SF got their new DA, where is the reduction in crime? Or maybe that was never the problem and police just don't do their damn job, because as we see all over the country, there is no legal obligation to do their job, and you basically have to try to get fired.
Crime reduction is a multi-year cycle. Criminal cases are a six month to multi-year process. Putting more "bad guys" in jail eventually reduces crime as well as the chilling effect of "I knew a guy who did this and is still in jail so I won't do it."
San Francisco and California in general still have a lot of additional work that needs to be done to now empower the DA (they can obviously only enforce what is law).
This bit from the Chronicle I think sums up the DA change and its effect on policing: "A previous Chronicle analysis showed officers immediately made more stops after Jenkins was appointed, and the District Attorney’s Office’s data shows that has translated into more arrests. The D.A. data shows that police have presented about 100 more arrests to the office each month on average (about 755 a month) since she assumed office than the last months of Boudin’s tenure (640 a month). This increase didn’t happen in any of the past three summers, suggesting it’s not a seasonal pattern." https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/brooke-jenkins-chesa-...
> the chilling effect of "I knew a guy who did this and is still in jail so I won't do it."
This sounds logical to many people. But the actual empirical research in the area finds no strong link between sentence length and recidivism [1]. We can get better outcomes by, for example, making it easier for criminals to stay in contact with their family while in prison.
An alternative explanation is that your average criminal isn't very good at thinking about consequences.
Did you read the research you linked? It does not say what you claim it does, it actually claims the long sentences (over 60 months) deter recidivism significantly.
So after the DA changes, the police suddenly show up with a hundred more arrests per month on average? How was Boudin supposed to be tough on crime when the cops literally weren't arresting people.
Nevermind that doesn't tell us anything about whether or not those hundred extra arrests are actually useful.
Sounds a lot like cops not doing their job, and diverting the attention to a DA that wasn't cooperating with whatever they wanted.
multiple things can be true: SFPD is a borderline PAC at this point and does nothing, and the DAs office was reaching incredible amounts of incompetence under the previous DA, rivaled only by the rest of sf's government. whether it was literally showing up to court unprepared and getting chewed out by judges, being tone deaf towards certain communities, or seeming extremely aloof and nonchalant in the face of real crime concerns (blaming republicans doesn't work when there are like 3 of them in SF)
i don't trust the current DA's office either bc she was appointed by our incompetent mayor + is very cozy with the sfpd w/o recusing herself from cases involving them.
"Police bad" doesn't account for differences in performance between SF police and others. "DA bad" at least tries to do this (although as you note, is in some tension with the facts).
Sure, DA may not be the major issue on a fully objective level. But his point that "police suck" does not explain why SFPD is so bad relative to other cities still stands. If it's purely a police force problem, what makes SF police different? Genuinely curious if anyone has theories about this besides DA.
