[HN Gopher] San Francisco police can now watch private surveilla...
___________________________________________________________________
San Francisco police can now watch private surveillance cameras in
real time
Author : jkscx
Score : 101 points
Date : 2022-09-23 17:40 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| happytiger wrote:
| Huh. What could go wrong?
| abeppu wrote:
| We should all get real-time access to police body cams. After all
| they have nothing to fear if they're not doing anything wrong,
| right?
| googlryas wrote:
| So when I'm detailing to a cop how my ex partner broke into my
| house and raped me, you think you have a right to that
| information?
|
| Cool man.
| [deleted]
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It's not quite that symmetric.
|
| The public having real-time access to police body cams mean
| that _criminals_ also have that, which means they can see where
| the police are, which means they can be where the police _aren
| 't_. Whereas police having real-time data means that (at least
| in principle) they can be where the criminals _are_. One of
| those is a sensible outcome; the other is not.
|
| Mind you, I'm not saying this police access is a good idea.
| Just that _this_ rebuttal fails.
| abeppu wrote:
| > Whereas police having real-time data means that (at least
| in principle) they can be where the criminals are.
|
| From the article:
|
| > The SFPD will also be able to access private camera footage
| during large-scale public events such as protests, even if
| there is no suspicion that a crime has taken place.
|
| They explicitly want access in cases where there hasn't been
| a crime. The EFF posts on this legislation also points out
| that this is likely to not be particularly effective in
| addressing crime, if the rules laid out are followed. And
| members of the police commission even asked for this vote to
| be delayed. This is not actually about stopping crime.
|
| > One of those is a sensible outcome
|
| No, the outcome which involves all the non-criminals going
| about their daily lives inside a panopticon is not sensible.
| babyshake wrote:
| So a real-time feed of police body cams with a one week delay
| should mitigate the effects of criminals watching the feeds.
| ejb999 wrote:
| A 'real-time feed' with a one week delay? I don't think you
| know what the word means.
| mikestew wrote:
| "Real-time" doesn't mean "live", which might be what
| you're shooting for in your definition policing.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Yes, GP does. That sentence clearly and unambiguously
| means unedited, continuous, and with a 1 week latency.
| peter422 wrote:
| Fyi I've requested body Camara footage in SF and the process
| was quite easy, the video was delivered quickly and I used it
| to win my case against the city.
|
| I know you are making a facetious point but the footage is
| quite available.
| rabuse wrote:
| Until it's not, due to "lack of funds", or "COVID-19 issues".
| autoexec wrote:
| or "we lost it" or "camera malfunction"
| raldi wrote:
| In all seriousness, the most surveilled room in the city should
| be the surveillance center. Perhaps on a delay, everything that
| happens there should be reviewable by any citizen.
|
| If something happens there that needs to be struck from the
| public audit record, they should be required to get sign-off
| from a judge or have a watchdog official summarize the incident
| with the minimum possible redaction.
| kodah wrote:
| > The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) will not have
| continuous access to the cameras but will be able to tap into the
| network under certain conditions, such as during the
| investigation of crimes including misdemeanors and property
| crimes. The SFPD will also be able to access private camera
| footage during large-scale public events such as protests, even
| if there is no suspicion that a crime has taken place
|
| So, they basically have real-time access all the time,
| specifically during protests.
|
| Keep in mind the board of supervisors is voted in by the citizens
| of San Francisco. This _is_ what the citizens here want.
|
| I used to be angry at the police for wanting such things. Then I
| realized that at my job I like things being efficient. Someone
| else has to keep the police at bay.
|
| I also used to get mad at committees, like the board of
| supervisors, because they have the power to dole out power. But,
| like the police, what motivates them is what voters want.
|
| That last leaves the voters. A persons position on crime really
| depends on how they interpret the data this dashboard:
| https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crim...
| The citizens of San Francisco chose, based on their perception of
| this data, that giving more power to police surveillance was a
| tool they needed.
|
| I have no solutions. Everyone will see that dashboard in a
| different light. Rather, the only solution I can provide is a
| boundary: the job of the police _should_ be hard. If it is not,
| there is a hack in both your enumerated and perceived rights.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| > A persons position on crime really depends on how they
| interpret this dashboard
|
| Imagine asking SF residents to tell you:
|
| In the past 24 months, I have:
|
| A) seen the SFPD Crime Dashboard.
|
| B) been the victim of at least one property or violent crime
| and/or have witnessed a crime being committed in broad
| daylight.
|
| C) read a frightening account of a nearby crime on NextDoor,
| Twitter or Facebook.
|
| I think (A) would get the fewest votes. People form opinions
| based on their personal experience (what they see on the
| streets) and the narratives of others (what friends and
| neighbours write). Some folks look at stats. Fewer understand
| them. Even fewer use them to inform their opinion (rather than
| to support their existing opinion).
| kodah wrote:
| I've updated that sentence to read, "A persons position on
| crime really depends on how they interpret the data on this
| dashboard."
|
| Thanks for pointing out the poor phrasing.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| You still have the subject and object of "depends on"
| reversed, at best.
| kodah wrote:
| I think reversing it treads heavy into opinion territory,
| which has no data - just people's feelings.
|
| If the roles were reversed, eg: were this not SF, people
| would be die hard about the data and what it shows -
| which is part of my point.
|
| We can't have our cake and eat it too. At some point you
| just have to set clear boundaries, like what I mentioned
| at the end.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| My point still applies: people don't usually base their
| opinions on data. They base them on what they perceive
| directly (e.g. seeing a crime) or indirectly (e.g. hearing
| about a scary crime).
|
| Even if confronted with data, people will interpret it
| based on their opinion.
|
| Crime report data is up? That could mean:
|
| A) law enforcement has been doing a better job, so people
| feel it's more worthwhile to report crimes, or
|
| B) law enforcement has been doing a worse job, so people
| don't bother reporting crimes
|
| Whether someone interprets the data as meaning A or B
| _depends_ on their opinion more than it _informs_ their
| opinion.
| kodah wrote:
| The data, to me, is mostly reality. I rephrased it so
| that it reflects peoples perceptions on reality. I did
| that specifically because there's debate on how much
| crime there actually is.
|
| I do agree that data is fallable and manipulatable, but I
| do still think the data is good enough for a baseline.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I'm not suggesting the data aren't useful, that they
| don't reflect reality, or that they don't inform _your_
| opinion of what policies we should pursue.
|
| I'm just disagreeing that the data (trend in # of
| incidents of crime) are what drives _most people 's_
| opinions about what policies we should pursue.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| "Our residents and small businesses want us focused on keeping
| San Francisco safe for everyone who lives and works in the City,"
| Breed said in a statement. "This is a sensible policy that
| balances the need to give our police officers another tool to
| address significant public safety challenges and to hold those
| who break the law accountable."
|
| Oh my god, the mental gymnastics here are mind-numbing.
|
| Why not just fix the plethora of existing fundamental crises
| plaguing the city which are directly to blame for rising crime?
|
| Fraud is at an all-time high too, do I get a live feed of the
| private offices of high-ranking financial executives?
|
| I know the playbook, I know this is Police State 101, but are we
| really so lazy and pathetic that we still accept this answer as
| citizens?
|
| When will we finally remember that police and lawmakers are our
| public servants and not the other way around? This should be
| cause for protest across the entire tech industry. We can afford
| to take off work.
|
| What are we going to do about this?
| abeppu wrote:
| > Fraud is at an all-time high too, do I get a live feed of the
| private offices of high-ranking financial executives?
|
| Given the corruption revelations / charges that have come out
| of City Hall, SF residents should get live feeds (with audio)
| of all offices of city officials.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I wholeheartedly agree. I'm trying more and more to live
| stream my own dev process, they can do the same.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I was thinking of live streaming my own coding, but I can't
| think of anything more boring to watch.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| What kind of projects are you thinking of streaming? You
| might have your first viewer right here :)
| autoexec wrote:
| You can always add an exciting techno soundtrack or just
| get a mic, a mechanical keyboard, and a loud mouse and
| you can pull in the ASMR fans.
| throwsf123 wrote:
| > What are we going to do about this?
|
| Maybe elect somebody different, or run yourself if you feel so
| strongly about it.
| autoexec wrote:
| > I know the playbook, I know this is Police State 101, but are
| we really so lazy and pathetic that we still accept this answer
| as citizens?
|
| The number of Amazon ring cameras sold suggests that we'll not
| only accept it, we'll pay for the privilege of bringing the
| police state right into our own homes!
| aeternum wrote:
| Suggest a better alternative so it takes the wind out of the
| 'we need this to stop crime' sails.
|
| I'd suggest SF instead create a website where citizens can
| upload their own private videos of crimes being committed and
| actually expect a police follow-up.
|
| There are thousands of SF citizens that have the exact GPS
| location of their stolen phone, bike, etc. You know where
| there's one stolen item there are likely many more, why not use
| the evidence we have that citizens are pleading with SFPD to
| take action upon (to no avail).
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Interestingly, I think a more effective approach would be to
| invert, reporting crimes _without_ the expectation for police
| follow-up, shining a spotlight on the disgustingly lazy SFPD
| and their handlers.
|
| The only problem with either of these approaches is that it
| exposes the accused to vigilante action without due process.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Therein lies the problem. You have many thousands of pieces
| of evidence but limited manpower and resources. Even more so
| when politicians and residents are pushing to shrink your
| budgets. Couple that with a DA that is letting some pretty
| spicy characters walk on serious charges, and you have a
| recipe for todays conditions. If only someone saw this
| coming...
| rrradical wrote:
| > Even more so when politicians and residents are pushing
| to shrink your budgets.
|
| Besides the public discussion which we all heard, do you
| have any evidence that policing budgets actually shrank? My
| understanding is that they largely did not (and mostly
| grew). So you really don't seem to be arguing in good
| faith.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| So what you're saying is that all the municipalities and
| cities that cut budgets is not evidence of budgets
| getting cut? Seems to me that you're not arguing in good
| faith when all of this is public record, and could be
| discovered as such with a 10 minute stroll through google
| results.
| aeternum wrote:
| I'm not convinced budget is the issue. Many police still
| perform patrols around the city, and the data does not
| support the efficacy of that.
|
| Data shows that crime occurs in highly concentrated areas,
| and those are typically the undesirable areas of the city
| where police rarely patrol. I also question the efficacy of
| city-wide patrols now that every citizen is carrying a
| phone and can easily call in an issue.
|
| How would crime change if we committed just 2% of the 2000+
| SF police force on permanent patrol in tenderloin? That's
| something like 20 officers walking around tenderloin at all
| times, it would make the open-air drug market significantly
| more difficult. You could commit 10% or 200 officers to
| tracking down citizen-sourced live-GPS crime. Car breakins
| where a GPS device was taken (airtag is present, or
| cellphone/airpods was taken).
|
| I'd wager that those 12% of officers would make more total
| arrests than the 88% doing patrols throughout the rest of
| the city.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Many police still perform patrols around the city, and
| the data does not support the efficacy of that.
|
| There's a lot of value in having patrols even in low
| crime areas. It means that when something does go
| horribly wrong, or even when residents just need help,
| that help isn't terribly far away. It also prevents
| "police free zones" which criminals would quickly
| discover and be happy to exploit. That said, police
| certainly should be patrolling areas where crime is more
| prevalent more frequently.
| rabuse wrote:
| The first step, is to actually have consequences to the
| commission of crimes again. How is it so surprising that when
| you get lax on penalties, there will be more crime?
| lamontcg wrote:
| You could prevent crime from ever happening in the first
| place. The more mentally ill, drug addicted and
| homelessness you've got in a city, without any kind of
| support for them, the worse the crime is going to get.
| Punishment doesn't fix anything, just keeps them with
| nothing to lose.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| WTF! All other cities in america can do their f*king jobs without
| erecting this giant panopticon and monitoring every our moment of
| any slip-up then why cant they? instead of fixing the fundamental
| issues with policing they keep lowering the baseline expectations
| & then ask us to sacrifice more liberties. this is a massive
| overreach and needs to be stopped in its tracks.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| Not all. NYPD pretty much has this and has partnerships with
| private companies to assist in their surveillance.
|
| But I share your sentiment
| shtopointo wrote:
| I'm not even sure what dystopia to place this in - if they were
| actually tough on crime, then this would make more sense... but
| like this, when they don't do anything with ample video footage?
| autoexec wrote:
| Seems like it's going to be used to identify protesters. I
| certainty wouldn't assume that just because arrests aren't
| being made nobody will be doing anything with the footage.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| It is the same as the recent announcement that NYC was adding
| cameras on the subways. If criminals aren't going to be
| arrested and jailed, what good is it filming them while they
| commit their crimes?
| kaycebasques wrote:
| > a one-year pilot program that will allow police to monitor
| footage from private cameras across the city with the camera
| owners' consent. The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) will
| not have continuous access to the cameras but will be able to tap
| into the network under certain conditions, such as during the
| investigation of crimes including misdemeanors and property
| crimes
|
| Does anyone here know the details of how this consent works and
| what specific cameras are part of this program?
| Animats wrote:
| Does "with the camera owner's consent" mean "signed up for Amazon
| Ring"?
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| No.
| swiley-gin wrote:
| The invasion of privacy compared to the degree of crime in SF is
| incredible. Will people question the principles that led to this
| or do they still think there's some inconsistency at the top?
|
| Personally I'm glad I gave up on living in an urban place and
| left for the hills last year.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| My understanding of the situation in SF is that many things
| simply are not illegal and/or not enforced (for example, stealing
| bellow $950 in value). If that is the case why would police need
| surveilance cameras if they don't enforce basic laws in the first
| place? Can anyone from SF or who understands the situation
| explain?
| m-ee wrote:
| It is absolutely illegal to steal less than $950. The were a CA
| law that reclassified some crimes as misdemeanors instead of
| felonies, a misdemeanor is still a crime you can and will be
| arrested for. SFPD is famously reticent to do any work so the
| fiction that "we can't arrest people for small crimes because
| of the government" has been peddled as an excuse for them not
| doing their jobs.
|
| EDIT- To answer your question, SFPD works when they feel like
| it. When they do they want it to be easy. Local politics means
| there's no real accountability that an increase is their power
| would come with increased expectations, so why wouldn't they
| take as much as they can get
| ballenf wrote:
| If every PR a dev submitted got reverted the next day, they'd
| probably lose a bit of passion and start phoning it in or
| leave for another job.
| vkou wrote:
| In this case the better analogy is a dev that gets up in a
| huff because his code has to pass code review before it's
| submitted, so he spends the next year hanging around the
| water-cooler. It's a common police union response to any
| expectation of accountability or oversight.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| But consider that if you have 10 people steal 900 from you
| each month, you've lost almost 10k, which is not small
| potatoes
| throwsf123 wrote:
| > Can anyone from SF or who understands the situation explain?
|
| London Breed ran a representative survey by a sophisticated
| polling group whose objective is to identify "actions that
| maximize increase in votes." It's Shorism -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/style/david-shor-democrat...
| - not specifically his group but in a Darwinian way this is how
| lots of local elected officials operate now.
|
| So now we understand your question is really, "Why does this
| particular action affect voting?" We can only speculate. Too
| few people are victims of property crime for that to be the
| explanatory variable. I think the kind of people who are never
| victims of property crime (the majority) react very strongly to
| the presence of cameras. They also believe that Ring makes them
| more secure. It's all kind of stupid. But that kind of person
| votes.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| This was my reaction as well.
|
| The justification of this is pretty obvioulsy, police love
| [d-cking around with] Police State surveillance tools, which
| have as much allure as their military cosplay as well as
| providing a rich vein of feeding off public funding and
| associated grift payback and political donation.
|
| The actual use case which translates into public safety,
| especially with respect to property crime and the cluster of
| adjacent unenforced lifestyle-degrading failures of SF
| policing, seem to in no way justify the expenditure.
|
| And that is 100x as true because plain old community policing
| consistently proves infinitely better return on value.
|
| Not that actual proven return on value ever provokes investment
| in plain old community and social welfare, in our current
| dystopia...
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| Cameras help make up for a lack of police officers & detectives
| patrolling the streets, in theory.
|
| Community policing requires cops, and lots of them. SFPD is
| hemorrhaging talent, and why wouldn't it? Who would want to
| work somewhere with a sky-high cost of living, a populace who
| largely despises you, and an mostly-hostile City Hall? The best
| officers are lateraling out to better climes and recruitment
| numbers are falling.
|
| Also, it's very true that they don't go after many crimes, but
| they do spend resources on things like attempted murder, rape,
| etc. Too bad about your car, though...
| anm89 wrote:
| So they can make sure they know about all the crimes that they no
| longer arrest people for?
|
| 2 years from now, after the real estate bubble is 30% off it's
| highs and all of the big companies have drastically reduced their
| presence their and it's clear that SF is insolvent, it is going
| to get apocalyptic there. And I'm not going to lie, I'm going to
| enjoy watching it unravel.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >Civil liberties groups such as the EFF and ACLU were strongly
| critical of the new measure, which they argue will increase the
| surveillance of already marginalized groups within the city.
|
| Why can't this measure just be opposed because it is oppressive
| and authoritarian? Why the need to emphasize "marginalized
| groups"? It very much reminds me of the "stop and frisk" debate
| that happened years ago here in New York. "Stop and frisk" was
| clearly an unconstitutional practice that violated 4th Amendment
| protections against search and seizure. Instead of opposing it on
| those clear grounds, "civil liberties" groups and courts focused
| only on the racial aspect. It was ultimately stopped not because
| it was unconstitutional, authoritarian overreach, but because the
| "impact was disparate". Why must every issue in our society be
| somehow shoehorned into a matter of race?
| autoexec wrote:
| > Instead of opposing it on those clear grounds, "civil
| liberties" groups and courts focused only on the racial aspect.
| It was ultimately stopped not because it was unconstitutional,
| authoritarian overreach, but because the "impact was
| disparate".
|
| This is just plain wrong. People went after new york's stop and
| frisk laws for being unconstitutional. (see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_v._City_of_New_York)
|
| It's not surprising that civil rights groups will focus on
| civil rights violations. That's not "shoehorning something into
| a matter of race"
|
| When our rights are violated it's often "marginalized groups"
| that are disproportionately impacted because people who want to
| weaken our freedoms often start by attacking marginalized
| groups specifically because fewer people care about what
| happens to them and those groups often have fewer means to
| fight for their rights and tend to experience poorer outcomes
| within the legal system.
|
| One reason why civil rights groups keep such a close eye on
| "marginalized groups" is that the abuses we allow to happen to
| them today will be the abuses we all suffer under tomorrow.
| Keeping an eye on how they are treated will tell us how the
| rest of us will be treated. Stopping those abuses before they
| become entrenched and normalized is critical.
|
| It's not that nobody cares about unconstitutional practices
| unless they are happening to marginalized groups, but
| marginalized groups are where unconstitutional practices most
| often occur and when people fight back against them they
| absolutely do it because they are oppressive and authoritarian
| and violate everyone's rights.
|
| If you care about your own freedoms, you should care deeply
| about the freedoms of everyone else, especially the most
| vulnerable. It's really not some conspiracy to "make everything
| about race".
|
| All of that being said, the vast majority of society these days
| does consider it to be pretty uncool to be a huge racist, so
| pointing out when people are being racist does get some
| additional media attention to your cause, and can motivate
| people who don't want to be seen as enabling clearly racist
| practices to act against them. That does factor into things as
| well, although I struggle to see how that's a problem either.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >>This is just plain wrong. People went after new york's stop
| and frisk laws for being unconstitutional. (see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_v._City_of_New_York)
|
| Did you read your own citation?
|
| >alleging that defendants have implemented and sanctioned a
| policy, practice, and/or custom of unconstitutional stops and
| frisks by the New York Police Department ("NYPD") on the
| _basis of race and /or national origin_
|
| The whole suit was based on the assertion that the stops and
| searches were unconstitutional _because they were being
| carried out in a racist way_ - not because the searches
| themselves were unconstitutional by their very nature.
|
| >It's not surprising that civil rights groups will focus on
| civil rights violations.
|
| I'm for for equality and equal protection under the law
| (notice I said equality - not equity), and I fully support
| groups that push for Civil Rights and equality. But who
| stands up for Civil Liberties? ACLU stands for American Civil
| Liberties Union. If they aren't willing to stand up and fight
| for Civil Liberties (without regard whatsoever to
| "marginalized" status), then who is?
|
| >If you care about your own freedoms, you should care deeply
| about the freedoms of everyone else, especially the most
| vulnerable. It's really not some conspiracy to "make
| everything about race".
|
| It isn't a conspiracy - it is right out in the open. I care
| about freedom as a principle without regard whatsoever to
| anyone's standing in society. The freedoms of the "most
| vulnerable" are neither more or less important than the
| freedom of everyone else, or the principle of freedom.
| autoexec wrote:
| Why did you cut off the rest of that sentence? It
| concludes: "...in violation of Section 1983 of title forty-
| two of the United States Code, the Fourth and Fourteenth
| Amendments to the United States Constitution, Title VI of
| the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Constitution and laws
| of the State of New York."
|
| They attacked the practice on multiple grounds including
| Fourth Amendment grounds which I think you'll agree has
| nothing to do with race, so no, the whole suit was not
| based on the assertion that the stops and searches were
| unconstitutional only because they were being carried out
| in a racist way. The fact that the stops were racist was
| only one of several issues put before the courts and each
| of those issues was addressed by the courts on their own
| merits.
|
| > But who stands up for Civil Liberties?
|
| Many organizations, activists and individuals. It's not as
| if the ALCU is the only group in the country concerned with
| standing up for civil rights.
|
| > If they aren't willing to stand up and fight for Civil
| Liberties (without regard whatsoever to "marginalized"
| status), then who is?
|
| Even limiting ourselves to the ACLU, why should they (or
| anyone) have zero regard whatsoever for marginalized
| status? Do you think that there's some bar you have to have
| to clear where if your rights are violated they won't care
| if you aren't "marginalized" enough?
|
| > I care about freedom as a principle without regard
| whatsoever to anyone's standing in society.
|
| I think most members of civil rights orgs would tell you
| they also care about freedom as a principle which applies
| to everyone no matter what their standing in society.
|
| > The freedoms of the "most vulnerable" are neither more or
| less important than the freedom of everyone else
|
| I agree, but the freedoms of the "most vulnerable" are more
| often violated than the freedoms of everyone else, which is
| why they are often front and center in civil rights
| legislation.
|
| You're argument, to me, sounds a bit like someone
| complaining that doctors and researchers focused on
| chickenpox put more emphasis on children than adults.
| "Everyone's health matters without regard whatsoever to
| anyone's age" isn't being contested, but it doesn't change
| the fact that most people who suffer from chickenpox are
| children and that helping children with chickenpox would
| also help prevent adults from catching chickenpox or that
| it's the natural place for doctors and researchers to focus
| their efforts.
|
| Who is going around saying that civil rights violations are
| acceptable when they aren't committed against someone from
| a marginalized group? Who is refusing to do anything about
| civil rights violations when they are committed against
| people who aren't marginalized enough?
|
| We all agree that civil rights violations are terrible no
| matter who is impacted, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't
| fight to stop violations when marginalized groups are
| impacted, or that we shouldn't acknowledge the conditions
| that make violations against marginalized groups more
| prevalent or that we shouldn't acknowledge that it's harder
| for marginalized groups to to fight back against such
| abuses without lots of external support.
|
| You seem to be railing against some kind of common bias
| that doesn't appear to exist.
| justaka wrote:
| What's the use? California is one of the worst run states with a
| toothless police and very low conviction rates. We are witnessing
| the downfall of a society.
| tristor wrote:
| This is fantastic news for the residents of San Francisco. Now
| the police can watch in real time from afar, so they aren't at
| risk of spilling their donuts and coffee in the car while
| watching close by as residents packages are stolen, car windows
| broken, and petty theft runs rampant through no enforcement of
| the law.
|
| We should all be proud of what technology has achieved for
| society, further reducing the risk of being a police officer.
| What great benefit to the residents of San Francisco. Many more
| officers will make it to retirement age to make use of their
| oversized pensions since they won't even need to worry about
| possibly being cajoled into action and having to foot chase a
| thief when they can simply watch crime occur unabated from the
| comfort of their offices and homes.
| tomschlick wrote:
| > Now the police can watch in real time from afar, so they
| aren't at risk of spilling their donuts and coffee in the car
| while watching close by as residents packages are stolen, car
| windows broken, and petty theft runs rampant through no
| enforcement of the law.
|
| This is a direct result of the politicians that the residents
| elected. When you have a DA that doesn't prosecute offenders
| and releases them after police go through the work of
| arresting, gathering evidence, writing reports, booking, etc
| over and over again you'll start to get police that wont do
| those things because its simply a waste of their time.
| boulos wrote:
| Now that there's been a new DA for a couple months who
| appears to be tougher on crime, it doesn't seem like anything
| has happened yet. Chesa was in office for ~30 months. How
| long do you believe before we should expect a change in
| behavior?
| braingenious wrote:
| The SFPD superfans will likely continue blaming Chesa
| Boudin for every past, present and future instance of
| crime, spilled milk, and bad weather for generations. He's
| an incredibly useful boogeyman for people that want a
| complete and sovereign police state installed in that city.
| usednet wrote:
| As an actual SF resident, this is categorically wrong. The
| SFPD, pre and post Chesa has been utterly useless, which is
| supported by historical crime and arrest statistics. In fact,
| when Chesa was still DA he had to assemble his own team to
| act on the fencing ring after the SFPD refused to shut it
| down.
| subsubzero wrote:
| yeah but pre-chesa it was George Gascon, who by all intents
| is exactly the same ideologically as Chesa. You need to go
| back before George Gascon(who is now DA of LA and was also
| under a recall). And honestly SF knew who they were getting
| in both of them so they deserve the out of control crime
| that is plaguing the city now.
| nradov wrote:
| If that's an accurate description of the situation then why
| are you still an SF resident?
| cgy1 wrote:
| San Francisco, believe it or not, is still a great place
| to live, despite all of our issues.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not the person you're replying to, but in the same boat.
|
| Personally, "effectiveness of police" isn't a make-or-
| break criterion for me for where to live. I agree that
| petty property crime is out of control in this city, but
| I never feel physically unsafe. And regarding property
| crime itself, my car is garaged, and when it's out and
| about I never leave anything in it visible from the
| windows. As for my home, I live on the 4th floor and have
| two big heavy doors, one with a deadbolt, between me and
| the street. Home break-ins are pretty rare in my
| neighborhood anyway, but even if someone did want to
| break into a home around here, my home is not the low-
| hanging fruit that a burglar would zero in on first.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Effectively poor local policies hurts lower income people
| the worst.
|
| The ones without garages, without strong security
| systems, in worse off neighborhoods, etc.
|
| Unfortunately higher income people only act when it
| reaches their doorstep, which happens more gradually.
| throwsf123 wrote:
| Do you work for the police department?
| tomschlick wrote:
| Nope. Just have been following the /r/ProtectAndServe
| subreddit the past few years to get a better understanding
| about their profession and the reasoning behind their
| decisions and tactics.
|
| What I described above is a very common recurring trend
| from verified officers that work in major cities like SF
| that have gone soft on crime over the past few years.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| If the police are too apathetic to do their jobs, they
| shouldn't be getting paid at all. If they don't want to
| do their jobs then why don't they quit? Actions speak
| louder than words - they just want the paycheck without
| the work.
|
| The police are the problem with police, regardless of
| whatever distractions they say are to blame.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| It is easy to say that while sitting under the umbrella
| of their service, having never done even the smallest
| aspect of the job. The hostility towards uniform services
| in 2020 are paying dividends today. This is what was
| ordered and you get exactly what you paid for.
|
| Not wanting to do the job. On the contrary, they _want_
| to do the job, that 's why they become LEO in the first
| place. The problem is that leadership won't let them do
| the job, tying their hands and undoing the work they do
| (by releasing known violent criminals and other
| predators)
|
| Add in the talent-drain and it gets even worse. Why would
| a 20 year man stay on for 5 more years to train the new
| guard when it is just easier to retire now and not deal
| with activist leadership, people spitting on you, and DAs
| who let your collars (the one that almost got you
| stabbed) walk in a few hours?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > The hostility towards uniform services in 2020 are
| paying dividends today. This is what was ordered and you
| get exactly what you paid for.
|
| This applies in reverse to the lack of accountability and
| closing of ranks when police do something that's out of
| line. Why would police departments expect citizens to
| treat them with respect when enforcement of the law
| within their own ranks is so poor?
| ignoramceisblis wrote:
| That's a nice lie you have there.
|
| The problem is that crime is not being prosecuted as it
| should. The fault lies with the DA's office. Any other
| "solution" you offer will not actually resolve the
| effects of the problem until _that_ problem is solved.
|
| Once that problem is solved, I can guarantee you will see
| arrests increase. Maybe you're one of the ones who don't
| want that?
| tomschlick wrote:
| If the person they are arresting isn't being prosecuted
| because the DA releases them for petty crime/breaking
| into cars/stealing/etc, then there is zero point to
| actually arresting them if the cop is going to see them
| on the street again in 4 hours doing the same shit again.
| This is a political problem, not a police problem.
| autoexec wrote:
| > then there is zero point to actually arresting them if
| the cop is going to see them on the street again in 4
| hours doing the same shit again.
|
| the "point" would be in part:
|
| 1. Actually doing their job. No one can blame police if
| the DA or a lawyer or a judge fucks up and a "bad guy"
| walks. We can/will blame them if they refuse to do the
| job they are paid for.
|
| 2. It gets a "bad guy" off the street for 4+ hours.
| That's 4+ hours where the people police are supposed to
| be protecting don't have to worry about the criminal.
|
| 3. Keeping the record. Even assuming a terrible DA is
| letting everyone police arrest go free, someday a non-
| terrible DA is going to come into office and when a case
| file hits their desk they're going to want to know if the
| person arrested has been arrested one time or 20 times
| over the last x number of years. They're going to want to
| review reports and evidence from those incidents as well.
| wpietri wrote:
| If you're talking about the brief 2-year period where
| Boudin was DA, a) SF cop indifference long precedes that,
| and b) it's over, he's gone. So maybe you can drop this
| talking point and get a new one.
|
| I also want to challenge the notion that putting even
| more people in prison is going to solve these problems.
| The US has the world's highest incarceration rate. And
| not just by a little; we're ~5x the UK, ~10x Scandinavia:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarc
| era...
|
| We've tried mass incarceration to reduce crime. It does
| not work. Trying it a bit harder after decades of it not
| working is not going to suddenly and magically produce a
| different result.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| If the police honestly believe that, they should quit and
| stop wasting taxpayer money. Again, actions speak louder
| than words. You're just buying their bullshit excuses for
| why they're incompetent.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| And then who will be left, but the dangerous idiots?
| bombcar wrote:
| Many have. Police forces are having issues recruiting and
| retaining.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Why are the only two packages on political offer "don't
| prosecute" and "beat up innocent people?"
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| This is a mischaracterization of what occurs in the real
| world.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| That's true, police will still beat up innocent people
| even when they won't arrest the clearly guilty to protest
| prosecutors not charging the exact way police would
| prefer.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Again, a mischaracterization. There are somewhere north
| of 3,000,000 police-citizen interactions per day. An
| overwhelming majority of them end without event. Rarely
| are 'innocent' people even restrained. What's most likely
| is a person will resist arrest _after_ they were
| suspected of a crime, and will be injured in the forceful
| arrest.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| "Lots of innocent people don't get beat up by police" is
| true, but not actually a rebuttal of "police beat up
| innocent people".
| bakugo wrote:
| Because "police beat up innocent people" is a non-
| argument. You could replace "police" in that statement
| with just about any group of people and it would still
| hold true.
| mindslight wrote:
| Sure, but when anyone not from this specific group beats
| up someone, the criminal justice system generally
| prosecutes them. And if the criminal justice system fails
| to do that, we all still generally agree that the
| attacker was in the wrong.
|
| Meanwhile, when a police officer beats up or even murders
| someone, often an entire city has to protest for that
| _violent criminal_ to even be charged. And their
| coworkers, purported employees of the public trust,
| purported believers in law and order, go on and on
| justifying the assailant 's actions as if they should be
| normalized.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Re-read what I wrote. In the eyes of the court, a person
| is innocent until proven guilty, but the overwhelming
| majority of times, a person gets tuned up by police
| because they are violent and resisting arrest. Suppose we
| could argue about the meaning of innocent in the context
| of someone who led police on a chase, committed an
| assault against another citizen or police or has an
| active warrant and didn't want to go back to jail. Police
| are reactive and generally not proactive. They are
| dispatched to an incident and absolutely do not drive
| around looking for people to tune up. That's just simply
| false and is only true in the political theater that put
| us in this situation in the first place.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| I come from a law enforcement and fire service family and I
| can say I've heard similar things from family and friends
| in uniform service. The two biggest problems are letting
| the bad ones walk _and_ the drain of talent & experience
| as a result of terrible government policy nuking morale.
| jamroom wrote:
| I think there is more to this as well - it seems like
| policing is seen more as a source of revenue for cities
| than it is about protecting or serving the citizens of
| the city. I used to live in Lynnwood, WA and they added
| ~20 new officers in 2015 or so - by far the bulk were on
| "traffic". They had just spent 25+ million on a new rec
| center and updated library and needed to get that money
| from somewhere. Around that time my house was broken in
| to and the police saw it 100% as an insurance issue. I
| think A LOT of people don't see local police as anything
| other than another form of tax on the local citizens, and
| I believe it has changed the TYPE of person that wants to
| BECOME a police officer - from someone that is interested
| in helping their fellow citizen to someone that likes the
| feeling of power they get over others.
| oivey wrote:
| If that's a waste of their time (setting aside that they
| don't get to decide that), what are they doing instead?
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> what are they doing instead?
|
| Watching crimes happen via security cameras.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Monitoring, that's what the TFA is about. They just don't
| take action because the DA won't take action.
|
| Why open yourself up to liability, danger, just to have the
| DA let the person off and back out.
|
| Fix the issue from the top. It's specific DA's in specific
| areas that are the problem.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > They just don't take action because the DA won't take
| action.
|
| But they were already successful in their "get paid while
| on strike" protest to overthrow the D. A. in favor of
| their favored alternative, so shouldn't their defenders
| at least come up with a new excuse for their continued
| nonfeasance?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I guess we'll see how the new DA performs.
|
| I'm curious, do you think the previous DA did a good job
| or did you support the recall?
|
| -- EDIT @dragonwriter -- > I think that
| debate is about as relevant to the law enforcement
| problems in San Francisco as a debate over the china
| pattern in the first class dining room is to the problems
| with the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic.
|
| Okay... so you don't want to answer the question if you
| supported the DA or not.
|
| It's very much relevant as we were talking about the
| performance of the DA and you brought up the recall
| itself.
|
| You could have easily voiced your opinion of the DA
| instead of spouting off a silly analogy.
|
| -- EDIT2 @dragonwriter --- > since
| apparently you're doing upthread edits in lieu of
| responding
|
| Yes unfortunately I hit a post limit so I opted to
| respond in an edit because this conversation is
| interesting, thank you for adapting. >
| No, its not relevant to the point that SFPD apologists
| blaming the past DAs prosecutorial approach for why SFPD
| won't arrest people now after they succesfully got that
| past DA thrown out and replaced based on that argument
| makes no sense. > It doesn't really matter if
| they were right about Boudin when he was in office,
| that's moot when it comes to their current (in)action
| when he isn't.
|
| You act like it's been awhile since the DA was recalled
| for not doing his job, it's only been a couple months and
| old cases are still being reviewed. We'll see if the
| crime in SF lowers, or how the new DA handles cases in
| the very near future.
|
| I find it very interesting that you have no problem
| trying to put blame on the SFPD, who have little control
| in policies other than striking for change, which they
| did, while not even wanting to comment on the previous DA
| which generated the problems which led to the recent
| recall. > It doesn't really matter if
| they were right about Boudin when he was in office,
| that's moot when it comes to their current (in)action
| when he isn't.
|
| It certainly does matter as these things take time to
| progress, they aren't instant. The problems of SF today
| are the problems because of the last two DAs, not the one
| that just got in, depending on their actions.
|
| It will take time for the negative incentives to
| influence the criminals. This is why it's important to
| _always_ enforce the law and not just let people out.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > do you think the previous DA did a good job or did you
| support the recall?
|
| I think that debate is about as relevant to the law
| enforcement problems in San Francisco as a debate over
| the china pattern in the first class dining room is to
| the problems with the maiden voyage of RMS _Titanic_.
|
| EDIT:
|
| since apparently you're doing upthread edits in lieu of
| responding:
|
| > It's very much relevant as we were talking about the
| performance of the DA and you brought up the recall
| itself
|
| No, its not relevant to the point that SFPD apologists
| blaming the past DAs prosecutorial approach for why SFPD
| won't arrest people _now_ after they succesfully got that
| past DA thrown out and replaced based on that argument
| makes no sense.
|
| It doesn't really matter if they were right about Boudin
| when he was in office, that's moot when it comes to their
| _current_ (in)action when he isn't.
| oivey wrote:
| You really don't need many cops for monitoring,
| especially when they won't investigate or arrest people
| for crimes. Why spend money on employing them?
|
| The police don't get to decide whether people are guilty
| or can be convicted in court. Whether the DA prosecutes
| people adequately is a political problem. Whether the
| city spends millions employing cops that don't do
| anything is also a political problem.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Yes, it seems certain areas have two conflicting
| political problems.
|
| The DA is either letting too many people go or the mayor
| is keeping too many police.
|
| Personally I believe certain DAs are completely out of
| line and don't reflect the will of the people, but the
| will of certain donors.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Garbage men pick up the trash every week. Yet, every week
| there's more trash. I fix bugs even though more bugs will
| inevitably be found.
|
| If what you say is true, what police officers are refusing to
| do is their job. And it's not that different than many other
| jobs out there. They're not elected officials, it's _not_
| their job to legislate or choose who to prosecute.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Neat analogy, but you didn't finish it. It would be like if
| the garbage men took the trash out and at the end of the
| month and the person in charge of the dump released it all
| back out on the streets. Certainly you would have a garbage
| strike, which is what happened, and the dump manager (DA)
| was recalled.
|
| When you arrest the same person over and over again and
| they are just let out by the DA, you may just not arrest
| that person again.
|
| You aren't refusing to do your job, you're listening to an
| elected official that has more power than you do.
|
| Do you have any criticisms to direct at the DA, or do you
| agree with their actions?
| slg wrote:
| >When you arrest the same person over and over again and
| they are just let out by the DA, you may just not arrest
| that person again.
|
| Great, so everyone agrees the current approach doesn't
| work. Now we need to come up with a better solution.
|
| Option 1 is to throw these repeat offenders in jail and
| consider the situation fixed.
|
| Option 2 is to take the money that we are paying the cop
| that now refuses to arrest anyone and instead pay someone
| who is willing to work with this repeat offender and help
| get them a home, job, treatment, or whatever else they
| need to stop living life like this.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The problem is that lack of enforcement leads to
| criminals that act not out of desperation, but because
| they analyzed the rules of the game and realized that the
| reward for a criminal career is better than the reward
| for a legitimate career, with few downsides.
|
| Why work 20 days a month and make a modest living when
| you can steal and rob 3 days a month, fence on the 4th,
| and live in relative luxury?
|
| Throwing people in jail doesn't help with crimes of
| despair, but it does help with such calculated crime,
| because it suddenly is no longer worth it.
| slg wrote:
| > they analyzed the rules of the game and realized that
| the reward for a criminal career is better than the
| reward for a legitimate career, with few downsides.
|
| I don't think you realize that you are agreeing with me.
|
| There are benefits to committing crime.
|
| There are benefits to not committing crime.
|
| There are downsides to committing crime.
|
| There are downsides to not committing crime.
|
| These all come together to help influence a person's
| decision. We can impact that decision by tweaking any one
| of these 4 results. Yes, increasing the penalties for
| crime is one way to address it, but we can have the same
| influence be decreasing the benefit of committing crime
| or increasing the benefit of not committing crime. I
| happen to think that is the morally superior choice
| because the result is fewer people in jail and the US
| already jails more people per capita than any other
| country.
| orjustexecute wrote:
| Or just give them their constitutional right to a speedy
| trial, six months to make good with God, and then the
| firing squad.
| eternalban wrote:
| Soon we will have colonies on other planets and there
| will be an option 3.
|
| Police that refuse to do their job because the DA's
| office is politically indoctrinated are not helping
| anything. It's almost immature. Police have unions and
| associations, political connections (even today),
| connections with the press (even today), so we're not
| talking about some powerless sector of society.
|
| The mature response is for SF police to do its job
| (because if we do the math, it is also wasting the time
| of criminals), and have its organizational arms make a
| stink about it in the public space. Publish statistics
| and weekly 'wtf DA?' blog posts. I mean it's the 21st
| century.
| bakugo wrote:
| Ah yes, the classic "all criminals are just misunderstood
| and will stop committing crime if you give them money"
| argument.
| slg wrote:
| What is the counterargument? "All criminals are just evil
| people and will never stop committing crime unless they
| are thrown in jail"?
|
| The original line of argument was that crime went up
| because punishments went don't. This implicitly is built
| on the belief that criminals are rational actors
| responding to a changing incentive structure. We can
| therefore reduce crime by changing the incentives again
| so that crime is a less attractive option. There is no
| reason why that change needs to be the reintroduction of
| harsh punishments. We can also change incentives by
| reducing the positive benefit of crime by making sure
| people's basic needs are satisfied.
| bakugo wrote:
| You assume people need external incentives to commit
| crime, which is completely wrong. People need external
| incentives to NOT commit crime, because most crimes
| already include inherent incentives. For example,
| stealing comes with the inherent reward of gaining
| whatever it is you stole. You don't need to be homeless
| and starving to want more money or physical goods.
|
| I am living a comfortable life, all of my basic needs are
| satisfied, and I have never stolen anything. But if I
| could just walk into a store, grab things and walk out
| with the knowledge that I was not going to be punished
| for it in any way, I absolutely would. Why wouldn't I?
| Because it's "wrong"? I'm sorry but the world doesn't
| work that way. If I didn't, someone else would.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _People need external incentives to NOT commit crime,
| because most crimes already include inherent incentives._
|
| That's a pretty cynical view of human nature that I don't
| share.
|
| > _But if I could just walk into a store, grab things and
| walk out with the knowledge that I was not going to be
| punished for it in any way, I absolutely would._
|
| I absolutely wouldn't. I mean, zero-consequence thefts
| seem to be a true state of affairs for many places like
| pharmacies in SF, and yet I don't feel any desire to walk
| into a Walgreens and start walking out with stuff without
| paying. Sure, I'm pretty comfortable financially, and
| that's a factor. But I would have to be pretty hard-up
| financially, like "I'm going to be out on the streets if
| I don't steal" levels of hard-up, to consider stealing at
| all, let alone habitually (and I'd still feel guilty
| about it). And I frankly can't blame people in that
| position; in many cases society has failed them, so I
| can't fault them for ignoring society's rules.
|
| > _Why wouldn 't I? Because it's "wrong"?_
|
| Yes! Laws only work because people agree that they're a
| good idea in general, even if we may not agree with every
| individual law. I agree with laws around theft because I
| think it's shitty to deprive someone else of something
| that's theirs. Maybe it's a little muddier in the
| "personalization" aspect when we're talking about goods
| for sale owned by a huge corporation, but massive,
| ongoing, consequence-free theft from a particular store
| means that store is eventually going to shut down, and
| deprive regular people from jobs and their livelihoods. I
| wouldn't want that on my conscience.
|
| > _I 'm sorry but the world doesn't work that way. If I
| didn't, someone else would._
|
| Ah, yes, the "if I'm not an asshole, someone else will
| be, so I might as well just be an asshole and reap
| undeserved rewards" anti-morality play. That's
| reprehensible; I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your
| approach to being a human.
| bakugo wrote:
| >And I frankly can't blame people in that position; in
| many cases society has failed them, so I can't fault them
| for ignoring society's rules.
|
| You remind me of the dude who made that one bike comic.
| If someone stole something you own, you'd be happy
| because "society failed them"? I assume you've never
| actually been victim of or even witnessed any kind of
| crime, because you'd probably change your mind if you
| did.
|
| >Laws only work because people agree that they're a good
| idea in general
|
| No, laws are _created_ because most people think they 're
| a good idea, they _work_ because they are enforced. A law
| that is not enforced is a law that effectively does not
| exist.
|
| >Ah, yes, the "if I'm not an asshole, someone else will
| be, so I might as well just be an asshole and reap
| undeserved rewards" anti-morality play. That's
| reprehensible; I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your
| approach to being a human.
|
| The only reason you don't agree with this is because
| you're not surrounded by other people reaping undeserved
| rewards. It's very easy to say "I would never do that!"
| in an environment where nobody else does it. Have you
| ever heard of "looting"? Because that's literally what I
| described in action. If people know for a fact they can
| get away from stealing from a store, there will be no
| shortage of people willing to do it. If you'd stand there
| and watch while everyone else gets their free stuff,
| knowing the store will be cleaned out by the end of the
| day regardless, good for you, but your own morality does
| not change the facts.
| rayiner wrote:
| > And I frankly can't blame people in that position; in
| many cases society has failed them, so I can't fault them
| for ignoring society's rules.
|
| Society doesn't owe you anything; you owe society.
| slg wrote:
| >You assume people need external incentives to commit
| crime, which is completely wrong. People need external
| incentives to NOT commit crime,
|
| These are the same thing. There is one decision, either
| commit crime or don't. There are positive and negative
| incentives on each side.
|
| >For example, stealing comes with the inherent reward of
| gaining whatever it is you stole. You don't need to be
| homeless and starving to want more money or physical
| goods.
|
| Sure, but if you are homeless and starting your
| motivation to steal go up because that money represents a
| greater marginal improvement to your life. Would you
| disagree with that?
|
| >But if I could just walk into a store, grab things and
| walk out with the knowledge that I was not going to be
| punished for it in any way, I absolutely would. Why
| wouldn't I? Because it's "wrong"? I'm sorry but the world
| doesn't work that way. If I didn't, someone else would.
|
| It is always funny to me when someone admits they have no
| morals and think that means no one else has morals. There
| have been studies that show most people don't operate
| this way. For example, a majority of people will try to
| return a lost wallet and that percentage goes up when the
| amount of cash in the wallet increases[1]. How do you
| explain that?
|
| [1] - https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/734141432/what-
| dropping-17-00...
| bakugo wrote:
| >Sure, but if you are homeless and starting your
| motivation to steal go up because that money represents a
| greater marginal improvement to your life. Would you
| disagree with that?
|
| No. I never claimed that nobody has ever committed a
| crime due to being poor or homeless. All I'm saying is
| that the claim that solving homelessness and poverty
| would also solve crime is objectively wrong.
| slg wrote:
| No one said this is a solution to "solve crime" just like
| throwing all criminals in jail doesn't "solve crime".
| There will always be murderers, rapists, and just
| generally evil and deranged people. The goal isn't for
| San Francisco to have zero crime. That is impossible. The
| goal is to reduce crime. Reducing homeless and poverty
| would lead to a reduction in crime. Do you agree with
| that?
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think that's what the person you're replying to
| said, but yes, that is true in some cases, especially
| when crimes are perpetrated out of need, drug addiction,
| or because of feeling disenfranchised and excluded from
| society.
|
| That's certainly not everyone, but I suspect if we were
| to deal with the subset that is "misunderstood" in a more
| productive way, SF crime would be a lot more tractable.
| ummonk wrote:
| I prefer Option 3 - executions - but I'll settle for
| Option 1.
| sophacles wrote:
| Most of the sanitation workers I know would love it
| because of job security.
|
| Maybe if we treated cops like people with jobs, we'd be
| able to hire some that work.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| To be fair, most of this work load doesn't exist in a well
| functioning Society. Police serve to plug holes and fix cracks
| in the damn that is Civil Society.
|
| Their tools and tactics simply can't hold back a catastrophic
| failure anymore than an engineer with a shovel.
|
| In a functioning Society, 99% of the crime prevention is done
| by citizens. This takes the forms of community support,
| cohesion, self-respect, and having something to lose.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| Btw the thing that blocks water is a dam. Damn is short for
| damnation which is what happens to anyone downstream of a
| damned dam.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Non-sense. Why is this anger channeled to individual police
| officers? The people of SF voted for the policies that they're
| now suffering from.
| googlryas wrote:
| Yeah, at a certain point, if you see _everyone_ (or every
| cop) doing or not doing something, you need to ask what the
| incentives are or what is wrong with the system which they
| are working in.
|
| I'm not familiar with SF, but in my little liberal-city-
| overrun-with-homeless-drug-addicts, the cops want to arrest
| more criminals, but the people they arrest get released
| immediately back out to the public again, so it's sort of
| like, why even bother?
| systemvoltage wrote:
| No, complete misdirection. Scapegoating and loathing over
| cops is barking at the wrong tree. It also takes crucial
| attention that's much needed to correct terrible
| progressive policies and further perpetuates them.
|
| This is a time for introspection of the type of government
| structures and leadership, not knee-jerk reaction. Probably
| feels satisfying to call cops pigs and donut munchers but
| that's the lowest blow you can strike.
|
| It is time for progressives to start looking inwards and
| resist the urge to scape goat Capitalism, Cops, Inequality,
| etc. Study from how good governing cities look like and
| learn from it. Educate the public. Purge administrative
| class that delivers nothing for the taxes people pay.
| tristor wrote:
| Most of my ire (as a non-resident) is because I am forced to
| sometimes spend time in San Francisco, and it is a worse
| experience than nearly any other city I've visited in the
| world, which are many, most of them in vastly poorer and more
| generally corrupt societies, that somehow manage to be more
| functional and cleaner than SF.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| At some point it begs the question if it is a problem with
| the police or with the people. I have spent time in some
| incredibly poor countries where police are essentially non-
| existent. Theft is low because people individually believe
| that it is unacceptable Behavior. They are raised this way
| and a critical mass of parents, friends, and acquaintances
| perpetuate this value. Individuals themselves reject
| thievery as a solution to their problems.
|
| I don't know how to get back to that from where we are
| today
| tristor wrote:
| I concur with your assessment, and I'll add one
| additional thing to that assessment, most of these
| incredibly poor countries are religious and use the
| church as a community third-space. I believe San
| Francisco has replaced it's reverence for God with
| reverence for meaningless politics, and there is no
| third-place for the community. These may not be the
| causative factors, but certainly they speak to some
| differences that may affect the outcomes.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't think that religion is the only source of self
| respect, but do agree that the loss of community 3rd
| spaces with community values is a big part part of it.
| This shift is not confined to religion, but can be seen
| in almost every non-digital community that exists.
|
| They left a vacuum which was filled by anger, jealousy,
| narcissism, entitlement, and even more consumerism than
| before.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I don't know why the police need this, as they don't arrest
| anyone anyway for crime in SF, even when caught on surveillance
| video.
| rizoma_dev wrote:
| Gotta love a police state aided by unscrupulous technology
| companies
| oneplane wrote:
| Cameras 'for safety' only work as a scare tactic. A camera
| doesn't stop anything, it only watches.
| zo1 wrote:
| A camera can absolutely stop a whole lot, assuming there is
| willpower to follow up on what is recorded. If that is the
| case, the camera will act as a deterrent.
| oneplane wrote:
| I camera can't stop anything. Just like laws don't stop
| anything. Keep in mind that with stopping I mean: blocking an
| action from being taken. So if I want to deliver a bag of
| meth to your doorstep, even if you have 99999 cameras on the
| wall, that bag is not going to be prevented from getting
| dropped off. Same goes with dropping pipe bombs, stealing
| packages or breaking in to your car which might also be
| parked in a place a camera can see.
|
| All it can do (like I wrote, and like you wrote) is act like
| a deterrent, and, after the fact, when the action has already
| been taken, be used in follow-up activities.
|
| Now, granted, some people walk around with a mindset of "If I
| can get away with it I might do it" and then a camera can be
| enough of a deterrent, but if we're talking about safety,
| we're not talking about a subset of potential bad actors.
|
| People who are not thinking about consequences or are
| desperate enough to not care will not be deterred at all by a
| camera, and some of them might realise that if there are
| 10000 crimes, small crimes might get less attention than big
| crimes.
|
| Cameras are mostly useful for when you want to do realtime
| communication, or when you want to see something after the
| fact. Oh, and for spying, of course, but that sits nicely
| under the 'realtime' umbrella.
| autoexec wrote:
| In that case it's not the camera that is the deterrent, but
| the threat of enforcement after the fact. Remove that and the
| camera does nothing. Remove the camera and the enforcement is
| still the deterrent, just with one less piece of evidence to
| aid enforcement efforts.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| My second amendment rights include auto-turrets w/ cams and
| other sensors. (and a robot army) Too much time in gmod? Maybe?
| prpl wrote:
| Living in the east bay, all I want right now is that people get
| pulled over for missing/mismatched license plates. They probably
| should have camera at on and off ramps of the freeways and around
| the major roads, and at least trigger on missing license plates
| or vehicle color mismatches. Police should be pulling people over
| like crazy for violating it.
|
| I'm well aware of broken window fallacy and once upon a time I'd
| have felt like this was a violation of liberty, but it's utterly
| trivial to steal or carjack a car, replace or remove the license
| plate, commit a few other crimes (anywhere in the bay area), then
| dump the car - it's basically GTA out there.
| eurleif wrote:
| >I'm well aware of broken window fallacy
|
| You seem to be conflating two different things here. The broken
| window fallacy, or parable of the broken window
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window),
| is an idea in economics about how destructive actions don't
| produce a net benefit. The broken window theory
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory) is an
| idea in criminology that small crimes, like broken windows,
| produce larger crimes. While there is of course debate about
| how accurate the latter idea is, it's not generally described
| as a fallacy, and its only connection to the former idea is the
| similar name.
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