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Google Engineer bails out student in jail

neil.fraser.name

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Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#121

Post by e40 »

matwood wrote: post #110

There are just so many WTF moments in this story. 1) Why are police involved with a kid smoking at school? Kids caught smoking when I was in HS got after school detention. 2) There seems to be zero respect for the police officer. At what point did kids quit respecting police and did the police lose that respect? 3) The DA actually bringing charges against someone who just looks to have been idly filming the event. Wh…

People in the US lost respect for police officers when they became bullies. Either they're giving law-abiding citizens tickets or they are killing and injuring suspects in their custody. Yes, I know, it's not all cops. But, there are too many of these stories in the news. Young people, especially those that hang out on reddit, will definitely have the sense that cops are just bad.

I live in Oakland, CA. Lots of crime here, but the beat cops spend most of their time generating revenue and hassling people unlikely to be dangerous (to them). It is pretty pathetic.

EDIT: an example (from the 80's)

I was in a bad part of Oakland one day, driving down a one-way street (2 lanes). A couple of blocks in front of me was a cop waving everyone on the street over to the side. Each one of us (20+ people) got a ticket. Mine was for "straddling the lanes", even though I protested that I was changing lanes because I saw him standing in my lane. I realized that he was just making something up.

I contested the ticket and he didn't show up. He knew he had no leg to stand on.

How many of the people in that poor neighborhood did that? How many just ignored the ticket and were later arrested on a bench warrant? Really pathetic. That's the day I lost respect for them. (And, this happened in the early 80's.)

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#122

Post by foldr »

matwood wrote: post #117
neilk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link seems suspect to me. India is rife with crime. Daily life , even for rich people, involves lots of activities that would be crimes in a Western country, particularly official corruption. Anyway, you spoke in terms of "criminality in some American cultures", which sounds like a euphemism, since you neglected to name them. Although you followed it up with your hetereogenity thesis I (like many readers) was al…

Still, anecdotally speaking, as a Canadian I find the racism in America to be pretty breathtaking. White Americans, whether liberal or conservative, take it as a given that there's always some part of the city dominated by blacks where gunfire is heard at night and the cops are afraid to go. If you probe even a little bit you find that most white Americans, even nominally liberal ones, think blacks have lower capacit…

>When it comes to bad areas in large cities nearly every city has at least one such area. [...] This is not something made up or in the minds of white people.

I think neilk is aware of that. I took his point to be that it is surprising that Americans accept this as a normal fact of life.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#123

Post by davidw »

Raphael wrote: post #108
JimmyL wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, there are some district courts/jurisdictions that are turning against bail bondsmen for being exploitative. Some will try and outright ban them from operating (either by explicit local ordinance, or by denying them the agreements on standing credit and prisoner transfer that they need to operate), but more interesting are the courts that try and eliminate them via competition. As of now, bail bondsmen…

That sounds like you just lowered the bail, in which case the defendant would probably just pay $1K for someone to borrow the $10K. How can credit and cash be distinguished anyway?

I think it should read 'pay 100K to the court', which you get back.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#124

Post by cullenking »

rbanffy wrote: post #97
Confusion wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The '25%' number is a red herring and not worth debating. The US has over 6 times the number of inmates (per capita) as the average Western European country[1][2]. How could that be, other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? [1] http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-pris... [2] http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r234.pdf

> other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? I live in Brazil and I had two cars stolen. None was found, nobody was charged. A couple years back I had my backpack (with my laptop inside) robbed at gunpoint. A friend of mine who lives in the US had his car stolen. It was returned that same afternoon. Another friend of mine had his home completely cleaned up (the thieves left the heavy furniture and the…

I had my car broken into in the US, and I knew who did it. It was a friend of a friend (hey, my friends weren't the best back in high school) and they bragged about it. The cops wouldn't take prints when they investigated. When I called up the officer in question after finding out who did it, they said "sorry, we don't aggressively pursue theft".

So, your experience in Brazil isn't foreign to Americans. Not all police are created equal, and in a place as big and culturally diverse as the US, you'll get some good ones and some bad ones.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#125

Post by JonnieCache »

rbanffy wrote: post #97
Confusion wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The '25%' number is a red herring and not worth debating. The US has over 6 times the number of inmates (per capita) as the average Western European country[1][2]. How could that be, other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? [1] http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-pris... [2] http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r234.pdf

> other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? I live in Brazil and I had two cars stolen. None was found, nobody was charged. A couple years back I had my backpack (with my laptop inside) robbed at gunpoint. A friend of mine who lives in the US had his car stolen. It was returned that same afternoon. Another friend of mine had his home completely cleaned up (the thieves left the heavy furniture and the…

I hope one day not to have to say this in one of these debates: Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. At all. Not only is it invalid reasoning but it taints the rest of the debate because it often sounds so convincing, going hand in hand as it usually does with appeals to emotion. This applies doubly when discussing macro-level societal issues like the justice system.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#126

Post by rbanffy »

cullenking wrote: post #124
rbanffy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? I live in Brazil and I had two cars stolen. None was found, nobody was charged. A couple years back I had my backpack (with my laptop inside) robbed at gunpoint. A friend of mine who lives in the US had his car stolen. It was returned that same afternoon. Another friend of mine had his home completely cleaned up (the thieves left the heavy furniture and the…

I had my car broken into in the US, and I knew who did it. It was a friend of a friend (hey, my friends weren't the best back in high school) and they bragged about it. The cops wouldn't take prints when they investigated. When I called up the officer in question after finding out who did it, they said "sorry, we don't aggressively pursue theft". So, your experience in Brazil isn't foreign to Americans. Not all polic…

Well... That sucks.

The US is, indeed, a very diverse place, but I always had the impression that it has a very disciplined, if somewhat tense at times, society. At least the places I visited.

My point was that the larger number of inmates in relation to the general population can be, at least in part, attributed to a better law enforcement in relation to other countries. When I was robbed, I could have been shot dead. I am sure the guy would never be caught - if for no other reason, he would have killed one key witness.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#127

Post by rbanffy »

JonnieCache wrote: post #125
rbanffy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? I live in Brazil and I had two cars stolen. None was found, nobody was charged. A couple years back I had my backpack (with my laptop inside) robbed at gunpoint. A friend of mine who lives in the US had his car stolen. It was returned that same afternoon. Another friend of mine had his home completely cleaned up (the thieves left the heavy furniture and the…

I hope one day not to have to say this in one of these debates: Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. At all. Not only is it invalid reasoning but it taints the rest of the debate because it often sounds so convincing, going hand in hand as it usually does with appeals to emotion. This applies doubly when discussing macro-level societal issues like the justice system.

Well... This time you really didn't have to say that.

I was, in fact, trying to highlight the fact that the larger number of prison inmates in the US compared to other countries cannot be attributed solely to corrupt law enforcement, judiciary and correctional systems. That's not saying they are perfect, but that is not the cause of the larger population and that, maybe, you could point your suspicions elsewhere.

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#128

Post by forensic »

Anechoic wrote: post #101
JonnieCache wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a massive cash cow if you're selling the products of the cheap labour that goes on in US prisons. http://www.cio.com/article/595304/Prison_Labor_Outsourcing_s... http://newworkerfeatures.blogspot.com/2010/02/us-prison-labo... Paying someone who you have in complete physical bondage under $1 an hour is slave labour as far as I'm concerned, even if it is nominally voluntary. At best its unconscionably exploitative.…

EDIT: Here's another fun stat: america has more black people in prison than in college: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ americas/2223709.stm This claim is a little misleading - the absolute numbers are true (or close enough depending on your source) but it compares blacks in all age groups in jail with blacks going to college. If you limit the comparison to college-aged blacks, there are far more blacks in college…

what is college age though? there are plenty of 30 year olds who go to college

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#129

Post by forensic »

jules wrote: post #93
xenophanes wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupid war on drugs :(

That's merely a symptom, not a cause. The cause is that US prisons are for profit organisations, and that laws are written by lobbyists and passed by bribes. This shows how effective market forces are.

they should get paid for every prisoner they rehabilitate instead of incarcerate

Re: Google Engineer bails out student in jail

#130

Post by kawera »

troels wrote: post #100
rbanffy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> other than because of a seriously fubared justice system? I live in Brazil and I had two cars stolen. None was found, nobody was charged. A couple years back I had my backpack (with my laptop inside) robbed at gunpoint. A friend of mine who lives in the US had his car stolen. It was returned that same afternoon. Another friend of mine had his home completely cleaned up (the thieves left the heavy furniture and the…

That sounds like the difference between inefficient and an efficient police work - not something that is due to a greater incarceration rate. If that was the cause, there would be fewer crimes, but the resolution of them should be about the same. Of course, that evades the question of whether incarceration has any kind of positive effect on crime rates - Popular wisdom assumes that, but scientific evidence is lacking…

And the efficiency of police work doesn't always depend on location. I also live in Brazil (São Paulo) and had my car stolen last year; they found it the next morning. While living in Paris years ago, I had my car stolen and it was never found.
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