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Yes, but the homelessness issue also speaks to a lack of affordable housing and the astronomical cost of living in the Bay Area. I'm not exactly disagreeing with you, I think there is a passivity and laxity in policing thievery like this but I'm just saying that I'm skeptical when we're not talking about all the reasons why this is happening and only skimming the surface with the usual carceral, punitive solution which to me is just a band-aid.

We also have the elephant in the room issue that many of these thieves (particularly the ones who participate in "swarming" where they enter a store in a large group and steal everything they can) are black and there is a hesitancy to talk about the crime of the black community candidly. (The same thing applies to the people punching Asians in the street, many of whom were black).