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Train burglaries in LA

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Re: Train burglaries in LA

#201

Post by tehbeard »

dmurray wrote: post #168
zdragnar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, medicines shipped by specialty / remote pharmacies typically don't often go by train, as they need relatively climate controlled environments (above freezing, under a certain amount, etc). That said, steal the shots I take for an autoimmune disorder and I'll definitely consider it an assault on my health.

In the US, stealing Epipens and selling them on the black market makes them more accessible compared to than forcing people to pay the retail price. The manufacturer can always make more - they could accept 90% losses due to theft and still sell them profitably, based on the prices they offer in other countries [0]. So if you're going to play the "assault on my health" card, the guys robbing trains are literally Robi…

That's real noble, but the issue I'm on about isn't the price, that's its own can of worms and something for you lot to deal with in the US.

Disruption to medicine supply is my concern here, having had supply issues affect a family member where they've had to ration out heart related medication... I'm a little tetchy about it.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#202

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

vidarh wrote: post #194
gonehome wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably SF’s lack of police response enables continued drug abuse and homelessness. See: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/rescuing-jessica-s... This person has no interest in treatment. They want to do drugs and take advantage of what’s provided to keep doing that. You can’t fix that with hotels. You either need to require treatment or imprison (paired with arresting dealers). On the more progressive end, m…

Your thinking here is still focused on symptoms rather than causes. Most people don't develop debilitating drug addictions without underlying problems. Even most people with drug addictions don't get to a point where they can't hold down a job or have a need to carry out crime to fund it, but of those who do it's worth considering why when e.g. a typical heroin addict can hold down a job and could have funded their a…

Broken families, abusive childhood environments, terrible influences and friends are among some of those root causes. Check out interviews with Skid Row residents on Youtube if you want to get a good taste of the diversity of reasons for why people end up in those situations. It will be really hard to break the cycle in the US without forcibly separating many, many children from their parents and letting the government raise them in more functioning environments.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#203

Post by KSteffensen »

truckerbill wrote: post #151
mngnt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause is the same as it always has been: it is easier for some people to get to the desired standard of living by stealing/other crime than by working. Why crime us going up? Because of higher desired standard (every body needs an iPhone, brand name shoes and hats), more difficulty with earning a wage (largely, difficulty getting a job at all) and decreased difficulty in crime (defunding police, more aesily avail…

Crime rates go up when inequality goes up.

Is crime rate proportional to inequality or poverty?

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#204

Post by vidarh »

arethuza wrote: post #175
null_object wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never seen an American-style SUV in Western Europe I was actually thinking about these SUVs this morning, as their were two Cadillac Escalades [0] parked on my block in central Stockholm as I walked my kid to school. The town is *full* of these types of vehicles (there are even full-size Hummers driving around). The "EU" can't be characterized in this uniform way - the different countries are totally unlike ea…

What I've noticed in the UK is that large SUVs are far more common in wealthy areas of cities than they are in rural areas.

In London at least they're often referred to as "Chelsea tractors" (Chelsea being one of the wealthiest parts of London)., and you're entirely correct according to this article[1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/07/stereoty...

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#205

Post by bradlys »

mngnt wrote: post #145
dusted wrote: post #102

My observation from the comment sections to this post-apocalyptic video is the following: People focusing on how to prevent the theft of these cars, funding police, armed guards on trans, better security. I think this is an interesting perspective, it's very "American", it's like it has been accepted by these commenters that rampant thievery is a perfectly natural part of life and so, must be worked around rather tha…

The cause is the same as it always has been: it is easier for some people to get to the desired standard of living by stealing/other crime than by working. Why crime us going up? Because of higher desired standard (every body needs an iPhone, brand name shoes and hats), more difficulty with earning a wage (largely, difficulty getting a job at all) and decreased difficulty in crime (defunding police, more aesily avail…

No post body was provided.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#206

Post by ckolkey »

oefrha wrote: post #196
buran77 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When risking getting caught stealing is more attractive than working then it's safe to say the working opportunities for those people aren't worth almost anything. People take the easier option. You choose "lock your trains well" despite knowing the answer will be "crack those locks well" because it was the easy answer. The view is simple. Eventually the train will be a rolling mountain of steel protected by an army.…

> When risking getting caught stealing is more attractive than working then it's safe to say the working opportunities for those people aren't worth almost anything. That assumes thieves are rational actors capable of assessing risks at least somewhat accurately. Often times (the vast majority of times, even) they are not. It's also worth bringing up that certain American subcultures glorify criminals. The criminal l…

I think this is a fundamental attribution error... You're saying the person _is_ a thief, whereas I would say the person is _committing_ thievery. In the first case, it's the persons nature and no change in incentives would dissuade them. In the second, if you change the incentives so that thievery is less attractive (with its inherent risks) than just working for a good wage, the behavior would vanish.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#207

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #202
vidarh wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your thinking here is still focused on symptoms rather than causes. Most people don't develop debilitating drug addictions without underlying problems. Even most people with drug addictions don't get to a point where they can't hold down a job or have a need to carry out crime to fund it, but of those who do it's worth considering why when e.g. a typical heroin addict can hold down a job and could have funded their a…

Broken families, abusive childhood environments, terrible influences and friends are among some of those root causes. Check out interviews with Skid Row residents on Youtube if you want to get a good taste of the diversity of reasons for why people end up in those situations. It will be really hard to break the cycle in the US without forcibly separating many, many children from their parents and letting the governme…

Not necessarily, someone could have an awful childhood but with adequate mental health help and support, not fall into addiction and homelessness in adult life. Ideally, yes, we'd eliminate all causes of trauma, but we can also put a _lot_ more effort into mitigating the effects later in life, rather than (subconsciously?) chalking it up to a moral failure in the affected person.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#208

Post by [deleted] »

jl6 wrote: post #193
mngnt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause is the same as it always has been: it is easier for some people to get to the desired standard of living by stealing/other crime than by working. Why crime us going up? Because of higher desired standard (every body needs an iPhone, brand name shoes and hats), more difficulty with earning a wage (largely, difficulty getting a job at all) and decreased difficulty in crime (defunding police, more aesily avail…

> Why crime us going up? It’s not. The long term trend in property crime in the US is down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

[deleted]

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#209

Post by CamperBob2 »

jl6 wrote: post #193
mngnt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause is the same as it always has been: it is easier for some people to get to the desired standard of living by stealing/other crime than by working. Why crime us going up? Because of higher desired standard (every body needs an iPhone, brand name shoes and hats), more difficulty with earning a wage (largely, difficulty getting a job at all) and decreased difficulty in crime (defunding police, more aesily avail…

> Why crime us going up? It’s not. The long term trend in property crime in the US is down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

Difficulty: people may not even bother reporting minor property crimes anymore, because the police (and, more important, the prosecutors) DGAF.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#210

Post by kepler1 »

Do you ever think to yourself that we're gradually headed to some dystopia like in the movie Elysium? Where a growing underclass is relegated to a garbage planet while the elites escape to a satellite world? Or at least parts of our planet?

I'm not even faulting the elites for it really -- how are you, in a non-authoritarian society, supposed to handle when basic services are under attack and can't effectively discipline or enforce law, either because you just can't police enough, people refuse to obey law and order any more, or you're not allowed to use force for political reasons? Or a certain level (or $ amount) of crime is just ok? All you can do is create greater moats around the areas you can protect and see if the underclass can sort itself out.

I see this kind of creeping / boiling the frog effect happening in lots of developments lately. (although I'm sure people of every generation have decried the end of the world too)

Take the Portland (or Oregon?) relaxation of drug penalties, etc. Sure, it only makes sense to stop criminalizing drug use when everyone's doing it and it's loading up your prisons. But you didn't exactly solve the problem. You just found a less bad way to deal with the effects. And you're still on a path where people are using drugs more and more, and the elites flee to their gated communities to let the underclass sort itself out downtown, because it's not "fair" or "equitable" to lock up people for drug use. "We need less policing, more understanding." Eventually you understand yourself all the way into a society that's broken down.

The sad thing is that the people who suffer most from crime and belief that having a system with rules is against them, are the poor and vulnerable.

I don't think our approaches to these problems is working well.

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