San Francisco never defunded the police. (IIRC, voters passed a measure eliminating a mininum funding mandate, but the actual budget has increased.)
The SFPD may choose not to enforce laws, but I don't think anyone outside of SFPD directed that, it's just organized nonfeasance as leadership political protest.
> organized nonfeasance as leadership political protest
Nope, this is fake news. You should learn more about your DA Chesa Boudin. He rarely brings cases to trial, fired a bunch of prosecutors and 30 others have left, and removed cash bail which puts repeat offenders right back on the street after arrest.
The police don't want to arrest criminals and fill out paperwork if the people they pick up aren't going to be held. That's a knock on effect of what you're describing.
How often do we say the same thing about people that are poor and have no other options but turning to a life of crime? The police are paid. The retail gangs might not have any employment opportunities. But, how often does someone say "people aren't robots and morale is a thing" about them and mean that crushing poverty leads them to make poor but understandable choices.
It's just a thought experiment and something to consider.
The political and social climate in SF has led to a situation where the number of officers on the street can shrink even if the budget stays flat or grows.
Applicants, not recruits. Apples and oranges. Urban PDs have been moaning about being understaffed while kneecapping actually graduating more because they are gorging on overtime. Same with public works. Remember the HN outrage with the Muni worker making $400K? They have all their cake and eat it too.
An 800K San Franciscans have been clammering for community policing for decades but it never happens. Because PDs don’t want that.
SF went from $668 million in 19/20 to $661 million in 20/21 for the SFPD, mainly due to police not being required as much at SFO.
If the police can't stop crime and enforce the laws of 47 square miles and 874,961 residents for the princely sum of $755 per person/year or $14 million per square mile/year what exactly are people paying for? Like if I told you that you pay $62/mo for a police subscription and this was the service you were going to get for it, would you still subscribe to it? Probably not.
It's a protection racket. Lower the police budget even in a non-meaningful way just a little and they hold the city to ransom. Just scrap it and start again from scratch, perhaps trying Peelian principles instead of relying on the corrupted outgrowth of slave hunter patrols.
Police aren't good for much if you don't have a competent prosecutor who sees fit to prosecute criminals. Catch-and-release policing is a waste of everybody's time. And when the police misbehave, who is it that frequently neglects to prosecute them? The prosecutors, again. Who elects shitty prosecutors? Who elects shitty sheriffs? Who elect city councils and mayors who nominate shitty police chiefs?
A lot of SF judges have been elected on a platform of being less harsh on defendants, and stricter with prosecutors. I don't know this particular judge's politics, but one SF judge recently opened up in open court on the incompetence of District Attorney Boudin's office that resulted in it dropping a criminal case: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F-judge-blasts-DA-C...
Boudin and his defenders have been trying to spin the rebuke (including the apology, which was actually to the trial attorney, not Boudin), but the comments are perfectly consistent with this critique of Boudin's office from earlier this year: https://www.marinatimes.com/why-colleagues-say-district-atto...
Boudin famously fired at least 7 veteran prosecutors immediately after taking office. (https://www.kqed.org/news/11795676/why-did-san-franciscos-ne...) I'm not sure how many more prosecutors were fired or left after that, but as far as I can tell 7 is about half of the total number of prosecutors. And he seems to have replaced them with public defenders and fresh law graduates who have no experience prosecuting cases. (Boudin himself had never prosecuted a case.)
Boudin doesn't deserve all the blame. His predecessor, Gascon, made several changes that already made the San Francisco District Attorney's Office one of the most lenient in the country. People compare Boudin to the reformist D.A. in Philadelphia, but the better comparison is Gascon; Boudin took things to a whole new level, far beyond the reforms in Philadelphia or in the national conversation.
I've always been on board with Boudin's push for more lenient sentencing. But that's just a small part of his agenda, much of which simply translates as no sentencing. And because of general incompetence he's flubbing everything, resulting in him becoming defensive, spinning and lying about cases (e.g. most recently--last couple weeks--a controversy about disparate treatment of some pedestrian death cases that resulted in his firing the office's victims' advocate) that really should have seen both better attention by his office and, mistakes notwithstanding, a better defense in the media.
I thought it had more to do with the fact that <$950 shoplifting is considered a misdemeanor, and basically not worth the police's time to enforce it... because the prosecutor doesn't prosecute.
Burning it down to the ground, and rebuilding will of course create pretty much the same thing, and probably worse.
Getting closer to being a capitalist utopia. No retail stores, no theft. All items have to be ordered online, rule by code. It would be interesting to know the stores financial statements to see if this was just an excuse to get rid of the retail footprint due to sales & property tax in SF. The current building demand with low interest rates and COVID re-opening should more than compensate the remodeling costs.
It is assumed. Property rights require enforcement. Changing the enforcement from a public taxed expense to a private one is capitalistic rather than socialistic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqKz1ibLYgk
I think you're confusing capitalism for anarcho-capitalism or something like that. I think most self described "capitalists" support the existence of a government that, at the very least, enforces property rights and resolves contract disputes. 'Capitalism' is not synonymous with 'no government.'
Nearly all libertarians I've ever met will readily admit that some form of government existing is desirable. Their disputes with socialists are all in shades of gray. In internet discussions on platforms that amplify extremism (reddit, etc), it may seem like the the two camps are "no government" anarcho-libertarians vs "all the government" totalitarian-communists, but in my experience either of these extreme positions are so rare they're hardly worth considering at all.
The SFPD may choose not to enforce laws, but I don't think anyone outside of SFPD directed that, it's just organized nonfeasance as leadership political protest.