San Francisco, the shoplifter's paradise!

[Derec]

I'm really not seeing how putting two bulldog Republicans in charge of a mostly Democratic polity and throwing some people in jail for a few weeks is going to meaningfully reduce shoplifting to the point of justifying the expense involved. There's a reason stores themselves seldom try to charge shoplifters.

They don't have to be Republicans. Moderate, pro-law and order Democrats would work too.
And maybe jail is not the right penalty for the first offense. Paying restitution to the victims with community service is a good first offense option. Let them collect garbage off the side of the highway for a fortnight! Jail time is sensible for repeat offenders, and more than just a few weeks! But there need to be consequences for thievery. Letting it go should not be an option!

But Derek and co think my money should be thrown at this insoluble issue. Great?

Maintaining law and order is one of the core responsibilities of any government. Without it we cannot have a society. Things like publicly funded museums or arts commissions are just gravy and pretty meaningless if the government is failing its core responsibilities.

 

[Derec]

Now If we can add Critical Race Theory to police training

You started so well, but had to ruin it! CRT is nothing but scapegoating white people for all the ills in society. The axiom is that all white people are racist but that blacks can't be racist by definition.
It's idiotic.

Don't trip yawl, cops should be trained to see the difference between a black man who really did nothing wrong, a black man who just doesn't want to go to jail & a black man who wants to kill them.

Or any person for that matter. Why limit it to black men? Did that kid's life in Arkansas not matter?

 

[Derec]

They have a solution. Incarceration!

For repeat offenses sure. First shoplifting offense - pay restitution and do a few weeks of community service with length based on value of stolen merchandise. But there need to be consequences for stealing.

For any and all crimes they don't expect that they themselves will be guilty of, such as solicitation of prostitution.

Sigh! Here we go again with Frikkian false equivalence!

Just like sodomy pre-Lawrence or possession of marijuana, there are certain laws that need to be repealed. Criminalizing sex work is one of those.
Laws against stealing, robbing, assaulting etc. are sensible laws that need to be enforced.

 

[Derec]

What is it with the racist right and the inability to offer solutions? Oh, right, their entire schtick is to whip up animosity against people, so as to foment an enemy that motivated people to vote for them despite offering no solutions other than the now-unspoken prescription we saw in the 1940's at the far end of such rhetoric.

But the thing is, we don't need "enemies". Rather, we need to treat our neighbors with kindness and empathy.

If you are talking about the likes of Ford, you'd be almost correct. Except that he is on the racist left of course.

 

[Derec]

You're missing a couple of key facts:

I do not think he is.

Chicago is the US third largest city. When you break down their crime per capita, it's ranked around 12th with regards to murders.

Nice deflection. First of all, being 12th is hardly bragging rights. Second, of the largest US cities, Chicago is clearly the most murderous one. Other top 5 cities by population, NYC, LA, Houston and Phoenix are not even on that list of most murderous. So there is a good reason Chicago is mentioned so often regarding murders and shootings. And it's even lefty filmmakers like Spike Lee who notice it - see his movie Chi-Raq.

The most dangerous city in America is St Louis, which is in the Republican run state of Missouri.

But the Mayor of the city is a lefty Democrat who supports defunding police. The DA of St. Louis County is likewise a lefty Democrat.

 

[Derec]

Am I?

Yes, you are. You don't want any of your precious tax dollars going to enforcing laws against theft.

How much shoplifting do you believe the wholesale replacement of the government, a change in policing policy, and a novel set of laws would prevent, and at what cost to taxpayers? Just throw out some numbers, it's okay to ballpark it a little!

Getting a more competent government is a good thing in ways beyond shoplifting. Repealing a misguided and misconceived proposition is not that costly - you Californians vote on a new slate of those every cycle anyway.

What about the societal cost of shoplifting and other forms of larceny? Are you also against using government resources to enforce laws against burglary or robbery, or is your support for shoplifting only?

By the way:

San Francisco Grocer Mandates Keeping Carts Indoors Amid City's Rising Theft Concerns

 

[J842P]

I don't know, but since Democrats and Republicans are ideologically different, presumably Republicans would have different ideas compared to whatever it is Democrats have been doing. According to Wikipedia, every Chicago mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat. The Crime in Chicago wiki says

Chicago's political landscape has been firmly under the control of the Democratic Party for over 85 years and has been widely described as a political machine.

You're missing a couple of key facts:

Chicago is the US third largest city. When you break down their crime per capita, it's ranked around 12th with regards to murders. The most dangerous city in America is St Louis, which is in the Republican run state of Missouri.

Unlike in Australia, gun laws vary from state to state in the US. Illinois is adjacent to states like Kentucky and Missouri. Their laws on guns ownership is basically, "If you can stand upright, see lightning and hear thunder, you can own a gun". Take a wild guess where most of the guns The top 3 places of origin are Indiana, Mississippi and Wisconsin. This is a problem a mayor cannot possibly tackle on their own.

Your argument about how dangerous Chicago is is basically the equivalent of, "Sydney is more dangerous than Nimbin, because there are more murders in Sydney." You're smart enough to figure out the flaw in that argument. I agree 100% that gun violence in the US is about as fucked as a porn star during their last set of the day. Where we differ is in believing Chicago is the worst or even atypical. Baltimore and St Louis are far more dangerous and that generally comes from Republican Governors playing partisan fuckery with peoples lives towards Democrat run cities.

So, the point you are making is that the greater Chicago area is relatively free of shootings? Well. That sure misses the fucking point.

 

[J842P]

I'm really not seeing how putting two bulldog Republicans in charge of a mostly Democratic polity and throwing some people in jail for a few weeks is going to meaningfully reduce shoplifting to the point of justifying the expense involved. There's a reason stores themselves seldom try to charge shoplifters. But Derek and co think my money should be thrown at this insoluble issue. Great?

It is a start. We also don't necessarily need to pick based on party affiliation either. Just good policy and leadership. Proposition 47 was basically in place already. We just had law enforcement from the street to the courts going overboard and filling the prisons when they didn't have to. Now with Proposition 47 it's just forcing the idiots to do what could have been done to begin with by good judges and state prosecutors. The only difference now is they're announcing to those who don't need to hear it, that "we won't be doing shit". Unless I'm just a big dummy on the issue.

Full disclosure: I voted for Prop 47, and I don't agree that its strictures, which primarily involved turning many petty offenses into misdemeanors rather than felonies under state law, was already in place. Even if that was effectively true in San Francisco County, it certainly wasn't true in Stanislaus County where I grew up, and where I still work. California is not a political monolith, and the over-criminalization of adolescent misdeeds was a nearly routine method of racial persecution where I grew up, resulting in the creation, not the termination, of a teeming criminal class. The idea that being shipped out of state to a prison in the desert somewhere for a few years will "reform" someone from a life of crime is ridiculous and illogical if you know anything about the kind of shit that goes down in said prisons. They're good places to get recruited into a gang or pick up a drug addiction, terrible places to set someone on a good and moral path in life.

I don't know anyone who is claiming that prison will reform people. Anyone who believes in that is clearly delusional.

The issue is whether making property crimes where the value of property is less than $950 a misdemeanor instead of a felony will affect the rate of commission of those crimes. You seem to be claiming that this will not affect the rate of the crimes? That the effect is negligible?

 

[fromderinside]

What ever happened to owner property responsibilities? Put merchandise behind glass with adequate number of people, protection devises and measures in place and theft loses go way down.

Don't parents have responsibility for child behavior? Provide schools with after school programs, food services, and clinic activities by the community leads to theft and property destruction and violence dropping down to near zero.

Hell reintroduce civics and citizenship back into curricula and young persons behave more like responsible citizens.

 

[Gospel]

What ever happened to owner property responsibilities? Put merchandise behind glass with adequate number of people, protection devises and measures in place and theft loses go way down.

Don't parents have responsibility for child behavior? Provide schools with after school programs, food services, and clinic activities by the community leads to theft and property destruction and violence dropping down to near zero.

Hell reintroduce civics and citizenship back into curricula and young persons behave more like responsible citizens.

Only thing you've said above that may affect things are the adequate security measures taken by property owners (which inconveniences customers), the rest of it doesn't mean shit to people living in a capitalist culture that glorifies the rich at the expense of the poor. You can tell people until your blue in the face to work hard, do the right thing, have respect for yourself and your envornment, educate yourself, but then shit pay with high costs of living spits reality in their faces. You then say, well protest, rally together, vote, and get state &/or federal involvement to tackle this, only for them to be greeted by State and Federal representatives in cahoots with the filthy rich.

Trust me, if they had a reason to listen to the good guys they would.

 

[Elixir]

Shop owners should be allowed to post armed guards, and if anyone is reasonably suspected of theft on the property, the guard(s) may attempt to detain and question that person, and if the suspect resists they may be shot.
That should keep those kids from stealing candy bars! At least they won't try it more than once...

 

[thebeave]

Shop owners should be allowed to post armed guards, and if anyone is reasonably suspected of theft on the property, the guard(s) may attempt to detain and question that person, and if the suspect resists they may be shot.
That should keep those kids from stealing candy bars! At least they won't try it more than once...

Candy bars? You really have not been keeping up.

 

[ZiprHead]

Shop owners should be allowed to post armed guards, and if anyone is reasonably suspected of theft on the property, the guard(s) may attempt to detain and question that person, and if the suspect resists they may be shot.
That should keep those kids from stealing candy bars! At least they won't try it more than once...

You remember Porky's. The guy on the upper floor with a fifty cal machine gun pointed at the crowd? I think that would be effective.

 

[Gospel]

Now If we can add Critical Race Theory to police training

You started so well, but had to ruin it! CRT is nothing but scapegoating white people for all the ills in society. The axiom is that all white people are racist but that blacks can't be racist by definition.
It's idiotic.

Don't trip yawl, cops should be trained to see the difference between a black man who really did nothing wrong, a black man who just doesn't want to go to jail & a black man who wants to kill them.

Or any person for that matter. Why limit it to black men? Did that kid's life in Arkansas not matter?

Man, people who add to someone's comments are hard to talk to. I do not intend to limit police doing their job correctly to a specific race. Why wouldn't all taxpayers benefit from their state police decreasing lawsuits? Why wouldn't a white person benefit from better-trained police? Which kid in Arkansas? Without knowing I can take a wild guess that a police force that is better prepared for their job may have decreased chances of fucking up. I've said this before and I'll say it again, the police force has been allowed to get away with a lot of shit with the minorities, and the more that happened the more it spilled over and affect the majority over time. The police force was founded for the purpose of controlling "those who are not like us" & you are starting to make that list.

Edit: by you are starting to make that list I mean you are being added to that list.

 

[J842P]

What ever happened to owner property responsibilities? Put merchandise behind glass with adequate number of people, protection devises and measures in place and theft loses go way down.

Don't parents have responsibility for child behavior? Provide schools with after school programs, food services, and clinic activities by the community leads to theft and property destruction and violence dropping down to near zero.

Hell reintroduce civics and citizenship back into curricula and young persons behave more like responsible citizens.

Only thing you've said above that may affect things are the adequate security measures taken by property owners (which inconveniences customers), the rest of it doesn't mean shit to people living in a capitalist culture that glorifies the rich at the expense of the poor. You can tell people until your blue in the face to work hard, do the right thing, have respect for yourself and your envornment, educate yourself, but then shit pay with high costs of living spits reality in their faces. You then say, well protest, rally together, vote, and get state &/or federal involvement to tackle this, only for them to be greeted by State and Federal representatives in cahoots with the filthy rich.

Trust me, if they had a reason to listen to the good guys they would.

Yup.

In any case, there are several things going on in San Francisco with regards to shoplifting. There are many homeless drug addicts that run in and steal high-value stuff to fence downtown. I've seen this first-hand, I know homeless people personally. I've watched the whole process. This is how they make their living. All you have to dow is steal a few Oakleys and you can buy plenty of fent.

One other piece is the organized criminal element that has realized there is basically a greenlight on theft in the city. I'm not sure about the relative magnitude of each.

 

[TSwizzle]

Two men casually walked out of a Los Angeles area TJ Maxx with their arms full of what appears to be stolen goods as brazen shoplifters continue to rampage through California retail stores. Viral video posted earlier this week shows two men carrying armfuls of jeans, jackets and other apparel as they casually saunter out of a TJ Maxx in the Granada Hills section of the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. 'They didn't even run out, they walked out,' Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz told CBS Los Angeles. 'And so, that's sending a message that...the criminals, are winning.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...xx-rash-California-shoplifting-continues.html

Newsom’s California. Homeless everywhere, crime up, filth like you wouldn’t believe and rolling blackouts. Recalling this insufferable prick is a must.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Newsom’s California. Homeless everywhere, crime up, filth like you wouldn’t believe and rolling blackouts. Recalling this insufferable prick is a must.

Which potential candidate do you recommend for fixing all these problems?

 

[thebeave]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU6o2MIuMQc[/YOUTUBE]

 

[TSwizzle]

Newsom’s California. Homeless everywhere, crime up, filth like you wouldn’t believe and rolling blackouts. Recalling this insufferable prick is a must.

Which potential candidate do you recommend for fixing all these problems?

Oh I don’t think all these problems will be fixed with a new governor. Getting the insufferable prick and tyrant Newsom out of office is just a small step in the right direction to stop it getting any worse.

I don’t know who’s all on the ballot but I’d take a strategically shaved monkey as governor over the incompetent buffoon Newsom.

 

[Trausti]

Newsom’s California. Homeless everywhere, crime up, filth like you wouldn’t believe and rolling blackouts. Recalling this insufferable prick is a must.

Which potential candidate do you recommend for fixing all these problems?

Oh I don’t think all these problems will be fixed with a new governor. Getting the insufferable prick and tyrant Newsom out of office is just a small step in the right direction to stop it getting any worse.

I don’t know who’s all on the ballot but I’d take a strategically shaved monkey as governor over the incompetent buffoon Newsom.

If that strategically shaved monkey had a (D) next to his name, he'd win.