Unchecked crime forces Kraken exchange to close San Francisco HQ

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Krak­en CEO Jesse Pow­ell issued a state­ment on April 8 announc­ing the clo­sure of the company’s office on Mar­ket Street, San Fran­cis­co. Pow­ell said this was nec­es­sary due to attacks on staff going to and from the offices of the cryp­tocur­ren­cy exchange, includ­ing robbery.

“We shut down Kraken’s glob­al head­quar­ters on Mar­ket Street in San Fran­cis­co after numer­ous employ­ees were attacked, harassed and robbed on their way to and from the office.”

San Fran­cis­co has the high­est rental costs in the U.S., which adds to the city’s home­less­ness prob­lem. Research dat­ed July 2021 — when lock­down mea­sures began eas­ing — shows the medi­an price for a one-bed­room in San Fran­cis­co tops the list of cities sur­veyed at $2,720, while New York came in second.

“The aver­age month­ly price for a one-bed­room rental in San Fran­cis­co in July was $2,720, while New York’s was $2,680, accord­ing to Zumper.”

Social urban decline is the result of mul­ti­ple fac­tors. How­ev­er, Pow­ell main­ly blames the sit­u­a­tion on Dis­trict Attor­ney (DA) Chesa Boudin’s “catch and release” policy.

Kraken CEO slams District Attorney’s policies

Expand­ing on the prob­lem, Powell’s said busi­ness part­ners had also suf­fered at the hands of crim­i­nals, which has led to peo­ple becom­ing fear­ful of vis­it­ing the Krak­en office.

The prob­lem of crime, men­tal ill­ness, and drug abuse is out of con­trol and has become so com­mon­place that many believe it is underreported.

Pow­ell puts the city’s spi­ral­ing prob­lems on its “catch and release” pol­i­cy, as cham­pi­oned by DA Boudin. He adds that police arrest the same offend­ers mul­ti­ple times, only to dis­charge them, result­ing in the pro­lif­er­a­tion of pre­ventable crimes, includ­ing murder.

A recent poll con­duct­ed by Oak­land-based EMC Research shows Pow­ell is not alone in his view. For exam­ple, 78% of respon­dents gave DA Boudin a neg­a­tive job per­for­mance rat­ing, with 71% say­ing the city’s catch and release pol­i­cy is embold­en­ing criminals.

“A major­i­ty of respon­dents report­ed being “very con­cerned” about car and home break-ins (61 per­cent), pub­lic drug use (56 per­cent), and vio­lent crime (52 percent).”

San Francisco is on the decline

Human feces, drug para­pher­na­lia, and trash are com­mon­place around the streets of San Fran­cis­co. All of which points to deep­er under­ly­ing social and polit­i­cal issues.

Assess­ing the prob­lem, British cul­ture and polit­i­cal mag­a­zine the Spec­ta­tor touch­es on the already polit­i­cal­ly charged issue of lib­er­al­ism in the U.S. The author states that it’s come to the point where pro­gres­sive lib­er­als are so soft on law and order many con­sid­er it vic­tim­iza­tion to encour­age pos­i­tive behavior.

“But that’s been super­seded by a ques­tion from pro­gres­sives: what if it’s a form of vic­tim­i­sa­tion to try to influ­ence people’s behav­iour at all?”

Pow­ell also said that San Fran­cis­co will remain unsafe as long as the rights of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens are held in high­er regard than those of the criminals.

Symbiosis



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