[bpodgursky]

These are professional criminals who raid multiple stores a day, every day.

You don't have to catch and convict them every time to be effective. If you caught and convicted even 2% of the crimes, crime would be massively lower within 6 months, because it's the same people doing it over and over.

[db48x]

That assumes that they are actually convicted and put in jail. The DA doesn’t believe that putting people in jail is effective at reducing crime, and so just doesn’t.

[yodon]

The DA you are referring to was removed from office five months ago and replaced by attorneys who quit his office in disgust and led the effort to recall him.

SF still has a lot of work to do but Chessa Boudin is no longer running the SF DA's office.

[db48x]

s/doesn’t/didn’t/g

[ilyt]

And we go back to "how about you just enforce the law, catch people breaking it and put them in jail"

[wahnfrieden]

how does the cost of this compare with say UBI? bearing in mind there's a cost to illegal/legalized civil forfeiture theft, or caging more people, as well

[xienze]

Are you laboring under the delusion that these same criminals wouldn't happily pocket the UBI in between shoplifting raids for which they face almost no consequences?

[formerkrogemp]

Obviously, if UBI is implemented, laws would still need to be enforced.

[wahnfrieden]

got a source for calling me (or that) delusional?

[gsinclair]

Category error: the claim was that an idea is delusional, not a person.

[wahnfrieden]

how is this helpful? it's not even correct

[tristor]

You’re making the error in belief that criminals primarily commit crime out of necessity, rather than out of inculcated behavioral habit. At least in the US, most crimes are committed by people who were brought up from a young age in a culture of criminality. There is no ethical or moral dilemma on the part of the criminal, their behavior is fully in line with the social mores of their cultural upbringing.

The folks running in shoplifting and robbery gangs are not stealing a loaf of bread to feed their starving children, criminality is their profession.

[bpodgursky]

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...

[bpodgursky]

I think the rest of the developed world provides good evidence that you can punish people for crimes without abusing civil asset forfeiture. It's pretty bad-faith to conflate the two.

[wahnfrieden]

We’re talking about America where it is part of policing by policy and norm. I’m responding to calls for increasing police in America. It’s pretty bad faith to defend calls for increasing police in America by saying they could steal less if they were in other countries

[bpodgursky]

> where it is part of policing by policy and norm

Except that's just not true. The US has thousands of mostly independent police departments. Some use civil asset forfeiture (fewer, now that the supreme court has stepped in). Many don't.

What a small town in Alabama does has no connection with what the SFPD does.

[wahnfrieden]

sfpd seize.