[freedomben]

I was in San Francisco a few days ago for work, and it was my first time in the city in many years. There's a lot that I love about San Francisco, but there is something different and bad-weird about it. Never in my life have I seen people pull their pants down to their knees and shit in the middle of the street in broad daylight, yet I saw that happen multiple times in San Francisco. There are people whose job is to just hose down the sidewalks, and it's still very filthy. The hosing does seem to be working though, because the urine and feces smell was not bad compared to cities like New York.

Anyway, I definitely prefer data like the article presents over anecdotal evidence like I've presented, but it does feel hard to reconcile experience with those numbers.

[klooney]

The numbers are collected by the police, so somewhat tautologically, if they are too understaffed to collect police reports, crime stats go down.

[giardini]

Feser police means less time for policing. Officers must spread themselves thinner: policing per se, performing investigations and going to court, among other duties.

Reduced staff guarantee police have less time to pursue crime. The result is less recorded crime (while actual crime may be skyrocketing)!

So don't trust the statistics!. This is a good idea anyway in most major cities where there is strong political control. There is always an interest by those in power to reduce crime numbers in any way possible.

[tmpz22]

This does go both ways however. There are incentives to inflate crime numbers and impact by various groups.

[nothercastle]

Seattle has low crime rates because people don’t bother calling Seattle pd. They rarely come and even they do they aren’t allowed to do anything except catch and release.

[pengaru]

I've commuted by skateboard through SoMa for the last year.

The error bars on the crime rate numbers must be enormous based on the amount of crime I observe on the regular.

[aussieguy1234]

When the homeless are forced though circumstances to sleep on the streets, the government most definately should not be using this as an excuse for "aggressive sweeps" (state sanctioned violence, basically).

If they don't want to get involved and provide programs to resettle these people into homes (and it can be done, Finland eliminated homelessness) then the government should not be getting involved at all.