321–330 of 501 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have kids? If you let them near active drug users as an object lesson, you need CPS called on you.
are you sure you aren't letting your kids near "active drug users" when you take them to family gatherings?
> In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs. It is relying less on the criminal justice toolbox to deal with hard drugs and more on the public health toolbox. America's puritanical urges result in more self-harm than anything else. So much of the way our nation is structured is based on some ancient idea that you have to live clean and work hard in order to get to heaven. That is combined with a sen…
If you think there is more drug-related crime and public heroin injections in "puritan" US cities like Seattle vs European cities like Frankfurt or Amsterdam... you must not travel very much.
Punishment of drug use does nothing to prevent drug use. Its only value, therefore, is sadism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When people say things like this, I do have to wonder if they've ever lived in a city before. Seattle's crime rate, like most American cities, has been steadily declining since the 1980s. There is just a certain amount of crime and drug use that will always exist in the big city. No amount of 'tough on crime' policing will make it go away.
> Seattle's crime rate, like most American cities, has been steadily declining since the 1980s. Someone else says the opposite: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20780632 Not sure which one is correct...
The reporters designation of "figured out" seems to stem more from the fact that the solution fits his own view than any actual real evidence. There is mention of the difficulties such lax policies has brought to the city, but they are waved away as being "growing pains" toward a new utopia. I can't say, living here, that I feel that the problem is solved. I view the needles outside my apartment as evidence to the co…
At least part of the cause of the visible squalor we see in Seattle is that the tough-on-crime crowd has consistently opposed safe injection, harm reduction, trash pickup, housing-first, and other evidence-based policies in favor of expensive, inhumane, and pointless measures like sweeps and incarceration. Any measure the city government takes that is not overtly cruel gets slammed as coddling the homeless or "attrac…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
His argument has been widely debunked, and subsequent followup found that Leavitt had a huge data error that way overstated his conclusion. I personally find the lead/crime argument to be much more convincing
What’s the lead/crime argument?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I mean, without statistics his anecdotes are meaningless. It's a common thing to complain here in Seattle, but having lived in the Midwest for most of my life I know what true violence looks like and feels like. I don't hear guns every night like I did in KC. There aren't 600 murders a year like in Chicago. I'm not saying Seattle is perfect but I've never felt safer. And I live in the Central District, which is…
It wasn’t this bad in the 90s or 80s, when crime was higher everywhere else. Relatively speaking, Seattle is worse off than it was before, which is a bit sad for the non transplants.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When people say things like this, I do have to wonder if they've ever lived in a city before. Seattle's crime rate, like most American cities, has been steadily declining since the 1980s. There is just a certain amount of crime and drug use that will always exist in the big city. No amount of 'tough on crime' policing will make it go away.
Honest Q: how is crime rate measured? If police stopped enforcing laws against, say, shoplifting, and the rate of shoplifting did not change, would the crime rate go down?
This is particularly problematic in Seattle. Because many citizens now understand that police won't respond to minor crimes, especially property crimes, people just don't report them at all.
In the past few years, I've personally experienced someone climbing a fence to enter my back yard, shitting in my alley, stealing property from my porch, pissing on my garage, stealing from my trash (multiple times). None of those will show up on crime statistics even though they are illegal because I didn't call in since I knew the cops didn't have the capacity to do anything.
> In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs. It is relying less on the criminal justice toolbox to deal with hard drugs and more on the public health toolbox. America's puritanical urges result in more self-harm than anything else. So much of the way our nation is structured is based on some ancient idea that you have to live clean and work hard in order to get to heaven. That is combined with a sen…
That's rather condescending and ignorant. It has nothing to do with puritanical urges, it has to do with personal responsibility and everyone being responsible for their own actions, which results in having to suffer the personal consequences without having the right to impose oneself on others by one's own choices in life. Unfortunately, this whole drug situation in the USA has gotten, like many things, totally out…
What if, instead, we mercilessly and ruthlessly cut off their source of money: the premium people pay for illegal drugs exactly because they are illegal? Bootleggers weren't put out of business by Elliot Ness, they were put out of business by the end of prohibition.
> “You’ve got a guy shooting heroin on the street, and the cop is supposed to say, ‘You O.K.?’” grumbled one law enforcement officer in Seattle. As progressive as some are here, the NIMBYism (see other locals that this opinion piece has riled up in the thread) and bad apples on the police force spoiling the whole bunch are just as bad as anywhere else. Another anecdote to add to the quote: walking up 12th Ave (Cap Hi…
... this is probably news to people actually living in Seattle. (Edit: the title was originally, "Seattle Has Figured Out How to End the War on Drugs") A place where meth heads attack people with pitchforks in the street a few days after being released from prison on a suspended sentence. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/man-accused-... Not to mention our random piles of used syringes, which are often…
If crime is determined by victimhood: > public intoxication not an "actual crime" > public camping seeking shelter is not an "actual crime" > shop lifting is an "actual crime" > harassment is an "actual crime"
A good definition of "crime" needs to be able to include action that indirectly harm a large number of potential people. Otherwise, you are powerless to address the tragedy of the commons.