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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

This is just cut and pasted from some right wing talking points. Cash bail reform has not caused a decline in the number of people who flee. It also is not associated with re-arrest. It is associated with reduced harm for arrestees, which is important because many innocent people are arrested.

$950 is a completely reasonable threshold for felony theft. Before this state-wide, not city-specific, reform was introduced California had the lowest threshold in the nation. It is still fairly low. In Texas, the threshold for what you inaccurately call "quasi-legal" is $2500.

Shorter sentences is a solid reform because longer sentences are not associated with better outcomes and it costs $100k/yr to keep someone in prison, and that's money that could be spent on community policing instead.

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> $950 is a completely reasonable threshold for felony theft. Before this state-wide, not city-specific, reform was introduced California had the lowest threshold in the nation. It is still fairly low. In Texas, the threshold for what you inaccurately call "quasi-legal" is $2500.

I believe the difference is that district attorneys in Texas will actually prosecute misdemeanor theft, while this isn't true in the Bay Area.

You believe it based on what? Hoover Institution press releases or some data you can actually share with us?

No data needed, the proof is in the pudding.

Not that you seem like you're likely to have your mind changed, but you can look at prosecuted misdemeanors on this website broken out by type. Misdemeanors prosecuted for burglary have been declining pretty quickly sine 2018. For theft, they only prosecuted 48 cases since 2011, I'm guessing there's been way more instances of theft beyond those 48 cases over 10+ years lol. Petty theft also has been on decline since 2018 for what it's worth.

https://www.sfdistrictattorney.org/policy/data-dashboards/

I don't think I am being unclear about my request. Your dashboard in no way shows or implies that a district attorney in Texas is more likely to prosecute a misdemeanor theft than the SF district attorney.

All your dashboard says to me is that the DA presses charges in the majority of misdemeanor petty theft arrests, and the trend in the absolute decline of such cases is driven by the lack of arrests, which declined more than half from 2011 to 2022, which is consistent with my point that it doesn't have anything to do with the DA, it is caused by poor police productivity.

https://media.giphy.com/media/Fml0fgAxVx1eM/giphy.gif

> This is just cut and pasted from some right wing talking points

Not that it matters, but these were the collected thoughts of my resident friends and colleagues who live there, none of which you could remotely consider anywhere close to "right wing."

The fact that these are memes promulgated by reactionary media outlets, and the fact that you heard them second-hand from people in San Francisco, are not really contrary.

The claim you made and that I was responding to was that "I cut and pasted these from right wing sources."

Zero percent of that allegation is true.

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