I’m generally pretty liberal, but living in a biggish California city for the last 15 years has turned me into a goddamn reactionary over crime/street safety issues. While I disdain the racially tinged way conservatives talk about “law and order”, the concept is square one for state legitimacy. I’d love to see progressives (normie Dems are basically fine on this) get with the program that their vision of society only works if people both are, and feel, safe.
And as for the unofficial police strike… I’d love to see more data regarding it. What scant data I have seen, such as # of traffic citations issued, hints at a police force that has completely given up on proactively enforcing the law. I’d love to see some contradictory data that shows SFPD are literally doing their best with what they have, because right now, eh, they’re not looking too good.
Why would the police put in much effort to excel in an emotionally demanding and frequently dangerous job when 1) the DA's office doesn't support their work product by taking it to the next step in the process and 2) the public vociferously derides the very concept of their work? One could argue that if the police believe that they should quit but for the vast majority of people they will just stop trying when working in an environment where their efforts are not appreciated.
That DA, whom truly did seem like an aberration, even compared to other progressive prosecutors, is gone.
Given the removal of that DA by the voters we should question whether “the public” derides the concept of their work, or if it’s merely a very vocal, if sizable, minority. Even if it’s the former, the professional thing to do would be (and something every agency should be doing anyway) is looking at where they’re falling short. Every large department has scandals, the “adult” course of action is looking at how you address them, not throwing a tantrum about being caught.
Quiet quitting in a position of public trust should absolutely not be tolerated. We wouldn’t tolerate it in any number of other institutional settings and we absolutely shouldn’t in our law enforcement community.
Yes- and any violent/tense interaction (which is a given when confronting violent,crazy people whose city leaders have encouraged to resist arrest) will be filmed, taken out of context and used to prosecute the cops.
SF spends hundreds of millions a year deliberately creating an ecosystem where people can live on the streets, steal and do drugs. People voted for this. It is not a cop’s job to prevent the people from getting what they want.
I feel sorry for the Asian communities that don’t want this (and they do a good job of enforcing some discipline in their neighborhoods)- perhaps they should secede?
Let the rich white people be patrons of the cartels, criminals, gangs and the insane in their own city. There has definitely been outbreaks of white tears in the Castro and Noe Valley as the disorder spreads from Soma, Mission, Tenderloin and the financial district. Maybe this has also helped the drought to end?
And you can’t compare murder rates across cities. Most urban murder at scale is gang-related and concentrated in African-American neighborhoods. People in those neighborhoods have to live with it (and nobody else in St Louis goes to those neighborhoods unless they live there) while the rest of the city merely is exposed to the spillover from progressive non-prosecution policies (including gun crimes).
SF has very few African-American neighborhoods (or African-Americans full stop). And the cartels seem to respect the boundaries in the open air marketplaces downtown. The cartel and gang members often commute from Oakland, and they do kill each other there.
"Most urban murder at scale is gang-related and concentrated in African-American neighborhoods. "
And most murder is carried out between people who know each other. Even in bad cities, if you keep violent people out of your personal life and stay out of gangs and drugs, you're not likely to be killed. Murder of a complete stranger is rare, which is why it freaks people out so badly. Everyone realizes that what happened to Bob Lee could just as easily happen to them. When it comes to stranger murder EVERY place is potentially the wrong place.
SF is definitely one of the best places around to interact with random crazy people. Fortunately, the odds of one killing you are pretty low.
From my limited experience working with the homeless, the loudest, craziest ones are often putting on that show to keep other dangerous people away or to feel some power when they force a working person to cross to the other side of the street or could be so high or drunk they have no idea what they are doing. Of course, a certain percentage are just completely and dangerously deranged and it is hard to tell which is which.
I look out more for the quiet but observant ones. Almost always armed (usually knives). One of our “clients” did a brief stint for manslaughter recently. She is an older woman, slight build- not someone you would cross the street to get away from. Fairly quiet on the surface but a brief conversation would show her to be truly paranoid, unstable and not in touch with reality. She came back to one of the programs I volunteer at. She was escorted by a much younger woman who was taking care of her. The younger woman probably doesn’t realize her older friend killed her last paramour (a man, which is why, along with her being crazy, she got off lightly). Love is blind.
Police nationwide only solve about half of all murders. And this declining closure rate is concentrated among Latino and African American communities. Police have meanwhile gotten better at solving murders of white peoples.
The murder of Bob Lee (which seems to have provoked Noah’s post) is a good example. Despite all the hysteria about Lee being the victim of the “chaos” in San Francisco, he was killed not by a homeless drug addict, but by another tech executive — apparently because of a woman. Frustratingly, this doesn’t fit the narrative just as most of the actual data Noah cites doesn’t point to a lawless disintegrating society.
Crime is a rising problem in San Francisco as it is in other major cities and rural areas for that matter. (Although crime rates especially for murder are still lower than in past decades.) But the burden of crime falls overwhelmingly as it always has on the poor and homeless. The white and affluent are insulated despite the claim by that keen sleuth Elon Musk that he knows lots of people who have been crime victims.
I hope we can normalize a liberal view that remembers basic safety is a prerequisite to individual freedom and self-expression - our core liberal values.
The Ninth Circuit has ruled that a $750,000 house for any and every mentally ill drug addict who moves to SF is the prerequisite before order can be enforced.
AFAIK the Ninth Circuit requires a shelter bed. Which is not unreasonable - New York is under a similar requirement, and actually provides them. It's an SF progressive thing to turn up our noses at shelters and insist on permanent supportive housing. Which is hopeless even if you wanted to & ridiculous if you don't, as you point out here.
Yes, the housing issue here is one of the very biggest and it has been building for many years - not just a recent issue. And yes, NYC is much better at housing the "homeless"
I wonder whether Prop 47 (https://pubdef.lacounty.gov/prop47/what-is-p47/) is a big factor for the chaotic nature of SF? Prop 47 is a California-wide proposition from 2014 which made many of the crimes that are most obnoxiously affecting life in SF into misdemeanors, such as burglary, theft and possession of controlled substances.
It was the start of more organized, brazen shoplifting and disorder. But the trend toward non-prosecution includes gun crimes. Boudin would gladly prosecute someone living peaceably in the Marina who was caught with an AR-15 in their house, but an armed gang member carrying an illegal pistol will be set free or given pre -trial “diversion”. There is no point arresting someone in SF unless they are caught standing over someone they have killed. Even then the DA’s will use every trick to downgrade charges.
I don't want to see laws enforced just against drug dealing - I want them enforced against drug consumption in public as well. Shooting up or smoking fenty are felonies, when the police ignore them - as we all know they do - they breed tolerance of a general breakdown in society. Go to rehab or go to jail, but you're not going to sit on public sidewalks flagrantly injecting poison into your veins, ODing and getting repeated doses of Narcan any longer.
San Francisco is the city conservatives love to hate. An example of a successful, tolerant, cosmopolitan city full of immigrants and gays was just too much for them to handle. So mostly I take criticisms from the right wing media with a grain of salt. But something has changed recently and more since Covid.
There are more loud intimidating young men. I am an ex-paratrooper and less concerned about violence than most. But when a guy half your age and six inches taller than you starts screaming at you, calling you a pedophile for walking on the sidewalk in front of his tent, even I take pause.
I still believe 90% of it is media hype, with the same videos being shown over and over again. When I walk around Bernal or Noe or Mission it’s safer than ever. But downtown has become an unpleasant place to be. And that’s not healthy for any city.
If you find downtown SF unnerving, try putting yourself in the shoes of a 5" 2" middle-aged woman. I have visited SF twice. The first time was in 2011; I had a ball, but was mildly freaked out by the sheer number of obviously mentally ill people I passed on the streets and by the open drug dealing after dark I saw along Market Street while returning from the Castro to my hotel in the Financial District.
I went again around 2017 for a professional conference, and things had deteriorated markedly. Unless the city turns things around, I will NEVER go back. And that's a pity, because under all the urban chaos is a lovely city - but what is the point of going to a place when you can't enjoy what it has to offer because you feel unsafe on the streets or while using public transportation?
I am sorry that you had that experience. Unfortunately it is worse now. With so many fewer workers in the downtown area, the homeless are even more visible.
I hope you liked the Castro. Most of San Francisco has neighborhoods like that, which is what makes it a good livable city for residents. If you do decide to come, and I hope that you do, please visit some places outside of downtown or the tourist areas.
What shook me on my last visit was that I was mostly in Fisherman's Wharf (because that was where the hotel hosting the event was located). That's Tourist Tacky Central, but because it's so heavily touristed I was surprised the area felt so unsafe even during the day. It didn't have that on-edge vibe in 2011 (although I didn't spend much time there - too tacky).
I made it to the Castro on my 2011 visit and had a blast! One of the best parts of that trip was attending, on a whim, a sing-along showing of The Wizard of Oz at the Castro Theater. OMG, was that fun! I am glad that I did make it into many of the neighborhoods (the Castro and the Mission District, Chinatown and Japantown, the Presidio, North Beach, etc.) and didn't just stick to the downtown areas. I even walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. As I said, a nice city, just with some serious issues no one seems to know how to address.
Interesting, I used to walk SF and especially the financial district all the way up to Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach frequently when I came into town for work - all the way up to 2020. I saw mentally ill and downtrodden folks, but was never close to being threatened by anyone (and although male, I am not large at all). Now, that said, there are areas I wouldn't go (just like in every big city in the world). And yes, I expect it to be worse now in the downtown with a lot less workers and activity at night... That is partly because that area was constructed (over years) to be just a place to work in the daytime instead of a real "downtown". It was always mostly quiet at night.
“ I don’t think anyone yet knows what the solution is,”
Reinstitutionalization for the profoundly mentally ill and drug addicted where they can receive rehab and mandatory treatment. With the knowledge that many of these people aren’t capable of living outside a secure mandatory treatment facility.
I have to say with embarrassment that being drunk all the time with the freedom to vandalize stuff and act out my impulses with few penalties had a passing attraction to me when I was 18 or 19.
If my city government encouraged and endorsed that lifestyle, paid $1 billion to NGOs to provide services to accommodate that lifestyle and made sure I had my EBT card and could steal whatever I needed to buy booze and drugs without penalty I think it would attract more people to the “lifestyle”. Beats the stress of working in a menial job and barely able to pay the rent.
I know a woman who is an ED of a wonderful NGO that provides transitional housing and life coaching for the “unhoused”. She used to take all comers- many of whom were young and single and addicted or drunks. Over the last 10-15 years she has found it very difficult for the model she was selling (meager self-sufficiency, sobriety) to compete with the “lifestyle” of living dissolutely on the streets (or camping outdoors along the Russian river, where this NGO operates). They’ll take free housing if offered, as long as they don’t have to change their lifestyle or be responsible for maintaining the housing or observing rules.
As a result she has stopped taking single individuals and now takes only families - they have a lower recidivism rate and have something to live for (their children) and most actually want to build a life (with the proper support for addiction and job training). My grandparents were poor and lived that meager subsistence lifestyle - but working and paying the bills wasn’t about their own happiness but to provide for their kids. When there is nothing in life but entertaining oneself- maybe living on the street or in a camp is understandable, particularly when we subsidize it and tolerate it. Note the Salvation Army does a good job rehabilitating single individuals and works with local Hardware stores and small business to provide jobs for their “graduates”, who are an inspiration, but only a small subset of the people out on the streets really want to do this sort of thing.
My view is that all of money we are providing for services to the unhoused comes from sacrifices made (and taxes paid ) by hardworking residents. If we didn’t have to spend all of this money, these working families would have more money in their pockets (lower taxes) or better services (schools, roads).
No benefits should be provided without asking the homeless to make sacrifices and have skin in the game as well.
They should be housed in organized shelters/dorms/campsites and obligated to either work for 4 hours a day or go through addiction or mental health counseling or job training. No drugs or alcohol and no weapons in the buildings or at the camp.
Their food stamp and EBT funds should be garnisheed to provide meals at the facilities. Spending money disbursed based upon working or attending counseling
In this model many of the “lifestyle” people would drift away, leaving the mentally ill, the addicts who need help and families who need support to get back on their feet and find jobs and housing.
This sort of program will be expensive - but camps and dorms don’t need to be in SF or Palo Alto or Santa Monica. I mean, many of us would love to live in those places but we can’t afford it. Should we pay more taxes so that others can live there? The program need to be regional/state level, not just city/county.
The biggest shortage is mental health resources. Addiction resources are also short, but the people can be trained more easily and many of the NGOs focused on accommodating the homeless lifestyle could shift focus to addiction and job training or as in-house managers for the residences
There is no evidence that the profoundly mentally ill are more likely to be perpetrators of violent crime. On the other hand, they are more likely to be victims of it.
Sources:
-Discharged mental health patients are no more likely to commit violent crime than others (Steadman, 1998): https://t.co/pAowyF6j2b
-However, they are more likely to be victims of violent crime than others (Teplin, 2006): https://t.co/dvfVDGjCEK
-Furthermore, UK's violent crime rate has plummeted since the 90s despite deinstitutionalisation (OFNS, 2022): https://t.co/4UPuzbXc3r
"we found the presence of a co-occurring substance abuse disorder to be a key factor in violence: the 1-year prevalence was 17.9% for patients with a major mental disorder and without a substance abuse diagnosis, 31.1% for patients with a major mental disorder and a substance abuse diagnosis, and 43.0% for patients with some other form of mental disorder and a substance abuse diagnosis. Our findings underscore the inappropriateness of referring to "discharged mental patients" as a homogeneous class."
....."Substance abuse significantly raised the prevalence of violence in both patient and community samples. Among those who reported symptoms of substance abuse, the prevalence of violence among patients was significantly higher than the prevalence of violence among others in their neighborhoods during the first follow-up. The patient sample also was significantly more likely to report such symptoms of substance abuse than was the community sample."
They also had many patients lost to follow up, and they tended to be people with substance use issues.
I don't think your data says what you think it says.
You also have to distinguish between severely mentally ill people who stay on their medications and those who do not. Floridly psychotic people CAN be extremely dangerous, particularly if they are also paranoid.
I think you need to re-read both the comment I am replying to. Substance abuse disorder is a problem and should absolutely be addressed with rehabilitation access and improved social services (along with legalisation of comparatively safer recreational drugs so victims don't consume the more harmful stuff like fentanyl).
The person I was replying to was advocating for re-institutionalisation for the 'profoundly mentally ill.' But as the data shows, mentally ill and even profoundly mentally ill people are not more likely to commit violent crime. They are more likely to be victims of it.
Substance abuse disorders and mental disorders are different things.
It's bad to have people who can't take care of themselves wandering around in public being menacing and disruptive. This whole "well ackshually it's not violent crime" thing misses the point. We are entitled to have behavior norms for public spaces. People who can't abide them may not need punishment, but they need intervention.
Mental health patients are not being menacing or disruptive. You could argue that victims of substance abuse are, and I'd agree that they need rehabilitation to address this. But that's not merely what the original comment was arguing.
The current operating logic is that if someone who's being menacing and disruptive can reasonably be inferred to be homeless or mentally ill, then the only thing we can do about it is wring our hands and await the revolution.
Can I ask why you keep bringing up them being homeless or mentally ill when the data doesn't support that? Can't you just stick with the substance abuse issue and fix that?
Many, many people have complicated and problematic relationships with substances without dropping their pants on Market St, camping on bike paths, accosting the baristas at Sightglass, smoking god-knows-what on BART trains while soaked in piss, following random pedestrians for blocks at a time screaming obscenities into their ears, banging metal poles against signposts at midnight, etc. All things I have seen with my own eyes and which everyone around me said was totally normal for San Francisco & one-upped with their own stories, regardless of "the data."
It's not like we need everyone to be clean and sober all the time to get this kind of stuff under control. There are people struggling with addiction everywhere, but this kind of unhinged public behavior being commonplace and accepted is not the case even in cities that are objectively way more dangerous.
the mentally ill "are more likely to be victims of" crime is true for every population, not just the mentally ill, because a tiny minority of the population commits almost all violent crimes.
The statements "Men commit almost all violent crime" and "Men are much more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of violent crime" are both true. If you pick a random man from the American population, he is unlikely to ever commit violent crime.
It’s mind blowing--especially that people must put a disclaimer that they aren’t conservative for wanting some order. Not wanting to be assaulted on the street isn’t lack of compassion. That passers-by don’t help is revolting and shows how far down the hole the city has fallen.
My mom was a recovering raging addict of 26 years before she died sober many years ago. She’d say the last thing you do is allow an addict to just freely use without consequences. She said you have to hit rock bottom before you realize things must change and SF is allowing people to get so destroyed that it becomes nearly impossible for an addict to feel the tiny spark of wanting something different than the misery of addiction.
One of the big factors in Tony Blair’s success was his ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime too’ framing of crime, he particularly focused on crime that impacted quality of life for ppl, the progressive left absolutely hammered him for the ASBO thing (go watch any show made my left wing dramatists or comics during the Blair years to see their contempt for his focus on this stuff) but actual ppl, many of them committed lifelong Labour ppl and the working class were all in favour of them, making ppl who engaged in anti-social behaviour face real consequences was a genuine disincentive to commit such acts as violence, drunkenly harassing ppl, visible drug use and even things like urinating on the street (my God did the progressive middle class mock the increased penalties for that one but the ppl who lived in the council estates loved it as they were the ones who’s streets didn’t smell of piss all the time anymore)
It’s always the comfortable progressive middle class who pretend this stuff is overblown as they’re not the ones who have to deal with it, while the actual working class and underprivileged (who the progressive middle class claim to speak for while never actually speaking to them, let alone listen to them) always supported Blair & Blunkett when they pushed ASBOs through
Many fellow liberals have mocked southern conservatives over the years for “voting against their own self interests” by choosing to cut needed services instead of slightly raising taxes in the name of “ma’ Freedom!” Much less the (often justifiable) mockery for voting against sensible gun reforms, again, in the name of “Freedom.”
Yet we see the same brainworms on the far left--the voting against self interest so one can feel THEIR most tightly held values of “Compassion and Inclusiveness.” It’s amazing that people inside both bubbles can’t see the futility of this mindset to save their lives.
There’s a reason the suburban counties of so many large US cities are booming. I, and many others, want walkability and the many benefits of urban living. It’s not going to happen if you have rampant assaults with no enforcement, people pooping on the streets, and discarded needles in the parks for children to find. Being appalled by this doesn’t make one conservative and accusing people of that drives votes away.
The old joke about social workers applies now to the progressive left, the joke went (just replace ‘social worker’ with SF Progressive)
2 social workers come across a brutally assaulted person lying bleeding on the ground and turn to each other and say ‘oh God, we must find the person who did this, he needs our help’
Many of these comments seem to be qualified with a statement like "I'm not a conservative, but..." or "I reject how conservatives are leveraging the issue, but..." As if they want to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the right, while still calling for what is an effect a law and order agenda.
The Venn diagram between normie Democrats and normie Republicans (yes, they exist) intersects in the area of public disorder and crime. Yet the left continues to vote for candidates who make excuses for it, and demonizing people with whom they should be natural allies on the issue.
A lot of politics is forming ad hoc coalitions, and it's hard to form coalitions on an issue when you keep badmouthing people with whom you agree - perhaps not on everything, but on the issue on which a coalition could be based.
I'm not sure how much of an issue this is in San Francisco, since all the Republicans in San Francisco could fit into a VW. But it's an issue nationally, and I despair that our increasing polarization suggests that it will not be resolved anytime soon.
It is very easy to buy a DA or police chief election or even a mayor’s race with out of state money from progressive tycoons. Or hold an off cycle election and rely on public employee unions and activists (sometimes working with street gangs) to GOTV, as in Chicago. The ecosystem is controlled by activists and donors (and then the pols grant money to their NGOs or hire them for programs). One hand washes the other.
The average voter isn’t as well organized and doesn’t have any favors to offer when going around harvesting ballots. Things have to get really bad before the normies can overwhelm the activists . There were some normie victories in SF (DA, school board) so maybe a groundswell is forming, but really not much has changed- yet
I don't know what to say about your newsletter today.
There are many here in Canada who say that our country is broken and, in many way, I think there is some element of accuracy to that. Now, having said that, your description of life in San Francisco is truly terrifying.
I last was in SF in, I think, 2010 and, while it was then a big city and there were various things that were "not like home" in no way did I feel unsafe; quite the opposite.
By contrast, from what I have been reading over the last few years in various publications and what I read in this newsletter, you can be certain that I will not be visitor to SF or its environs any time. Note, I did not say any time soon, I said any time. It is not simply what you have written herein but it is also what I have been reading elsewhere.
I can't help but think that this will ultimately be "corrected" by the imposition of a dramatic crackdown that goes way, way overboard, just as the fools who are excusing this misbehavior have similarly gone way, way overboard.
I forget there exact quote but there is some truth to the saying that when normal politicians ignore an issue the populace will elect populists to do the job.
New York got Giuliani. I don't think San Francisco wants someone like that but it's always a possibility if things get bad enough. California state law and courts would block a lot of the excesses better than NY ones, though.
It’s time to put to bed that Giuliani decreased crime in NY. It started falling under his predecessor Dinkins snd kept falling under his successor Bloomberg, following broad national trends. NY was already one of America’s safest big cities, relative to others, when Giuliani was in office.
You are confusing murder stats (which are gang related and usually concentrated on certain neighborhoods) with a change in public order and rule of law.
Murder stats did trend down nationally, The difference in public order and street safety between Dinkins and DeBlasio vs Giuliani and Bloomberg was completely obvious to anyone who lived or worked in that city during those eras. Bloomberg was also very focused on gun crime and gun possession amongst gang members and drug dealers in the worst neighborhoods as well as parole violators (all targets of stop and frisk). Now every gang member carries a gun knowing they won’t be prosecuted for it. As a result, shootings have skyrocketed.
"Murder stats did trend down nationally, The difference in public order and street safety between Dinkins and DeBlasio vs Giuliani and Bloomberg was completely obvious to anyone who lived or worked in that city during those eras."
This statement makes me wonder if you ever lived or worked in New York City.
I lived in Brooklyn from 2009 to 2020 and grew up in (relatively right-wing) Staten Island, spent many years commuting every day on the subway, and still have friends all over the city. (In fact, I was just there last week.) I was a kid during the Dinkins era, so can't really speak to that, but there was basically no meaningful difference in public order or street safety between the late Bloomberg years and deBlasio pre-Covid. I think crime ticked up a little, but it was barely perceptible day-to-day. I did notice a small-but-steady rise in homelessness, which is bad, but nothing crazy and definitely nothing approaching the stuff I read about what's happening in West Coast cities.
The real change came with Covid and the George Floyd riots - and even then, the decline in public order in NYC has been vastly overstated, I suspect because the city is the center of the national media. I'm not saying there has been *no* change, or that we shouldn't take it seriously; in fact, I have generally center-right views on crime and policing and take a rather dim view of progressive "reformers." But I also think it is important to be specific about what is actually happening. When I go back to NYC - which I do frequently - I'm struck by how normal and safe it still feels. There are some changes (more homeless, those weird quasi-legal pot shops) that point to more disorder, and I do think the city should nip that in the bud before it spirals, but it's hardly a return to the bad old days.
Statistics back this up - NYC's crime rate jumped in 2020 and '21, all the way back to the levels of the mid-2000s. That's not good! But it's also not the end of the world; I was in my early 20s back then and routinely traipsed around the city at all hours with no problems whatsoever. Again, I think the city should nip that in the bud, I think they should prosecute gang members with illegal guns; I'm with you there. But let's keep a sense of proportionality here. And this is all in the past few years. The idea that a difference in public order between Bloomberg and deBlasio would be "completely obvious to anyone who lived or worked in the city during those eras" is just wrong. It's some real New York Post brain stuff. I'm sorry, but it is. (And for the record, I didn't vote for deBlasio either time, so it's not like I have any stake in defending him.)
I lived through all those administrations in Brooklyn, having lived here since 1976. The Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations absolutely made a a difference in restoring public order. The Dinkins administration did not when the streets were full of squeegee men, whatever the 'data' shows. We've never returned to the chaos of the pre-Giuliani era, even under DeBlasio, and Eric Adams is doing fine. Brooklyn has nothing like the chaos in SF being described here, which I haven't visited since 2013 and don't remember as particularly scary then. Is Union Square now needle park?
Mmm hmm. Though at least there's no Staten Island in the City as a reactionary breeding ground. Probably won't be someone Giuliani levels of crazy, even if only due to ranked choice voting.
The courts will toss out any crackdown, not to worry. It is illegal to enforce the law. The courts say we have to provide people with $750;000 homes rather than rousting them off the streets
I think the right way to frame what it feels like to live in SF (or Oakland, where I live now), is the pain of slipping into a “low trust” society. You have to learn a new set of rules. You of course never leave anything in your car. You have items delivered to an Amazon locker or someplace secure like your office. You double or triple lock your bike. You learn to walk past and ignore people truly suffering. You get used to seeing guards at every store that can afford them. You see people casually smoking on BART, hopping turnstiles in front of the gate agent, and running red lights with clearly fake plates (or no plates at all). Are things these murder? Of course not. But they all point to a high level of accepted lawlessness as a matter of daily life.
What makes it feel like “chaos,” Noah calls it, is that everyone just *knows* that there will be no enforcement. Police are not proactive; they only react and often way too late to even matter. What’s the point in calling? Or submitting a 311 ticket to the city? So the cumulative effect is that, as an individual, you begin to just look out for yourself and put up blinders to everything else. This, I’m sure, is what the passing drivers thought as they heartbreakingly left Bob Lee to die alone.
Beautifully expressed! And living in a low-trust society is like living in a low-grade version of Hell because it's so isolating, and as social animals we NEED to be able to reach out and connect to others. You many not be robbed or physically hurt yourself, but living in such a place DOES harm you.
Anyone who has ever visited a city like Tokyo or Singapore can vouch for just how different the experience in a high-trust city is. The last time I visited San Francisco I was nervous walking around town during the day; in Singapore, I'd have little hesitation in walking around the city at 2 AM. It's literally a night and day difference.
I’m not on Twitter anymore (highly highly recommend btw, you will be noticeably happier) so have mercifully rejoined the 99.999% of ppl who have absolutely no idea what Jeet Heer has to say about anything but I’m guessing his reaction to these stories is to claim ‘centrists’ are blowing it out of proportion and that if you’re a person who thinks being stabbed is bad or who don’t like their kids going down a slide at the local park and getting pricked by a needle, then you are a fascist
Just by coincidence this was the next story I read after this one and it directly addresses the subject:
Change Is Coming
At the intersection of psychiatric disorders and law enforcement
An extraordinary conversation with Mary Trump, Jen Rubin, and Jen Taub about the importance of changing the way we think about psychiatric disorders and the way we treat the people who have them, especially when they come into contact with the criminal justice system
It took a lot of words to get to the part about "the SFPD appears to be on some sort of unofficial strike, with reports of cops standing by and doing nothing about crime being extremely commonplace," but this seems to be an issue in many places.
The people most endangered by a dangerous person within an encampment are his unhoused neighbors, not tech workers or whichever group locals are unsympathetic to. Tolerating menacing behavior isn't compassionate or progressive; addressing the public safety issue through more humane means is.
I do sometimes wonder whether the solution to an unofficial strike is to give a carrot or use a stick. At least a stick could actually prompt a proper list of demands that can then be provided.
It actually seems like this might be what happened in the midterms. Or to put it more accurately, talking about crime in NYC or SF didn't have the effect on voters that GOP thought it would outside of NYC*. I've brought up this data point many times but will keep repeating it because it's essentially a natural political science experiment; the one PA county where GOP actually overperformed is the one PA county that's in the NYC metro media market.
I know people like Noah push back on more liberal pundits and commentators who point out that crime is much worse in red states because Noah see's it as a crutch to ignore very real crime rises in places like SF and NYC. And fine fair enough on that. Although, I'd say the number of people who say crime isn't a problem or dare I say fake news is very small, but happen to disproportionately live in places like SF and are disproportionately loud on Twitter.
But to defend the pushback, the reason to point out that crime is much higher in red states is excessive focus on SF and NYC is very very much part of a right wing campaign to paint these cities as uniquely dangerous due to weak and soft on crime liberal governance. It's a political campaign to basically bring back the absolute worst aspects of 80s tough on crime policy. Pointing out that crime is much higher in red states I think is a very useful and correct retort to people who want to implement red state crime policy.
I live in Tucson. It does have a higher murder rate than desirable but frankly it's more isolated to the south side here.
SF and other cities with so much homeless and crime just seems to be beg for the solution: home the homeless. Some may need arrested to be incarcerated for drug abuse, but then recovery.
Isn’t the real issue that the police are effectively an autonomous collective? I live in Philly and the police here have a contract forced on the city by state laws which isolates them from most civilian controls. Calling this a strike obfuscates the problem. You can fight back against a strike.
I’m generally pretty liberal, but living in a biggish California city for the last 15 years has turned me into a goddamn reactionary over crime/street safety issues. While I disdain the racially tinged way conservatives talk about “law and order”, the concept is square one for state legitimacy. I’d love to see progressives (normie Dems are basically fine on this) get with the program that their vision of society only works if people both are, and feel, safe.
And as for the unofficial police strike… I’d love to see more data regarding it. What scant data I have seen, such as # of traffic citations issued, hints at a police force that has completely given up on proactively enforcing the law. I’d love to see some contradictory data that shows SFPD are literally doing their best with what they have, because right now, eh, they’re not looking too good.
Why would the police put in much effort to excel in an emotionally demanding and frequently dangerous job when 1) the DA's office doesn't support their work product by taking it to the next step in the process and 2) the public vociferously derides the very concept of their work? One could argue that if the police believe that they should quit but for the vast majority of people they will just stop trying when working in an environment where their efforts are not appreciated.
That DA, whom truly did seem like an aberration, even compared to other progressive prosecutors, is gone.
Given the removal of that DA by the voters we should question whether “the public” derides the concept of their work, or if it’s merely a very vocal, if sizable, minority. Even if it’s the former, the professional thing to do would be (and something every agency should be doing anyway) is looking at where they’re falling short. Every large department has scandals, the “adult” course of action is looking at how you address them, not throwing a tantrum about being caught.
Quiet quitting in a position of public trust should absolutely not be tolerated. We wouldn’t tolerate it in any number of other institutional settings and we absolutely shouldn’t in our law enforcement community.
Yes- and any violent/tense interaction (which is a given when confronting violent,crazy people whose city leaders have encouraged to resist arrest) will be filmed, taken out of context and used to prosecute the cops.
SF spends hundreds of millions a year deliberately creating an ecosystem where people can live on the streets, steal and do drugs. People voted for this. It is not a cop’s job to prevent the people from getting what they want.
I feel sorry for the Asian communities that don’t want this (and they do a good job of enforcing some discipline in their neighborhoods)- perhaps they should secede?
Let the rich white people be patrons of the cartels, criminals, gangs and the insane in their own city. There has definitely been outbreaks of white tears in the Castro and Noe Valley as the disorder spreads from Soma, Mission, Tenderloin and the financial district. Maybe this has also helped the drought to end?
And you can’t compare murder rates across cities. Most urban murder at scale is gang-related and concentrated in African-American neighborhoods. People in those neighborhoods have to live with it (and nobody else in St Louis goes to those neighborhoods unless they live there) while the rest of the city merely is exposed to the spillover from progressive non-prosecution policies (including gun crimes).
SF has very few African-American neighborhoods (or African-Americans full stop). And the cartels seem to respect the boundaries in the open air marketplaces downtown. The cartel and gang members often commute from Oakland, and they do kill each other there.
"Most urban murder at scale is gang-related and concentrated in African-American neighborhoods. "
And most murder is carried out between people who know each other. Even in bad cities, if you keep violent people out of your personal life and stay out of gangs and drugs, you're not likely to be killed. Murder of a complete stranger is rare, which is why it freaks people out so badly. Everyone realizes that what happened to Bob Lee could just as easily happen to them. When it comes to stranger murder EVERY place is potentially the wrong place.
SF is definitely one of the best places around to interact with random crazy people. Fortunately, the odds of one killing you are pretty low.
From my limited experience working with the homeless, the loudest, craziest ones are often putting on that show to keep other dangerous people away or to feel some power when they force a working person to cross to the other side of the street or could be so high or drunk they have no idea what they are doing. Of course, a certain percentage are just completely and dangerously deranged and it is hard to tell which is which.
I look out more for the quiet but observant ones. Almost always armed (usually knives). One of our “clients” did a brief stint for manslaughter recently. She is an older woman, slight build- not someone you would cross the street to get away from. Fairly quiet on the surface but a brief conversation would show her to be truly paranoid, unstable and not in touch with reality. She came back to one of the programs I volunteer at. She was escorted by a much younger woman who was taking care of her. The younger woman probably doesn’t realize her older friend killed her last paramour (a man, which is why, along with her being crazy, she got off lightly). Love is blind.
Police nationwide only solve about half of all murders. And this declining closure rate is concentrated among Latino and African American communities. Police have meanwhile gotten better at solving murders of white peoples.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/crime-without-punishment-oakland-san-francisco-homicide-clearance-rates/
The murder of Bob Lee (which seems to have provoked Noah’s post) is a good example. Despite all the hysteria about Lee being the victim of the “chaos” in San Francisco, he was killed not by a homeless drug addict, but by another tech executive — apparently because of a woman. Frustratingly, this doesn’t fit the narrative just as most of the actual data Noah cites doesn’t point to a lawless disintegrating society.
Crime is a rising problem in San Francisco as it is in other major cities and rural areas for that matter. (Although crime rates especially for murder are still lower than in past decades.) But the burden of crime falls overwhelmingly as it always has on the poor and homeless. The white and affluent are insulated despite the claim by that keen sleuth Elon Musk that he knows lots of people who have been crime victims.
The SF police weren't exactly known and respected for how well they did their jobs - long before the various DAs and mayors....
Because then you end up with a city like San Fran and literally nothing that is passed in terms of policy matters because it isn't executed.
I hope we can normalize a liberal view that remembers basic safety is a prerequisite to individual freedom and self-expression - our core liberal values.
The Ninth Circuit has ruled that a $750,000 house for any and every mentally ill drug addict who moves to SF is the prerequisite before order can be enforced.
AFAIK the Ninth Circuit requires a shelter bed. Which is not unreasonable - New York is under a similar requirement, and actually provides them. It's an SF progressive thing to turn up our noses at shelters and insist on permanent supportive housing. Which is hopeless even if you wanted to & ridiculous if you don't, as you point out here.
Yes, the housing issue here is one of the very biggest and it has been building for many years - not just a recent issue. And yes, NYC is much better at housing the "homeless"
Cheaper than keeping people in jail. Which is the alternative, I think.
In case anybody was curious about the collapse of policing in SF, you can see their traffic citations issued here: https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/percentage-citations-top-five-causes-collisions
Wow! Glad we have the public data for this, but how are people not losing their jobs over this damning chart?
I wonder whether Prop 47 (https://pubdef.lacounty.gov/prop47/what-is-p47/) is a big factor for the chaotic nature of SF? Prop 47 is a California-wide proposition from 2014 which made many of the crimes that are most obnoxiously affecting life in SF into misdemeanors, such as burglary, theft and possession of controlled substances.
Interesting!
According to https://www.ppic.org/publication/the-impact-of-proposition-47-on-crime-and-recidivism/, a paper published in 2018, prop 47 did find "some evidence" that larceny crimes ("particularly thefts from motor vehicles and shoplifting") increased; in some but not all models they tried, the increases were statistically significant.
It was the start of more organized, brazen shoplifting and disorder. But the trend toward non-prosecution includes gun crimes. Boudin would gladly prosecute someone living peaceably in the Marina who was caught with an AR-15 in their house, but an armed gang member carrying an illegal pistol will be set free or given pre -trial “diversion”. There is no point arresting someone in SF unless they are caught standing over someone they have killed. Even then the DA’s will use every trick to downgrade charges.
This is all policy- it is not an accident.
I don't want to see laws enforced just against drug dealing - I want them enforced against drug consumption in public as well. Shooting up or smoking fenty are felonies, when the police ignore them - as we all know they do - they breed tolerance of a general breakdown in society. Go to rehab or go to jail, but you're not going to sit on public sidewalks flagrantly injecting poison into your veins, ODing and getting repeated doses of Narcan any longer.
This is how many former residents of SF feel. It is easier to move than to change the city.
San Francisco is the city conservatives love to hate. An example of a successful, tolerant, cosmopolitan city full of immigrants and gays was just too much for them to handle. So mostly I take criticisms from the right wing media with a grain of salt. But something has changed recently and more since Covid.
There are more loud intimidating young men. I am an ex-paratrooper and less concerned about violence than most. But when a guy half your age and six inches taller than you starts screaming at you, calling you a pedophile for walking on the sidewalk in front of his tent, even I take pause.
I still believe 90% of it is media hype, with the same videos being shown over and over again. When I walk around Bernal or Noe or Mission it’s safer than ever. But downtown has become an unpleasant place to be. And that’s not healthy for any city.
If you find downtown SF unnerving, try putting yourself in the shoes of a 5" 2" middle-aged woman. I have visited SF twice. The first time was in 2011; I had a ball, but was mildly freaked out by the sheer number of obviously mentally ill people I passed on the streets and by the open drug dealing after dark I saw along Market Street while returning from the Castro to my hotel in the Financial District.
I went again around 2017 for a professional conference, and things had deteriorated markedly. Unless the city turns things around, I will NEVER go back. And that's a pity, because under all the urban chaos is a lovely city - but what is the point of going to a place when you can't enjoy what it has to offer because you feel unsafe on the streets or while using public transportation?
I am sorry that you had that experience. Unfortunately it is worse now. With so many fewer workers in the downtown area, the homeless are even more visible.
I hope you liked the Castro. Most of San Francisco has neighborhoods like that, which is what makes it a good livable city for residents. If you do decide to come, and I hope that you do, please visit some places outside of downtown or the tourist areas.
As Herb Caen said “walk the neighborhoods.”
What shook me on my last visit was that I was mostly in Fisherman's Wharf (because that was where the hotel hosting the event was located). That's Tourist Tacky Central, but because it's so heavily touristed I was surprised the area felt so unsafe even during the day. It didn't have that on-edge vibe in 2011 (although I didn't spend much time there - too tacky).
I made it to the Castro on my 2011 visit and had a blast! One of the best parts of that trip was attending, on a whim, a sing-along showing of The Wizard of Oz at the Castro Theater. OMG, was that fun! I am glad that I did make it into many of the neighborhoods (the Castro and the Mission District, Chinatown and Japantown, the Presidio, North Beach, etc.) and didn't just stick to the downtown areas. I even walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. As I said, a nice city, just with some serious issues no one seems to know how to address.
Interesting, I used to walk SF and especially the financial district all the way up to Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach frequently when I came into town for work - all the way up to 2020. I saw mentally ill and downtrodden folks, but was never close to being threatened by anyone (and although male, I am not large at all). Now, that said, there are areas I wouldn't go (just like in every big city in the world). And yes, I expect it to be worse now in the downtown with a lot less workers and activity at night... That is partly because that area was constructed (over years) to be just a place to work in the daytime instead of a real "downtown". It was always mostly quiet at night.
“ I don’t think anyone yet knows what the solution is,”
Reinstitutionalization for the profoundly mentally ill and drug addicted where they can receive rehab and mandatory treatment. With the knowledge that many of these people aren’t capable of living outside a secure mandatory treatment facility.
I have to say with embarrassment that being drunk all the time with the freedom to vandalize stuff and act out my impulses with few penalties had a passing attraction to me when I was 18 or 19.
If my city government encouraged and endorsed that lifestyle, paid $1 billion to NGOs to provide services to accommodate that lifestyle and made sure I had my EBT card and could steal whatever I needed to buy booze and drugs without penalty I think it would attract more people to the “lifestyle”. Beats the stress of working in a menial job and barely able to pay the rent.
I know a woman who is an ED of a wonderful NGO that provides transitional housing and life coaching for the “unhoused”. She used to take all comers- many of whom were young and single and addicted or drunks. Over the last 10-15 years she has found it very difficult for the model she was selling (meager self-sufficiency, sobriety) to compete with the “lifestyle” of living dissolutely on the streets (or camping outdoors along the Russian river, where this NGO operates). They’ll take free housing if offered, as long as they don’t have to change their lifestyle or be responsible for maintaining the housing or observing rules.
As a result she has stopped taking single individuals and now takes only families - they have a lower recidivism rate and have something to live for (their children) and most actually want to build a life (with the proper support for addiction and job training). My grandparents were poor and lived that meager subsistence lifestyle - but working and paying the bills wasn’t about their own happiness but to provide for their kids. When there is nothing in life but entertaining oneself- maybe living on the street or in a camp is understandable, particularly when we subsidize it and tolerate it. Note the Salvation Army does a good job rehabilitating single individuals and works with local Hardware stores and small business to provide jobs for their “graduates”, who are an inspiration, but only a small subset of the people out on the streets really want to do this sort of thing.
My view is that all of money we are providing for services to the unhoused comes from sacrifices made (and taxes paid ) by hardworking residents. If we didn’t have to spend all of this money, these working families would have more money in their pockets (lower taxes) or better services (schools, roads).
No benefits should be provided without asking the homeless to make sacrifices and have skin in the game as well.
They should be housed in organized shelters/dorms/campsites and obligated to either work for 4 hours a day or go through addiction or mental health counseling or job training. No drugs or alcohol and no weapons in the buildings or at the camp.
Their food stamp and EBT funds should be garnisheed to provide meals at the facilities. Spending money disbursed based upon working or attending counseling
In this model many of the “lifestyle” people would drift away, leaving the mentally ill, the addicts who need help and families who need support to get back on their feet and find jobs and housing.
This sort of program will be expensive - but camps and dorms don’t need to be in SF or Palo Alto or Santa Monica. I mean, many of us would love to live in those places but we can’t afford it. Should we pay more taxes so that others can live there? The program need to be regional/state level, not just city/county.
The biggest shortage is mental health resources. Addiction resources are also short, but the people can be trained more easily and many of the NGOs focused on accommodating the homeless lifestyle could shift focus to addiction and job training or as in-house managers for the residences
So, increase in services and spending, coupled with a punitive rhetoric.
What do you do with the people who do not comply?
There is no evidence that the profoundly mentally ill are more likely to be perpetrators of violent crime. On the other hand, they are more likely to be victims of it.
Sources:
-Discharged mental health patients are no more likely to commit violent crime than others (Steadman, 1998): https://t.co/pAowyF6j2b
-However, they are more likely to be victims of violent crime than others (Teplin, 2006): https://t.co/dvfVDGjCEK
-Furthermore, UK's violent crime rate has plummeted since the 90s despite deinstitutionalisation (OFNS, 2022): https://t.co/4UPuzbXc3r
From one of your sources
"we found the presence of a co-occurring substance abuse disorder to be a key factor in violence: the 1-year prevalence was 17.9% for patients with a major mental disorder and without a substance abuse diagnosis, 31.1% for patients with a major mental disorder and a substance abuse diagnosis, and 43.0% for patients with some other form of mental disorder and a substance abuse diagnosis. Our findings underscore the inappropriateness of referring to "discharged mental patients" as a homogeneous class."
....."Substance abuse significantly raised the prevalence of violence in both patient and community samples. Among those who reported symptoms of substance abuse, the prevalence of violence among patients was significantly higher than the prevalence of violence among others in their neighborhoods during the first follow-up. The patient sample also was significantly more likely to report such symptoms of substance abuse than was the community sample."
They also had many patients lost to follow up, and they tended to be people with substance use issues.
I don't think your data says what you think it says.
You also have to distinguish between severely mentally ill people who stay on their medications and those who do not. Floridly psychotic people CAN be extremely dangerous, particularly if they are also paranoid.
I think you need to re-read both the comment I am replying to. Substance abuse disorder is a problem and should absolutely be addressed with rehabilitation access and improved social services (along with legalisation of comparatively safer recreational drugs so victims don't consume the more harmful stuff like fentanyl).
The person I was replying to was advocating for re-institutionalisation for the 'profoundly mentally ill.' But as the data shows, mentally ill and even profoundly mentally ill people are not more likely to commit violent crime. They are more likely to be victims of it.
Substance abuse disorders and mental disorders are different things.
That’s simply false.
That’s been debunked. There was some statistical slight of hand to avoid stigmatizing the mentally ill.
> That’s been debunked.
Source?
It's bad to have people who can't take care of themselves wandering around in public being menacing and disruptive. This whole "well ackshually it's not violent crime" thing misses the point. We are entitled to have behavior norms for public spaces. People who can't abide them may not need punishment, but they need intervention.
Mental health patients are not being menacing or disruptive. You could argue that victims of substance abuse are, and I'd agree that they need rehabilitation to address this. But that's not merely what the original comment was arguing.
The current operating logic is that if someone who's being menacing and disruptive can reasonably be inferred to be homeless or mentally ill, then the only thing we can do about it is wring our hands and await the revolution.
Can I ask why you keep bringing up them being homeless or mentally ill when the data doesn't support that? Can't you just stick with the substance abuse issue and fix that?
Many, many people have complicated and problematic relationships with substances without dropping their pants on Market St, camping on bike paths, accosting the baristas at Sightglass, smoking god-knows-what on BART trains while soaked in piss, following random pedestrians for blocks at a time screaming obscenities into their ears, banging metal poles against signposts at midnight, etc. All things I have seen with my own eyes and which everyone around me said was totally normal for San Francisco & one-upped with their own stories, regardless of "the data."
It's not like we need everyone to be clean and sober all the time to get this kind of stuff under control. There are people struggling with addiction everywhere, but this kind of unhinged public behavior being commonplace and accepted is not the case even in cities that are objectively way more dangerous.
Ok. Then we can just switch it around. There are menacing and disruptive people who may also happen to be mental health patients.
They usually aren't mental health patients though. They are often victims of substance abuse. This is what we need to address.
They are often BOTH! And mentally ill people who are actively psychotic can indeed be dangerous, even when they are not abusing substances.
the mentally ill "are more likely to be victims of" crime is true for every population, not just the mentally ill, because a tiny minority of the population commits almost all violent crimes.
The statements "Men commit almost all violent crime" and "Men are much more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of violent crime" are both true. If you pick a random man from the American population, he is unlikely to ever commit violent crime.
It’s mind blowing--especially that people must put a disclaimer that they aren’t conservative for wanting some order. Not wanting to be assaulted on the street isn’t lack of compassion. That passers-by don’t help is revolting and shows how far down the hole the city has fallen.
My mom was a recovering raging addict of 26 years before she died sober many years ago. She’d say the last thing you do is allow an addict to just freely use without consequences. She said you have to hit rock bottom before you realize things must change and SF is allowing people to get so destroyed that it becomes nearly impossible for an addict to feel the tiny spark of wanting something different than the misery of addiction.
One of the big factors in Tony Blair’s success was his ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime too’ framing of crime, he particularly focused on crime that impacted quality of life for ppl, the progressive left absolutely hammered him for the ASBO thing (go watch any show made my left wing dramatists or comics during the Blair years to see their contempt for his focus on this stuff) but actual ppl, many of them committed lifelong Labour ppl and the working class were all in favour of them, making ppl who engaged in anti-social behaviour face real consequences was a genuine disincentive to commit such acts as violence, drunkenly harassing ppl, visible drug use and even things like urinating on the street (my God did the progressive middle class mock the increased penalties for that one but the ppl who lived in the council estates loved it as they were the ones who’s streets didn’t smell of piss all the time anymore)
It’s always the comfortable progressive middle class who pretend this stuff is overblown as they’re not the ones who have to deal with it, while the actual working class and underprivileged (who the progressive middle class claim to speak for while never actually speaking to them, let alone listen to them) always supported Blair & Blunkett when they pushed ASBOs through
Interesting and excellent points.
Many fellow liberals have mocked southern conservatives over the years for “voting against their own self interests” by choosing to cut needed services instead of slightly raising taxes in the name of “ma’ Freedom!” Much less the (often justifiable) mockery for voting against sensible gun reforms, again, in the name of “Freedom.”
Yet we see the same brainworms on the far left--the voting against self interest so one can feel THEIR most tightly held values of “Compassion and Inclusiveness.” It’s amazing that people inside both bubbles can’t see the futility of this mindset to save their lives.
There’s a reason the suburban counties of so many large US cities are booming. I, and many others, want walkability and the many benefits of urban living. It’s not going to happen if you have rampant assaults with no enforcement, people pooping on the streets, and discarded needles in the parks for children to find. Being appalled by this doesn’t make one conservative and accusing people of that drives votes away.
The old joke about social workers applies now to the progressive left, the joke went (just replace ‘social worker’ with SF Progressive)
2 social workers come across a brutally assaulted person lying bleeding on the ground and turn to each other and say ‘oh God, we must find the person who did this, he needs our help’
Many of these comments seem to be qualified with a statement like "I'm not a conservative, but..." or "I reject how conservatives are leveraging the issue, but..." As if they want to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the right, while still calling for what is an effect a law and order agenda.
The Venn diagram between normie Democrats and normie Republicans (yes, they exist) intersects in the area of public disorder and crime. Yet the left continues to vote for candidates who make excuses for it, and demonizing people with whom they should be natural allies on the issue.
A lot of politics is forming ad hoc coalitions, and it's hard to form coalitions on an issue when you keep badmouthing people with whom you agree - perhaps not on everything, but on the issue on which a coalition could be based.
I'm not sure how much of an issue this is in San Francisco, since all the Republicans in San Francisco could fit into a VW. But it's an issue nationally, and I despair that our increasing polarization suggests that it will not be resolved anytime soon.
It is very easy to buy a DA or police chief election or even a mayor’s race with out of state money from progressive tycoons. Or hold an off cycle election and rely on public employee unions and activists (sometimes working with street gangs) to GOTV, as in Chicago. The ecosystem is controlled by activists and donors (and then the pols grant money to their NGOs or hire them for programs). One hand washes the other.
The average voter isn’t as well organized and doesn’t have any favors to offer when going around harvesting ballots. Things have to get really bad before the normies can overwhelm the activists . There were some normie victories in SF (DA, school board) so maybe a groundswell is forming, but really not much has changed- yet
Noah, I just, I just, I just .....
I don't know what to say about your newsletter today.
There are many here in Canada who say that our country is broken and, in many way, I think there is some element of accuracy to that. Now, having said that, your description of life in San Francisco is truly terrifying.
I last was in SF in, I think, 2010 and, while it was then a big city and there were various things that were "not like home" in no way did I feel unsafe; quite the opposite.
By contrast, from what I have been reading over the last few years in various publications and what I read in this newsletter, you can be certain that I will not be visitor to SF or its environs any time. Note, I did not say any time soon, I said any time. It is not simply what you have written herein but it is also what I have been reading elsewhere.
I can't help but think that this will ultimately be "corrected" by the imposition of a dramatic crackdown that goes way, way overboard, just as the fools who are excusing this misbehavior have similarly gone way, way overboard.
Pendulums and all that.
I forget there exact quote but there is some truth to the saying that when normal politicians ignore an issue the populace will elect populists to do the job.
New York got Giuliani. I don't think San Francisco wants someone like that but it's always a possibility if things get bad enough. California state law and courts would block a lot of the excesses better than NY ones, though.
It’s time to put to bed that Giuliani decreased crime in NY. It started falling under his predecessor Dinkins snd kept falling under his successor Bloomberg, following broad national trends. NY was already one of America’s safest big cities, relative to others, when Giuliani was in office.
You are confusing murder stats (which are gang related and usually concentrated on certain neighborhoods) with a change in public order and rule of law.
Murder stats did trend down nationally, The difference in public order and street safety between Dinkins and DeBlasio vs Giuliani and Bloomberg was completely obvious to anyone who lived or worked in that city during those eras. Bloomberg was also very focused on gun crime and gun possession amongst gang members and drug dealers in the worst neighborhoods as well as parole violators (all targets of stop and frisk). Now every gang member carries a gun knowing they won’t be prosecuted for it. As a result, shootings have skyrocketed.
"Murder stats did trend down nationally, The difference in public order and street safety between Dinkins and DeBlasio vs Giuliani and Bloomberg was completely obvious to anyone who lived or worked in that city during those eras."
This statement makes me wonder if you ever lived or worked in New York City.
I lived in Brooklyn from 2009 to 2020 and grew up in (relatively right-wing) Staten Island, spent many years commuting every day on the subway, and still have friends all over the city. (In fact, I was just there last week.) I was a kid during the Dinkins era, so can't really speak to that, but there was basically no meaningful difference in public order or street safety between the late Bloomberg years and deBlasio pre-Covid. I think crime ticked up a little, but it was barely perceptible day-to-day. I did notice a small-but-steady rise in homelessness, which is bad, but nothing crazy and definitely nothing approaching the stuff I read about what's happening in West Coast cities.
The real change came with Covid and the George Floyd riots - and even then, the decline in public order in NYC has been vastly overstated, I suspect because the city is the center of the national media. I'm not saying there has been *no* change, or that we shouldn't take it seriously; in fact, I have generally center-right views on crime and policing and take a rather dim view of progressive "reformers." But I also think it is important to be specific about what is actually happening. When I go back to NYC - which I do frequently - I'm struck by how normal and safe it still feels. There are some changes (more homeless, those weird quasi-legal pot shops) that point to more disorder, and I do think the city should nip that in the bud before it spirals, but it's hardly a return to the bad old days.
Statistics back this up - NYC's crime rate jumped in 2020 and '21, all the way back to the levels of the mid-2000s. That's not good! But it's also not the end of the world; I was in my early 20s back then and routinely traipsed around the city at all hours with no problems whatsoever. Again, I think the city should nip that in the bud, I think they should prosecute gang members with illegal guns; I'm with you there. But let's keep a sense of proportionality here. And this is all in the past few years. The idea that a difference in public order between Bloomberg and deBlasio would be "completely obvious to anyone who lived or worked in the city during those eras" is just wrong. It's some real New York Post brain stuff. I'm sorry, but it is. (And for the record, I didn't vote for deBlasio either time, so it's not like I have any stake in defending him.)
I lived through all those administrations in Brooklyn, having lived here since 1976. The Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations absolutely made a a difference in restoring public order. The Dinkins administration did not when the streets were full of squeegee men, whatever the 'data' shows. We've never returned to the chaos of the pre-Giuliani era, even under DeBlasio, and Eric Adams is doing fine. Brooklyn has nothing like the chaos in SF being described here, which I haven't visited since 2013 and don't remember as particularly scary then. Is Union Square now needle park?
No doubt. He is just a jerk who rode the wave of discontent to enact a heavy-handed agenda because people's perceptions didn't shift quickly enough.
which is totally consistent with something like that happening again, right?
Mmm hmm. Though at least there's no Staten Island in the City as a reactionary breeding ground. Probably won't be someone Giuliani levels of crazy, even if only due to ranked choice voting.
The courts will toss out any crackdown, not to worry. It is illegal to enforce the law. The courts say we have to provide people with $750;000 homes rather than rousting them off the streets
Tree, you suffer from the disease called realism; that is, you see things as they really are!
Your condition absolutely disqualifies you from any possibility of being elected or appointed to any public position of authority or decision-making.
Pity the law doesn't allow the feds to just build housing for people. Seems like it would be much cheaper.
I think the right way to frame what it feels like to live in SF (or Oakland, where I live now), is the pain of slipping into a “low trust” society. You have to learn a new set of rules. You of course never leave anything in your car. You have items delivered to an Amazon locker or someplace secure like your office. You double or triple lock your bike. You learn to walk past and ignore people truly suffering. You get used to seeing guards at every store that can afford them. You see people casually smoking on BART, hopping turnstiles in front of the gate agent, and running red lights with clearly fake plates (or no plates at all). Are things these murder? Of course not. But they all point to a high level of accepted lawlessness as a matter of daily life.
What makes it feel like “chaos,” Noah calls it, is that everyone just *knows* that there will be no enforcement. Police are not proactive; they only react and often way too late to even matter. What’s the point in calling? Or submitting a 311 ticket to the city? So the cumulative effect is that, as an individual, you begin to just look out for yourself and put up blinders to everything else. This, I’m sure, is what the passing drivers thought as they heartbreakingly left Bob Lee to die alone.
Beautifully expressed! And living in a low-trust society is like living in a low-grade version of Hell because it's so isolating, and as social animals we NEED to be able to reach out and connect to others. You many not be robbed or physically hurt yourself, but living in such a place DOES harm you.
Anyone who has ever visited a city like Tokyo or Singapore can vouch for just how different the experience in a high-trust city is. The last time I visited San Francisco I was nervous walking around town during the day; in Singapore, I'd have little hesitation in walking around the city at 2 AM. It's literally a night and day difference.
I’m not on Twitter anymore (highly highly recommend btw, you will be noticeably happier) so have mercifully rejoined the 99.999% of ppl who have absolutely no idea what Jeet Heer has to say about anything but I’m guessing his reaction to these stories is to claim ‘centrists’ are blowing it out of proportion and that if you’re a person who thinks being stabbed is bad or who don’t like their kids going down a slide at the local park and getting pricked by a needle, then you are a fascist
Just by coincidence this was the next story I read after this one and it directly addresses the subject:
Change Is Coming
At the intersection of psychiatric disorders and law enforcement
An extraordinary conversation with Mary Trump, Jen Rubin, and Jen Taub about the importance of changing the way we think about psychiatric disorders and the way we treat the people who have them, especially when they come into contact with the criminal justice system
https://open.substack.com/pub/marytrump/p/change-is-coming
It took a lot of words to get to the part about "the SFPD appears to be on some sort of unofficial strike, with reports of cops standing by and doing nothing about crime being extremely commonplace," but this seems to be an issue in many places.
The people most endangered by a dangerous person within an encampment are his unhoused neighbors, not tech workers or whichever group locals are unsympathetic to. Tolerating menacing behavior isn't compassionate or progressive; addressing the public safety issue through more humane means is.
I do sometimes wonder whether the solution to an unofficial strike is to give a carrot or use a stick. At least a stick could actually prompt a proper list of demands that can then be provided.
“Being mad” about SF crime is ok. Voting Republican in Texas because of SF crime is not
It actually seems like this might be what happened in the midterms. Or to put it more accurately, talking about crime in NYC or SF didn't have the effect on voters that GOP thought it would outside of NYC*. I've brought up this data point many times but will keep repeating it because it's essentially a natural political science experiment; the one PA county where GOP actually overperformed is the one PA county that's in the NYC metro media market.
I know people like Noah push back on more liberal pundits and commentators who point out that crime is much worse in red states because Noah see's it as a crutch to ignore very real crime rises in places like SF and NYC. And fine fair enough on that. Although, I'd say the number of people who say crime isn't a problem or dare I say fake news is very small, but happen to disproportionately live in places like SF and are disproportionately loud on Twitter.
But to defend the pushback, the reason to point out that crime is much higher in red states is excessive focus on SF and NYC is very very much part of a right wing campaign to paint these cities as uniquely dangerous due to weak and soft on crime liberal governance. It's a political campaign to basically bring back the absolute worst aspects of 80s tough on crime policy. Pointing out that crime is much higher in red states I think is a very useful and correct retort to people who want to implement red state crime policy.
I live in Tucson. It does have a higher murder rate than desirable but frankly it's more isolated to the south side here.
SF and other cities with so much homeless and crime just seems to be beg for the solution: home the homeless. Some may need arrested to be incarcerated for drug abuse, but then recovery.
If we stay the path, we a gonna see it get worse.
Option B: Use yachts like Harlan Crows. 😊
Noah,
Isn’t the real issue that the police are effectively an autonomous collective? I live in Philly and the police here have a contract forced on the city by state laws which isolates them from most civilian controls. Calling this a strike obfuscates the problem. You can fight back against a strike.