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Comment by godzillabrennus | Hacker News Reader

I lived a couple of blocks from Salesforce tower before the pandemic and found the entire city had lost a ground war to homeless drug addicts. There was a break in at the Walgreens in the area one night and I spotted some of the crooks hauling cylinders out of the shattered windows while others were mixing stuff over a fire on the sidewalk. I called the cops and the emergency response operator literally told me “what do you want us to do about it?” I replied “something?”. A guy I knew who rented me office space, who also ran a small business with street access, and is from the area, thought this was an okay response because they stole from a big company, he felt it was a victimless crime.

So, while I’m glad to see this is happening I’m doubtful any real change will come to San Francisco till there is real economic harm that befalls the community. Basically, when the Detroit 2.0 story comes to town.

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> the entire city had lost a ground war to homeless drug addicts

As a former homeless drug addict, it's less of a war and more of a massacre. Despite the fox news-ass propaganda you see on HN all the time almost no one chooses to be out there like that. When I see folks down like that I think what has been done to them not what are they doing to me. This isn't them taking actions against you, this is the consequences of our policies; chickens home to roost shit. If you can't tolerate it then you must fight to change it.

Could you please go into more detail? Specific policies and their consequences and how you would change them?

No, I'm not going to here today, but I will explain why.

On HN every concrete suggestion must be an absolute fortress of a comment: flawlessly argued and meticulously sourced. Especially an in-this-context radical position like "don't blame the homeless for their situation" will have any exposed detail picked at, and that interaction will be read as discrediting the policy itself rather than a reflection on the context where we're having the conversation.

So here is the point I am making: letting people suffer and die in poverty in the center of one of the largest engines of wealth generation in history is wicked. Blaming them for it is monstrous. There are many policies this view could lead you to and I spend a lot of time working towards them with others who are working towards them. But that isn't here! Here I am just trying to get people to see the humanity in the people on the street.

> letting people suffer and die in poverty in the center of one of the largest engines of wealth generation in history is wicked. Blaming them for it is monstrous.

Thank you for reminding of the larger context in which the dehumanization of our fellow brothers and sisters occurs. The state is failing to care for its weakest due to 50 years of unfettered accumulative greed and individuals hearts’ have hardened as a psychological coping mechanism against an inability to help.

This in the season of charity and good will, no less.

I’ve always thought it disturbing that the center of wealth has such poverty but doesn’t California and San Francisco spend the most tax payer money on the homeless? Hundreds of millions? Can’t hundreds of millions prevent this? Are they really letting them suffer and die? And why can’t the taxpayer funded police stop a crime on Walgreens? That question hasn’t been answered

Government creates this problem by making it impossible to build more housing. Government can’t fix the problem without addressing the cause. It’s just a jobs program for government workers and a complete failure.

> this was an okay response because they stole from a big company, felt it was a victimless crime.

I wonder if Walgreens thought about hiring their own security guards. It seems to make sense to pay for your own security, right? I assume insurance factors into that decision.

There are a lot of people who don't have much empathy for big companies. They would characterize them as soulless profit making machines that squeeze employees and consumers as much as they can, pollute the commons, homogenize the culture, warp politics, regulatory capture, unfair competition, inhumane, etc.

Private security guards can't do much more than "observe and report". In order to have any real impact they would have to hire moonlighting police officers, and those are expensive.

Insurance is not a factor. Large retailers don't carry insurance policies for shoplifting and minor vandalism.

Security guards legally could do more than observe and report, but for understandable reasons (liability and pay, I assume) it is the policy of large stores not that do so.

Moonlighting police officers are better trained and cost a lot more money. But it still makes sense to me for the stores to spend this money, as opposed to taxpayers paying for more police in an effort to prevent and/or interdict these property crimes at these stores, something the police force was never designed to do, nor is legally obligated to do.

You've got to be kidding. How can it possibly make sense to expect retailers to pay more for security instead of having the police actually do their jobs?

If a city has descended so far into anarchy that taxpayers think that crime prevention and interdiction isn't worth spending money on then that city is ultimately doomed. The retailers are just going to leave and online purchasing will become the only option for most consumers products. The profit margins on laundry detergent and baby formula are just too low to cover a high level of private security.

I brought up in-store security because the police force is not designed to prevent property crimes in progress, which is what the top-post I replied to seemed to be talking about. There are places that do this. I agree it is far less than ideal.

I guess ultimately it's up to the voters in San Francisco and/or California to agree on how to address this? I did see that their police force may be under-sized compared to other cities. It seems they would need to agree to hire more police and court personnel, and build more jails, which would require raising taxes, or cutting some other services. There may be lots of people opposed, given the already high taxes and disagreement over related social problems and policing in general.

It's interesting how many people who do not live in San Francisco are so offended by what is happening there. It's always been a dynamic place, and still is, for better and worse.

Gas station in philadelphia made local news for hiring armed security guards; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjQ3duaBKP0

Not saying its right or wrong, but its gotten to that point there.

The state has a monopoly on violence. Walgreens has security guards, they can't do anything physical.

> Walgreens has security guards, they can't do anything physical.

I think this is store policy, not the law.

> Shoplifting is a crime as it is a form of larceny or theft. Different states may refer to shoplifting in different ways, but a shop owner who suspects someone of shoplifting may detain them until law enforcement arrives if the shop owner has reasonable proof of the crime - either the owner/manager, a loss prevention associate or another employee personally saw the individual take or conceal an item or the store has surveillance showing the taking of an item. Any detention, however, must comport with any store policies and state law. [0]

It is my understanding that they can make a citizens arrest and physically detain the shoplifter if they wanted to. Walgreens and other large companies choose not to do this.

What if a thief resists your citizen arrest and pulls out a knife or a gun?

When the fight instinct kicks in you get a very dangerous situation for both.

You don't want the security get hurt but you also don't want the security to hurt the thief.

Understood. That's probably how we got to the current situation, given that large stores don't want to have to deal with the liability of thousands of employees having to make these decisions.

We have these large anonymous cities and companies, at a scale where personal reputation has become less and less relevant. If we can't rely on enough people voluntarily following the rules do we need different rules, or different enforcement? The police are not currently obligated to stop a crime in progress. They can't be everywhere at once. Should we change that? Or maybe try to electronically enforce the rules, tracking people, cameras, etc?

I understand these thefts are upsetting to people, but how far as a society do we go? Hasn't there always been a certain amount of crime? Is there more of this kind of crime today, per-capita, than in the past, or are we just more exposed to it?

Have you considered that the police apply the same thinking?

This sounds exactly like arguments some people use when talking about current was in Europe. What if the thief pulls out nukes? you get a very dangerous situation for both. You don't want Ukrainians get hurt but you also don't want Ukrainians to hurt invading soldiers. Do you see the moral problem here?

Having Walmart hire private security is bad for both Walmart, the people they would hire and the society.

For Walmart it's obviously a cost, probably higher that the cost of goods stolen.

For the private security: they are literally risking their lives and they are probably not paid a lot. Shop owners get beaten up and sometimes killed when defending their stores.

For the society: we don't want privatized violence.

What is the security guard supposed to do when some big dude (or worse: a group) starts stealing stuff?

Get in a fight? What if they hurt the thieves? It's an assault and they could end up in jail for that.

And in SF the police doesn't bother to arrest thieves because D.A. was refusing to charge them.

So what would even be the point of e.g. detaining the thieves?

Those are all valid points, about store security guards.

Some of what you said applies if the police are doing this work, also - the costs (to society), violence (putting police in harms way to protect store items), the d.a. (and lack of jail space for thieves). Not an easy problem to fix.

And the rest of us. Because we pay more for stuff, we lose stores in some areas, and civilization in general is diminished.

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