feel they have to not get priced out or feel any semblance
of personal power.

~~~
viscanti
Only 50% of the homeless in San Francisco have been in the city for more than
10 years. Housing prices play a role but don't tell the full story.

When looking at the homeless who are still on the street, they're there
because they refuse to go to shelters. The vast majority who are on the
streets are there because of mental health issues or drugs. The visible aspect
of homelessness has much more to do with us failing to provide adequate mental
healthcare and a failed war on drugs than with housing prices.

------
Causality1
>“We could be keeping them and be giving services while they’re in jail,” says
Fabbri. “It could really be effective.

>we’re not solving our problems when we pretend low-level crimes aren’t
important.

Those two facts are the crux of the issue. Prisons do not rehabilitate
criminals; they just restrain them. Couple that with the fact it costs, on
nationwide average, $84 per day to incarcerate someone and the average petty
criminal steals less than $84/day and you end up with an uncomfortable
conclusion. That conclusion is that it would be cheaper to offer government-
funded total coverage crime insurance than it is to arrest the criminals.

~~~
fche
A daily theft of $84 per day has much more than $84/day of cost in terms of
corrosion of social trust. A government payout cannot fix that - heck it makes
it worse.

~~~
lostlogin
Doesn’t that strengthen causality1’s argument? You could give the their their
$84 and it would be a straight win if they stopped thieving.

~~~
fche
That is a big "if", of course. And I thought the initial idea was to have the
gov't pay the losses of the victims of thefts, without incarcerating the
thieves. As though that would eliminate the victimization.

