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Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

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Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#81

Post by ceejayoz »

saagarjha wrote: post #58
merpnderp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was definitely racism in the passing and enforcing of these laws. There was also definitely communities overran with drug related crime that were desperate for help. When a single mom can't buy her kid a bicycle because the last 3 have been stolen out from under him by addicts looking to score, she's going to ask the her elected representatives for help.

> When a single mom can't buy her kid a bicycle because the last 3 have been stolen out from under him by addicts looking to score That seems like burglary/robbery rather than a drug-related offense.

How would a burglary intended to obtain money to buy drugs not be "drug-related"?

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#82

Post by bena »

overthemoon wrote: post #78
steveeq1 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sourced.

It's bullshit. https://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/trump-retweets-bogus-crime... Starting with the most obvious point, the Crime Statistics Bureau of San Francisco doesn't exist.

"But don't you understand, it reinforces my worldview and tells me that my irrational fear of minorities isn't just racism."

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#83

Post by ceejayoz »

thatcat wrote: post #35
dcolkitt wrote: post #9

> Cooperating with law enforcement is often morally and practically unthinkable for the city’s most vulnerable The article has a really big blind spot, in that it fails to mention the Drug War even a single time. If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army- the militarization of weapons and approaches, the festering hostility between the police and the policed, the heavy-handed suspicion…

>Crime gets reported, police investigate, criminal gets arrested, community improves from having a violent psychopath off the streets. It's a simple formula, everybody's happy Wrong, even in simple assault cases it's possible for the victim to be charged with the assault if the person committing assault goes to the court house first and files charges. This blocks the ability of the victim to file charges and allows p…

What jurisdiction do you live in that permits people to file criminal charges on their own authority at a court house?

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#84

Post by bena »

rjf72 wrote: post #8
radlad wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic chicken or egg...

Violent crime was at extremely negligible levels in the fifties. In just 3-4 decades to the 90s it ended up increasing (per rate) by around 800%. That's a part of where the hyper-tough on crime laws came from, and it's also when you started seeing an increasing militarization of the police. Violent crime then decreased by about 50% to 2014, though that still of course leaves us at a level multiple times higher than w…

Eh. This might be a case of not really having good data.

Looking at the "data", one would conclude that Autism is on the rise. But we didn't even know what it was not too long ago. And we sure as hell didn't check for it. There are more diagnoses of Autism because we're actually looking now.

Today, domestic violence would be classified as a violent crime. In the fifties, it was called keeping your wife in line.

Lynching a black man was a way to keep him away from your pristine daughter in the fifties. Now. It's a crime.

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#85

Post by ceejayoz »

RHSeeger wrote: post #23
qekbg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because you only hear about the bad things. Sure there are some crazy cops like everywhere else. But all in all I'm certain most cops are good people who just want to help citizens and remove the bad guys.

A friend of mine explained his viewpoint as... Sure, there's only a few bad apples doing horrible things. But then there's a LOT of cops, and their union, that help/stand up for those bad apples. If you're not taking a bribe, but you are actively looking away when your partner is; you're the bad guy. There's the well known blue wall of silence, and everyone that makes up that wall is part of the problem.

Precisely.

Defenders of police misconduct tend to cite the "it's just a few bad apples" line without noting the full adage is "a few bad apples spoils the barrel".

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#86

Post by seandoe »

celticmusic wrote: post #53
sandworm101 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you want to understand why America's police act like an occupying army... then you have to start with the Drug War. Go back much further than that. Go back to the civil rights movement. Go back to jim crow. The history of the American war on drugs was born of racism and continues its birthright. That is the real sticking point, the source of the high emotions surrounding drugs. The drug war is a proxy for much…

The motivation for the war on drugs is not borne out of racism, but a combination of greed and public safety concern.

I agree. "Born out of racism" is too strong. I'm not even sure what it means exactly. Was racism rampant at the time? Yes. But the war on drugs still would've happened if there was no racism. Those rugurgitated figures on black vs white drug use vs convictions misses the boat. Go to any city and recognize the color of people that control the drug market. The majority of them are not white. The police don't focus on users, they focus on dealers-- that's where the violent crime is. If you don't want to buy drugs in the city, go to a jamband show. A microcosm of this phenomenon is the nitrous scene. Who makes up the nitrous mafia? Black dudes in black hoodies. They sell to nearly all-white hippies. If you try to sell nitrous(compete with the mafia) you will be beaten up or killed. The nitrous mess is a blight on the otherwise positive, peaceful music scene. If you were to try to stop it, who would you go after? The peaceful users who are in actuality the root of the problem, or the violent dealers?

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#87

Post by thatcat »

ceejayoz wrote: post #83
thatcat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Crime gets reported, police investigate, criminal gets arrested, community improves from having a violent psychopath off the streets. It's a simple formula, everybody's happy Wrong, even in simple assault cases it's possible for the victim to be charged with the assault if the person committing assault goes to the court house first and files charges. This blocks the ability of the victim to file charges and allows p…

What jurisdiction do you live in that permits people to file criminal charges on their own authority at a court house?

Is this not universal in US? If police on scene don't file charges or arrest anyone, it's a "race to the court house" with the first person to file having priority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_courthouse

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#88

Post by ceejayoz »

romaaeterna wrote: post #40
AS126 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scandinavian countries in particular tend to do better in encouraging rehab and reintegration. Part of it is definitely related to cost, those countries tend to have stronger funding for their prison/reform systems. Draconic punishment is not ideal especially because criminals return to society with less prospects and are likely to turn to crime once again. That is if they return at all.

The small numbers of African-origin minorities in Scandinavian countries commit more crime per capita than those in the United States. (The same is also true internally within the Unites States when differentiating between northern and southern states). I'm afraid that Scandinavian models haven't solved the minority crime problem, but only make it worse. Sometimes far worse, as in Oslo, etc.

https://www.thelocal.se/20180508/why-sweden-doesnt-keep-stat...

> It doesn't take much effort to find articles claiming to have the 'truth' about the relationship between immigrants or refugees and Swedish crime. Yet the real truth is that there is no up-to-date public data on the ethnic background of criminals in the country, with existing figures more than a decade old.

Do you have reputable citations for Oslo/Norway crime by ethnic background that demonstrate what you assert? Norway says overall rates are down, which would be weird if the influx of refugees was increasing crime: https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/crime-rates-decrease-norw...

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#89

Post by jadell »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #39
jadell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always felt weird to me that most of the rationale for policing drug use is based on preventing the crimes a user might commit while on drugs, rather than just the prosecuting the crimes they actually do commit while on drugs. "You can't do heroin because you'll get addicted and might steal in order to fuel your addiction." "But I haven't actually stolen anything yet, so what crime has been committed?" Are there a…

Speeding. Public intoxication. Keeping an attractive nuisance.

Attractive nuisance is a tort, not a crime. No one gets arrested for it, they get sued if someone gets injured.

Speeding is arguably not victimless. Someone pointed out the "shooting into a crowd without hitting anyone" analogy, which is apt. You're engaging in immediately threatening and dangerous behavior.

Public intoxication is also not victimless; that's the "disorderly" part of "drunk and disorderly" (whether it gets enforced correctly/equally is a different discussion.) This is actually a great example of my point: you can get as drunk as you want, and no one will care until you start disturbing the peace, being belligerent, damaging property, urinating in public spaces, etc. If you're drunk and sitting in a bar quietly, it's not a problem. We don't arrest you because you might drive drunk later, we wait until you actually drive drunk. We treat other drugs completely differently.

Re: Victims are often criminals, and that is a paradox American policing can’t solve

#90

Post by steveeq1 »

overthemoon wrote: post #78
steveeq1 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sourced.

It's bullshit. https://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/trump-retweets-bogus-crime... Starting with the most obvious point, the Crime Statistics Bureau of San Francisco doesn't exist.

I didn't know this, so I concede, somewhat. But my broader point remains. Availability bias makes the problem seem much much larger than it actually is.
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