Hacker News Reader

Comment by aresant | Hacker News Reader

Garry Tan - current president & CEO of YC is very active politically in trying to course correct SF (as is PG from afar)

He retweeted this on the matter of Whole Foods ->

https://twitter.com/mattdorsey/status/1645547717714915328

(1) https://twitter.com/garrytan

(2) https://twitter.com/paulg

View on HN

According to [1] San Francisco has the most police per 100,000 residents in California amongst cities with populations 100,000 or more. According to [2] this is still less than the number of police per 100,000 people in London. Given the prevalence of guns, lack of social safety net in the U.S., and overall higher rate of murders I would have thought American cities had more police than British cities. Note that police forces have gotten smaller in the UK over the last several years and they consider themselves under staffed.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Is-the-San-Francis...

[2] https://www.finder.com/uk/police-statistics

Will passing a bill requiring SF to have a certain number of police officers actually cause SF to have that number of police officers? If nobody wants the job, then they can't exactly press-gang people into being cops.

Also, more cops around hardly actually solve any causes for problems, it just addresses some of the symptoms while making others worse.

in that case, the bar to qualify as a cop gets lowered like the TSA. you can always hit your metrics if you try hard enough. the ol' saying "lower your standards, raise your average" can apply here.

Garry Tan was behind the big push to recall the old DA. Wait 6 months and, homicides went up 20% YoY (measured over the same quarter). If we're to judge by performance - I think we'd have to give him an F.

The theorycrafting was fine, and the old DA was soft, but I prefer to judge on outcomes.

I'm not in SF, but the police in my city are openly quite quitting because they know the staffing issues mean they're completely unaccountable. They legitimately do nothing except sit in their cars and respond to shootings sometimes. About as helpful as a rock when it comes to property crime. I would not be surprised if police in SF are similarly unhelpful.

I think the last thing anyone needs is more people like Garry Tan weighing in.

As the article mentions SF does not have a high crime rate compared to other cities. What it does have that is more unique are issues around homelessness, inequality, drug use etc.

Those need to be solved by real experts who can look into social and inequality programs that can target the root cause in a measured, data-driven and impassioned way. Not hyperbolic, tech-bro VCs.

I highly doubt the SF supervisors spend any time consulting actual experts on anything.

I think the solutions are quite clear to anyone that lives in the area (i.e. arrest drug dealers and shoplifters). As an SF resident, it is frustrating to see incredible sums of money thrown at the problem citing abstract solutions while things continue to deteriorate.

Your solutions have been tried many times before in many cities.

The problem is that by putting petty criminals in jail they get exposed to career criminals and have their lives permanently uprooted. So often when they leave they simply fall back into crime especially when you don't have solid rehabilitation programs.

And how is the US war on drugs working ? Or is it a little more complex than endlessly arresting every drug dealer that pops up.

I've lived in Singapore. If you carry more than 15 grams of heroin or 500g of cannabis in the country you are going to be executed. Weirdly enough, there's not a lot of career criminals or people making a living in crime in the country. IIRC 97% of women say they feel safe walking through Singapore at night.

Before you dismiss waging war on drugs have you considered waging it seriously?

I believe they also deport all of their homeless to Malaysia, which surely helps to keep the city clean. But is that a good example?

I do not think dealing fentanyl is a petty crime, and I do not think someone should feel so secure in brazenly walking out of a store with a bunch of stolen merchandise. If they want to do that nonsense, then they should understand that it is fair for society to hold them accountable to their own actions.

> San Francisco has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 18. Within California, more than 98% of the communities have a lower crime rate than San Francisco.

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime#des...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com