Can you provide a link to these statements? How old are they?
FWIW I don't live in SF but I've had a couple of car break-ins and I don't even remember if I reported them; it was a formality for insurance purposes if so and I never expected nor saw evidence of any police follow up. Are there cities where that's different?
> “Bragg said the office will stop prosecuting people for theft of services, trespassing (unless it accompanies a stalking charge), aggravated unlicensed operation, routine traffic violations not accompanied by felony charges, obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest, and prostitution.“
The Manhattan DA subsequently claimed to roll back the policy, but they are still not interested in prosecuting. I travel to NYC on business regularly, and I’ve seen 6/6 times in the last 8 months people at various stations openly evading Subway fares. In one case, a dude was holding a gate open and yelling at people to come through and not bother paying - with 2 NYPD sitting there talking about 10 feet away.
In my small upstate city, they’ll only even pretend to investigate a burglary. We have issues with people partying (drinking, smoking weed, having sex, eating and dumping trash in the street) in cars in nice neighborhoods. We have muggings, car thefts, robberies, etc like never before. The cops shrug, as their operating orders prevent them from doing anything.
The “progressive” governance model is to suck up to activists to get the campaign cash. Activists want the cops to stand down to street crime. Ultimately the people who live on the wrong side of the tracks suffer. It’s gross.
Nobody has ever cared about this (nor should they, IMO; disclaimer: I have never lived in NYC). Occasionally journalists go to NYC to interview random residents about fare evasion, and the main response is a shrug.
Frankly, we’d all be generally better off with free public transit. Governments end up paying most of the bill anyway, and increasing transit use would be a big benefit to those most needing help.
If you don't crack down on free subway rides, next they'll be taking free books from the libraries, helping themselves to health checkups or worse expecting police to investigate their petty crime reports at no expense.
And who ends up paying for all that? That's right, the taxpayer.
I think you’re trying to make a joke, but it’s hard to tell for sure (Poe's law strikes again). Your comment seems like a parody of those “you wouldn’t steal a car” PSA ads trying to discourage copyright infringement.
In case you are serious... Fare evasion vs. stealing library books are clearly categorically different. Routine health checkups should be free for everyone; the US profit-focused healthcare system is totally fucked up: outrageously expensive for society, outrageously ineffective, and outrageously unjust.
I don’t disagree with you, but the fact is the public transit isn’t free in NYC.
Is fare evasion a thing? Sure. But when prosecutorial discretion decides that public transit is going to be de facto free, that’s a governance failure that undermines confidence in government.
If the DA wanted to be the public face of a movement to transform public transit by eliminating fares, that’s one thing. Saying “we’re not interested in prosecuting theft of services”, that’s not the same.
> Frankly, we’d all be generally better off with free public transit. Governments end up paying most of the bill anyway, and increasing transit use would be a big benefit to those most needing help.
Not for long. If you turn public transit into a de facto homeless shelter people who have other options will avoid it. No country with good public transport has it free.
Luxembourg has fare-free transit nationwide. Estonia’s capital Tallinn (a city of >400k residents) has fare-free public transit. Dozens (maybe hundreds?) of other cities around the world have made transit free. In the US, Kansas City has fare-free streetcars and bus system, and many other cities are starting experiments with fare-free transit. Generally residents and city officials are happy with the results.
That’s a different city (where I live) In my city, the city administration has instructed police not to pursue certain offenses. The DA in my county has to please suburban voters as well, so he projects a little tougher.
Typically, it’s difficult to prosecute things like muggings or car theft.
So using lesser acts that are easily demonstrated is a more scalable process. If you’re in my garage, charging you with trespass and petit larceny will get plead out as trespass. If you have to go to trial for the theft, you need to establish that the property was there, etc. That means witnesses, testimony, etc.
These issues are nuanced. I don’t want to see my neighbors abused by out of control police. But letting criminals run wild isn as bad as letting police run around without accountability. Conservative politicians used to bleat about “the rule of law”. Law requires justice, and that means police and prosecutors must be held to a high standard of conduct and competence.
The fact I learned about NYC fare evasion yesterday is that Andrew Cuomo's crackdown on fare evasion in 2019 cost more in police officer pay than was ever lost in fares. Not just more than was recovered by cracking down, literally more than was ever lost.
That’s about bizarre NY political circus, not fare evasion or enforcement. DA’s don’t give a shit about city budgets - they don’t work for the city or state.
MTA is a public authority with a board controlled by the governor - the mayor of NYC has limited influence over the subways and bridges, but the NYPD (formerly transit police) are the main enforcement. There was an infamous rivalry between the two officials and sending in state police, etc was part of the show.
FWIW I don't live in SF but I've had a couple of car break-ins and I don't even remember if I reported them; it was a formality for insurance purposes if so and I never expected nor saw evidence of any police follow up. Are there cities where that's different?