<story><title>Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional</title><url>https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/08/28/why-san-franciscos-city-government-is-so-dysfunctional</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ecf</author><text>Are incarceration rates low because people behave or are they low because SF police don’t bother to arrest people?</text></item><item><author>LordDragonfang</author><text>&amp;gt;One City Hall insider suggests that San Francisco overreacts to issues that are in the national news, and designs solutions to the country’s problems rather than its own. For example, when Mr Boudin ran on his platform of less punitive justice, San Francisco already had one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country. In 2019, 106 adults were in prison for every 100,000 people, one-fifth the rate in California and the nation. If the rest of the country behaved like San Francisco, the prison population would decline by 80%, says James Austin of the jfa Institute, a think-tank that evaluates criminal-justice policies.&lt;p&gt;This seems like a very reasonable hypothesis</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lubujackson</author><text>Low because they don&amp;#x27;t arrest anyone. But that isn&amp;#x27;t on the police - they don&amp;#x27;t arrest anyone because the DA doesn&amp;#x27;t prosecute anyone.&lt;p&gt;Property crime is sky high... if you happen to get caught breaking into a car the penalty is a warning. That is the policy. You have to break into many cars and be caught (which is hard to do) many times for any action.&lt;p&gt;Boudin has indefensibly ignored violent criminals, too. Like a woman being assaulted while trying to open the door to here condo, fully on video and there was no prosecution. Even a few cases of murder from repeat offenders who were let go repeatedly after violent assault.&lt;p&gt;If you live in SF, try the Citizen phone app for alerts near you. There is some crazy stuff happening all around the city. Lately, cars keep inexplicably flipping over on city streets.&lt;p&gt;The craziest update I&amp;#x27;ve seen was an alert about man dressed like a clown wielding a sword-cane.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional</title><url>https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/08/28/why-san-franciscos-city-government-is-so-dysfunctional</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ecf</author><text>Are incarceration rates low because people behave or are they low because SF police don’t bother to arrest people?</text></item><item><author>LordDragonfang</author><text>&amp;gt;One City Hall insider suggests that San Francisco overreacts to issues that are in the national news, and designs solutions to the country’s problems rather than its own. For example, when Mr Boudin ran on his platform of less punitive justice, San Francisco already had one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country. In 2019, 106 adults were in prison for every 100,000 people, one-fifth the rate in California and the nation. If the rest of the country behaved like San Francisco, the prison population would decline by 80%, says James Austin of the jfa Institute, a think-tank that evaluates criminal-justice policies.&lt;p&gt;This seems like a very reasonable hypothesis</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>space_fountain</author><text>I think that&amp;#x27;s irrelevant to the point which is that in electing a candidate campaigning on criminal justice reform SFs voters are reacting more to national issues than local ones. SFs criminal justice system is already quite &amp;quot;reformed&amp;quot; and probably the issues that people are seeing aren&amp;#x27;t primarily in SF</text></comment>