I don't know what the solution is, but calling these petty/non-violent feels like an unfair take.
A victim is often traumatized about this kind of experiences, but that is never taken into account.
I feel San Francisco is such a screwed up place. But many would disagree with me.
I don't live there anymore, but it seems people there like restorative justice, and outsiders should help cheer for that to see whether it will work. We need this kind of experiments anyway.
Whether it works or not, it will be a great experience to learn for outsiders... So... Go Chesa Boudin! Fighto! We support you 200%!
I wouldn't intervene if my stuff isn't like 1M USD or something.
Spending time going to court justifying whether you use the exact appropriate amount of force to stop the incident (who would have time to think that through??) is just really wasteful and psychologically damaging.
He's more of the same SF lawyer we had for decades , but on steroids? What is expected to change exactly?
10y ago, this wasn't an issue, so it was okay.
Now it is an issue.. but we double down on this same approach, which makes it even worse.
Sociological problem like this is tricky to solve. SF residents believe that restorative justice will eventually win in the end, so we should cheer for them to follow through with this experiment.
Whether it will work or not, we will all get to learn. For an outsider, we will get to learn without investing much.
I don't think it will work, but I'm not an expert here, and I would love to know the result of the experiment.
Doesn't restorative justice usually involve restoration, though? As in, making victims "whole" by paying them fair compensation for the harm they've incurred? How often does that happen in SF?
It won't take long.
extraordinary
For example, the Walgreen robbing incident is a non-violent crime because nobody confronted the thieves.
I have no idea if breaking car window is considered a violent crime.
All these crimes have victims.
I would feel very unsafe if I was at the Wallgreens when that happened. The people in the video certainly felt unsafe as well.
> because nobody confronted the thieves
Not really because of this, but rather because there was no assault to addition to the property crime. Its not absolutely impossible for that robber with bicycle from the Walgreen's video to repent when guard lazily tried to stop him.
BTW, it appears what SanFran's sanctuary status pays off – there is steadily growing number of open defecation cases
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/City-plans-to-power-was...
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/City-lamp-post-falls-...
>“We believe there was some contribution of dog or human urine on the base of the pole,” PUC spokesman Tyrone Jue said. “It has actually been an issue for us in the past. We encourage people and dogs alike to do their business in other places, like a proper restroom or one of our fire hydrants, which are stronger and made out of cast iron.” Urine accelerates the corrosion of the metal base of street poles, he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/derbyshire/293874...
>The six month monitoring survey is costing Derbyshire County Council £75,000. It was commissioned after a report found that years of exposure to the highly acidic urine from dogs can cause the base of the posts to crumple away.
>It is part of a national campaign after someone died when a light collapsed.
Human Waste Shuts Down BART Escalators
"When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator at San Francisco's Civic Center Station last month, they found so much human excrement in its works they had to call a hazardous-materials team."
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-dow...
My logic is 'crossing the road is completely reasonable, doesn't harm anyone, people should be allowed to get to the other side of the road'. That logic doesn't follow to speeding, which is dangerous and selfish.
Do you realise it's not a crime in other countries? It's not in the UK and yet we have a lower road-death rate than the US. What are jaywalking laws for anyway?
Putting oneself in the path of a multi-ton vehicle that doesn't expect you to be there and placing the onus on them to avoid committing vehicular manslaughter when you could use a space explicitly designated for pedestrians is, in fact, dangerous and selfish.
The higher road-death rate in the US might be the reason these laws exist, rather than a symptom of the laws - or are you suggesting that making jaywalking a crime increases road deaths?
I’d say it’s because the roads are obviously designed to accommodate automobile traffic. Virtually all modern roads are absolutely designed car-first and it’s apparent that people on-foot aren’t meant to travel on them, except on the sidewalk.
Additionally, a “road” that is only for people and bicycles is typically just called a trail or a path. At least that’s the case where I live. If it’s surrounded by buildings then they call it a plaza.
The deciding factor should be if the law contributes to civil order, or reduces injury.
But you want to ban the pedestrians from the road - you don’t want ‘just as much right’ to the road - you want more right to it. You want the entire length of a block and think pedestrians should just have tiny crossing points.
> The deciding factor should be if the law contributes to civil order, or reduces injury.
But it doesn’t - we do fine without it in the UK.
I’m just against the framing of this as cars vs. people.
I guess traveling safely is unpopular on HN, just like in SF.
The UK has a much smaller population with more public transit, and the cities like London are so densely packed with slow-moving traffic that it's unlikely to lead to deaths. Comparing metrics without context isn't much of an argument against stopping unsafe crossings.
A human being walking around and crossing with some basic looking both ways is not a danger to anyone.
Cars are driven by people, so it's humans in cars vs humans on foot. Both can create danger to each other. Just because you can safely do something doesn't override the reason and spirit of the law.
Jaywalking is a tiny niche of a massive amount of rules that govern how we interact with each other safely. You're really not going to have a problem jaywalking unless you do it unsafely in the first place, and if you do then there's liability and enforcement ready to apply.
No.
> Both can create danger to each other.
Absolute nonsense.
The person on foot is no danger to anyone. For example, two people on foot are no danger to each other. It's only when you add a car that there's any danger at all. The entire cause of any danger whatsoever is the car. Therefore it's the car's responsibility to keep things safe and to keep out of people's way.
(Of course if the car isn't given reasonable opportunity to stop then that's the pedestrian's fault - there's always a reasonableness test.)
Basically if a human being wants to cross then of course cars should stop for them, no matter if there's a crossing or not.
If you want to argue that its about cross-modalities then why have train crossings? Just let cars drive across the tracks if they think its safe. Now surely you can see why that might be an issue?
The whole point of these laws is to create safety by reducing unpredictable events. Again, it doesn't mean you can't safely ignore the laws (even most of the time), but that's not what the law is for. It's ironic that you mention reasonableness and yet have a completely unreasonable understanding of the rules.
Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.
But yet UK prohibits pedestrians on highways and some other zones and also Occupied Northern Ireland has an offense of «pedestrian through his own negligence on a road endangers his own safety» with obscure «level 3» punishment.
The problem is people with options leave. They might be willing to help but not at the cost of their own children.
The thing 2020 taught me is 90% of the population considers me an acceptable sacrifice. I’m going to have to live with that now and act accordingly.
Whose theory is this?
Also, why do you think fighting homelessness is just a function of funding? What if activists and the solutions they propose actually exacerbate the problem.
[0] I tend to agree with another poster that the threat of violence is still violent even if the victim acquiesces to avoid violence (by not confronting, fighting back, intervening, either from direct threat of retaliation by criminal or punishment from state/society for daring to be intolerant of antisocial behavior).
They know exactly what they are doing, who it impacts, and who it doesn’t.
It’s a tough situation. At the end of the day, mental health shouldn’t fall to any one city to be responsible for, but we have to start somewhere. I hope for the best and that SF can come up with an effective way to help people off the streets.