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San Francisco’s Quality-of-Life Toll: The high cost of low-level crime in the City by the Bay.
City Journal ^ | May 19, 2019 | Erica Sandberg

Posted on 05/20/2019 7:35:42 AM PDT by C19fan

San Francisco is the nation’s leader in property crime. Burglary, larceny, shoplifting, and vandalism are included under this ugly umbrella. The rate of car break-ins is particularly striking: in 2017 over 30,000 reports were filed, and the current average is 51 per day. Other low-level offenses, including drug dealing, street harassment, encampments, indecent exposure, public intoxication, simple assault, and disorderly conduct are also rampant.

Many in law enforcement blame the crime wave on Proposition 47, which in 2014 downgraded possession of illegal narcotics for personal use and theft of anything under $950 in value from felonies to misdemeanors. Anti-incarceration advocates disagree with that argument, but theft is indisputably booming, and narcotics activity is exploding on sidewalks, parks, and playgrounds. When compounded with other troubles for which the city is now infamous (human feces, filth, and homelessness, which is up 17 percent since 2017), San Franciscans find themselves surrounded by squalor and disorder.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; US: California
KEYWORDS: left; progressives
San Francisco is the nation’s leader in property crime.

All because the political class allows it. The attack ads one can make on Kamala Harris write themselves.

1 posted on 05/20/2019 7:35:42 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

Assault is a low level crime?

Insanity. All of it.

But you keep voting for marxists.


2 posted on 05/20/2019 7:41:33 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with islamic terrorists - they want to die for allah and we want to kill them.)
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To: C19fan

The political class ^encourages^ it.

Whitey has it because you are block.
You DON’T have it because you are black.
Just take it, it really his.
This is what socialist democracy IS.


3 posted on 05/20/2019 7:43:48 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastrophic, Anthropogenic Climate Alterations: The acronym explains the science.)
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To: C19fan

I hate to take issue with the author, but under Prop 47 thefts under $950. were not reduced to Misdemeanors, they fall under an entirely new class of crimes known as INFRACTIONS, So now if a cop witnesses a property crime being committed, and he “determines” the value of the booty is under $950. He must issue the perp a citation and release him immediately. Also property trespass is the same deal. When we owned a commercial office building in Northern California, the only time the cops issued a citation to a “transient” was when the found a guy who had plugged in his electric blanket into one of our exterior plug outlets. They charged him with “theft of electricity.”


4 posted on 05/20/2019 8:02:33 AM PDT by vette6387
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To: vette6387

Thanks for clearing that up. That line confused me, because I was pretty sure petty theft was already a misdemeanor in pretty much every state.


5 posted on 05/20/2019 8:07:58 AM PDT by The Pack Knight
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To: C19fan

6 posted on 05/20/2019 8:14:29 AM PDT by Dilbert56
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To: C19fan
Don't forget that flower in your hair!
7 posted on 05/20/2019 8:15:15 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (A joke: Comey,Brennan and Lynch walk into a Barr...)
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To: The Pack Knight

Stay out of California, especially San Francisco.


8 posted on 05/20/2019 8:18:16 AM PDT by ActresponsiblyinVA
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To: C19fan

Unfortunately, this crap is spreading to Texas as well.

Recently, the Dallas County DA said his office would no longer prosecute theft under $750 or simple drug possession. Luckily, this is still Texas, so he faced a massive backlash, but he only walked it back a bit: his instruction won’t prevent arrests, just prosecutions, and his office will still prosecute if the theft was committed for “monetary gain.” In the mind of the DA, who apparently does his policy research by watching Les Miserables, most petty thefts are committed by impoverished people who will starve if they don’t steal a loaf of bread.

A year or so ago, the Austin City Council voted to order the chief of police not to even make arrests for theft under $750 and other purportedly “minor” crime because making such arrests somehow involves “targeting minorities.” As though minorities weren’t the chief victims of such crimes. As a result, Class C misdemeanor arrests are down 63% from last year.


9 posted on 05/20/2019 8:22:09 AM PDT by The Pack Knight
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To: The Pack Knight
A year or so ago, the Austin City Council voted to order the chief of police not to even make arrests for theft under $750 and other purportedly “minor” crime because making such arrests somehow involves “targeting minorities.”

When the capitol of a state is ruled by the Marxists can the State be far behind?

10 posted on 05/20/2019 8:58:05 AM PDT by immadashell (Save Innocent Lives - ban gun free zones)
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To: C19fan

I’ll chime in here having lived in the bay area on and off for 30 years

First of all if you’re going to live in the bay area why would you want to live in the fog?

Furthermore if you’re going to pay all that money why would you live somewhere where there’s no parking?

The best place to live in the bay area are one Marin county where I live and to the far east bay Walnut Creek down to Pleasanton


11 posted on 05/20/2019 9:40:19 AM PDT by Truthoverpower (The guvmint you get is the Trump winning express !)
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To: 2banana

I was assaulted & robbed in SF (purse snatched, the perp proceeded to stomp me into the sidewalk).

The cop told me there were too many “important” crimes to bother filing out a police report on a “mere” purse-snatch.

I went over him to the Sarge in charge of robbery. The perp, it turned out, was wanted for more “important” crimes.

I sent him to San Quentin.


12 posted on 05/20/2019 10:06:36 AM PDT by mumblypeg
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To: Truthoverpower
The best place to live in the bay area are one Marin county where I live and to the far east bay Walnut Creek down to Pleasanton

Okay. I prefer the Peninsula, where I live. First of all, the fog is limited south of SF to Daly City, or the coast of Pacifica. Other parts of the Peninsula are fog-free. The fog is natural air-conditioning, so if one wants to cool down during 80s to 90s temps then you drive fifteen minutes north towards SF where it is in the 60s.

There's plenty of parking in the Peninsula towns.

And it is a headache to travel south from Marin county to SF (GG Bridge completely congested most times), whereas on the Peninsula there are lots of driving paths north and south. Takes minutes to drive north into SF, to the ocean beaches, to the bayshore, San Jose, Half Moon Bay, and not much longer to Monterey and Santa Cruz.

Best place to live in the Bay Area is down the SF Peninsula, outside of SF. Away from the congestion and crime of SF, but near enough to visit the good things about the city without concern of getting stuck crossing bridges.

13 posted on 05/20/2019 11:00:55 AM PDT by roadcat
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To: C19fan

The rate of car break-ins is particularly striking: in 2017 over 30,000 reports were filed, and the current average is 51 per day.


“I’ve solved the parking problem in SF.
I break into parked cars.”

-————— Apologies to Henny Youngman


14 posted on 05/20/2019 12:12:52 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: immadashell

I have voiced my concerns that the steady leftward trend of Texas’s growing cities will drag Texas into the Democrat column soon. Those concerns are frequently dismissed by a lot of Texans.


15 posted on 05/20/2019 1:41:41 PM PDT by The Pack Knight
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To: 2banana

San Fran Shithole .... I would reccommed to all tourists/businesses to avoid that cesspit if they value their health.

The politicos there finally got scared when it hit the national news, but all they have done is like hiding a boil under a bandage.


16 posted on 05/20/2019 4:28:09 PM PDT by elbook
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To: C19fan
"Other low-level offenses, including drug dealing."

The democrats and their drugs... As long as they, and that would be the democratic politicians of commiefornia, continue to call drug dealing "low level chime" they will continue to spiral down into the dung hole of humanity until there is nothing left but rotting, stinking pile of....Mexico.
They won't be missed...

17 posted on 05/20/2019 4:44:39 PM PDT by unread (Joe McCarthy was right.......)
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