by Kent Scheidegger · Jun 23, 2023 3:39 pm
Until recently, I would not have expected to ever see “drug crackdown” and “San Francisco” in the same headline again in my lifetime. Josh Koehn has this article with the above headline in the San Francisco Standard. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jun 19, 2023 10:12 am
Allysia Finley has this column with the above title in the WSJ.
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Yet San Francisco’s leaders refuse to acknowledge how their own policies have caused the spiral of public disorder that’s driving away businesses and residents in droves.
by Kent Scheidegger · Jun 5, 2023 3:23 pm
Continuing with the theme of the indirect consequences of overly lax law enforcement (see last week’s post) City Journal has an article titled Transit and the American City by Nicole Gelinas. A healthy public transit system is necessary for large, dense cities, but American public transit is in crisis. As usual, the crisis has multiple causes, but crime and disorder are among them. Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · Jun 2, 2023 11:30 am
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal notes that California has spent $17 billion on programs to end homelessness and the problem has only gotten worse. California is home to more than 171,000 homeless individuals, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a 6.2% increase since 2020. Roughly 67%, or more than 115,000 are unsheltered, meaning that they’re living outside. While liberal politicians often characterize homelessness as a housing problem, with some even calling the homeless “guests,” in reality the homeless population is primarily made up of drug addicts and the mentally ill, along with some vagrants who actually prefer living on the streets. An OpEd in the California Globe by four law enforcement professionals suggest that there is a proven way for the state to eliminate homelessness in one year.
by Kent Scheidegger · May 31, 2023 10:15 am
The City Journal has a special issue titled Can California Be Golden Again? The issue describes, as Michael Shellenberger puts it, how “ruinous policies have transformed California from a symbol of progress to a cautionary tale for the nation.” Stephen Eide has an article titled The Encampment State on homelessness, a problem that is now far worse in California than in earlier times, bad as those were, and far worse than it is at present in other regions of the country with better functioning governments. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 4, 2023 2:16 pm
Shopping Closures Map from SF Chronicle
A huge but common mistake in public policy is to consider only the direct effects of a policy and ignore the indirect effects. Crime harms the direct victims most, but ultimately the indirect effects corrode the structure of society.
San Francisco’s once-famous shopping scene is imploding, and crime is a major reason why.
In the latest blow to downtown, Nordstrom, an upscale anchor store in the Westfield San Francisco Centre, will depart at the end of its lease. Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · Jan 18, 2023 2:33 pm
A story by Dakota Smith in the Los Angeles Times reports that traffic deaths in the city have hit a two-decade high. More than half of the deaths involved vehicles hitting pedestrians or people on bicycles, both which significantly increased compared to prior years. This comes as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that traffic fatalities nationally remained flat over 2022. What is causing this increase? The Los Angeles Times did not inquire into how many traffic fatalities involved an intoxicated driver. With an estimated 69,000 homeless in LA, many using drugs, riding bicycles and wandering the streets, it might be that pedestrians and bike riders are part of the problem, but this was not reported. Last March, the Los Angeles Police Commission announced that LAPD Officers were no longer authorized to make traffic stops. This limits officers from pulling over cars weaving, turning without a signal, failing to stop at a stop sign or driving with an expired registration. Losing the ability to stop a driver who is intoxicated and/or blatantly ignoring traffic laws might actually encourage traffic fatalities. This concern was not reported in the Times.
by Kent Scheidegger · Oct 14, 2022 9:56 am
A century and a third after his suicide, Vincent Van Gogh still can’t catch a break. The WSJ reports that protesters threw tomato soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London’s National Gallery. Cue Don McLean. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Oct 10, 2022 2:00 pm
It is a basic principle of human behavior that incentives matter. If people have an incentive to do X and we reduce the adverse consequences of doing X, then more people will do X. People who think that crime is somehow exempt from this principle, and that we can therefore reduce or eliminate consequences with no increase in crime, are living in fantasy land.
The latest example comes to us from the nation’s capital, noted in this editorial in the WSJ. People have an obvious incentive to ride buses without paying. If you shrink the consequences of doing that to almost nothing, will more people do it, draining revenue from an already under-funded system? Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 18, 2022 2:57 pm
Veteran California political commentator Dan Walters has this column at CalMatters. The headline is, “Gov. Brown pushed for softer treatment of violent felons.” The “tricked” allegation comes farther down in the text. Here is the summary:
Fingers of blame are being pointed about the early prison release of a man accused of being one of the shooters in a downtown Sacramento gang shootout. But the politician most responsible is former Gov. Jerry Brown.
Brown may well be “most responsible,” but that should not let the present governor off the hook. Gov. Newsom has taken powers that Brown left him and adopted measures for the benefit of violent criminals that go considerably beyond what Brown adopted. Continue reading . . .
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