41–50 of 151 posts
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That sounds more like a problem with the police, and not a problem with the law.
It's a problem with the law. Prop 47, specifically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_47_(201...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds more like a problem with the police, and not a problem with the law.
Prosecutors decide whether to charge. Cops quickly learn that arresting people that will not be charged is a waste of their time. Seattle has a similar policy. Property crimes are not enforced.
No, that wouldn't stop people stealing things for their own use, but it would hit the professional thieves hard.
In SF I've seen first-hand groups of youths filling up their backpacks with store items and running off laughing. They don't even run more than a block before slowing down to walk because they know nothing will happen. Thousands of dollars of items are taken but because of the new law where theft under $1000 per person is considered a misdemeanor, nothing happens. I talked with the merchant and she said that the poli…
I worked with lot of self help groups in California and learned that the cops and prosecutors would rather go after soft targets than real criminals. For example catching those kids stealing $1000 worth of stuff from store requires a cop to run after them fight with those kids (which sometimes might turn fatal). The cop would rather catch a normal kid in wrong place at wrong time because that kid will not fight back.
While compassionate criminal justice reform is needed I think we should also pay attention to the fact that law obedience does not wither away.
I'm willing to bet decriminalization of weed is a huge factor of keeping kids out of prison. Just hope we continue to learn how to build a system that restores dignity, treats the causes of criminal activity and focuses on keeping people out of the system. Hard to do when many prisons are moving to for-profit private facilities.
The numbers show that teenage drinking and smoking has been going down year on year since the 90s. Vaping changed at but I think that trend is a short lived too.
VICE's "Raised in the System" feature on juvenile prisioners shows how detrimental sending kids away to juvenile detention centers is. They are 30 times more likely to be sent to prisons as adults, completely unequipped to integrate back into society when they return from detention and the crimes they're sent away for can mostly be explained by adolescent tendencies that most people grow out of.
Putting a kid in there almost feels like a purposeful reinforcement of the same behavior. It feels like society is saying, "Oh, you're looking for a career in crime? Let's put you in crime college for a few years so that you'll be better prepared for your new life of crime when you get out."
If we want fewer repeat offenders, maybe we should stop punishing them after they fulfill their punishment.
VICE's "Raised in the System" feature on juvenile prisioners shows how detrimental sending kids away to juvenile detention centers is. They are 30 times more likely to be sent to prisons as adults, completely unequipped to integrate back into society when they return from detention and the crimes they're sent away for can mostly be explained by adolescent tendencies that most people grow out of.
Putting a kid in there almost feels like a purposeful reinforcement of the same behavior. It feels like society is saying, "Oh, you're looking for a career in crime? Let's put you in crime college for a few years so that you'll be better prepared for your new life of crime when you get out."
The thing to check would be what happened to crime/reoffense rates. And then making conclusions. But that didn't happen in the article.
In SF I've seen first-hand groups of youths filling up their backpacks with store items and running off laughing. They don't even run more than a block before slowing down to walk because they know nothing will happen. Thousands of dollars of items are taken but because of the new law where theft under $1000 per person is considered a misdemeanor, nothing happens. I talked with the merchant and she said that the poli…
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It costs a cool million to throw a kid in jail so the numbers add up. But dont worry when the economy goes South again the prison industry will be back with their promise to provide jobs.
So maybe make throwing someone in jail not cost a million.
Make the punishment for shoplifting being tortured to death in a public square, and the cost of prison will go down. Sounds shocking to you? It used to be the standard in the Western world, until just a couple of centuries ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds more like a problem with the police, and not a problem with the law.
Prosecutors decide whether to charge. Cops quickly learn that arresting people that will not be charged is a waste of their time. Seattle has a similar policy. Property crimes are not enforced.