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Train burglaries in LA

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Re: Train burglaries in LA

#221

Post by konschubert »

alkonaut wrote: post #147
blamazon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trains are forced to stop at this accessible location sometimes, just outside the rail yard. They don’t stop for long, so the strategy is to hop on, cut a container open, and throw as much stuff to the ground as you can before the train starts moving again. Then you hop down and look through your spoils for items of value. Hint: look for “lithium ion battery device inside” warning labels.

So if the train cars, or the containers thee packages are kept in within the train cars, were at least so secure that they prevented access for say an hour or two, then this likely wouldn't happen? What is this, open crates or sacks of packages, in traincars locked with a small padlock?

A battery-powered bolt cutter is pretty powerful. Containers are no bank safes because that would make them too heavy and most places are not as lawless as this.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#222

Post by eloisius »

gonehome wrote: post #178
baby wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing has been happening in SF with homelessness. A lot of people think they should go to prison or be displaced somewhere else. It’s like refusing to accept that there’s a root cause.

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…

>maybe drug clinics that administer drugs to addicts for free onsite

That is an interesting idea. All kinds of ethical issues for handing out free heroin, but why not take all the confiscated drugs, test them for safety and hand them out for free at clinics with some damage-reduction safe guards like daily per-person limits, offer rehab and mental health services, etc? Turn addicts into informants without even trying, because if they rat out dealers, the dope is free. I doubt users have the long-term awareness to see that it eventually reduce supply.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#223

Post by eloisius »

271828182846 wrote: post #108
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…

> 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 than solved. what do you mean? death penalty ... solved!

Not solved. Then instead of sneaky thieves who run away, you get armed heists willing to kill cops and civilians to avoid getting busted.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#224

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

buran77 wrote: post #157
kqr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. There's so much focus on short-term solutions for crime – even outside of the US. Taking a leaf from Deming, we have a system, a process, a society that creates a certain, relatively stable, number of criminals per year. Trying to address specific criminal acts or specific criminals is just meddling that can backlash as easily as it can help. When you have a stable source of trouble, it makes no sense to try…

> Indeed. There's so much focus on short-term solutions for crime – even outside of the US. There's an old nugget that if anyone could time-travel they'd go back in time and kill Hitler. Nobody would go a few more years back to educate him. People are not educated to look at the big picture but to react in the moment. Stop the theft as it's happening. Shoot. This goes best with societies where taking a life is consid…

Eh. People will disagree on what the root cause is. Just to give you an idea how easy it is to undermine this argument. What if I declare that the root cause of all this is being human. What do you do?

Thinking of bigger picture is all well and good, but the moment you mention education I cannot help, but chuckle. In the context of US, education already is.. lets call it overburdened. Maybe the solution is not to override the reflex, but to appropriately channel it.

For the record, I am just putting words together. It is late and infant does not want to sleep.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#226

Post by alkonaut »

paganel wrote: post #214
alkonaut wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What difference would a driver do? A driver is instructed to not interefere if robbed. The difference I suppose is that what would otherwise be a robbery could be a mere burglary which could have less legal risk as well as less risk of violence (In the case a driver interferes, against his instructions)

It won't be just "one" driver, it would more of them, as in the lorries are usually stopped where other lorries are also stopped (at lorry-specific parking spots, for example) and as such it would be harder for the robbers to confront an "united" (for lack of a better word) pack of drivers. Granted, robberies (and even murders [1]) still happen in those circumstances, too, but give the robbers unattended merchandise…

I think the deterrence from human drivers comes probably (hopefully) more from the risk of being detected, than from the risk of being stopped. Self driving vehicles would of course lack the human element. But on the other hand - they might not need to stop for rest like human drivers do.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#227

Post by oefrha »

ckolkey wrote: post #206
oefrha wrote: post #196

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. 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.

_People committing thievery_ more often than not aren’t rational actors capable of assessing risks at least somewhat accurately. There, exact same argument with a term you prefer.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#228

Post by kogepathic »

gonehome wrote: post #191
donny2018 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a 3-rd world country that has like 40 times less GDP per capita than the United States. The vast majority of our people work in the fields growing crops and are much poorer than the poorest communities in the US. Our people have to survive, like for real. By your logic, theft, crime, murders and robberies should be rampant in my country because they “have to”. But my country is much safer in that regard tha…

Imo the comment you’re replying to is a kind of progressive left-wing university faculty lounge flavor of upper middle class politics and is not representative of the vast majority of Americans (but is overrepresented online). I’d suspect most Americans (across the political spectrum) would see these train robberies and think “these people should go to jail”, rather than moralizing about why it’s not their fault.

> I’d suspect most Americans (across the political spectrum) would see these train robberies and think “these people should go to jail”, rather than moralizing about why it’s not their fault.

Jail isn't some magical free solution to your crime problems.

Would Americans still be so eager to imprison someone if they knew that the cost to incarcerate someone is ~$36k/yr? [1]

The government defines poverty as $12k/yr for individuals [2], which is three times less than the annual cost to incarcerate someone!

Is imprisoning someone at the taxpayer cost of ~$36k/yr a sustainable model?

At what point does America have a conversation about the cost of imprisonment versus the alternatives like raising the poverty line, raising minimum wage, or implementing social programs?

[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/30/2018-09...

[2] https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/povert...

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#229

Post by refurb »

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…

If you think people are stealing because they have no other choice you’re sadly mistaken.

I’m assuming LA is similar to SF - much of the crime is organized. Multi-million dollar operations.

This is a problem because the perception is that law enforcement won’t do anything, so fuck it, why not get easy money. Working and paying taxes like some chump? Nah.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#230

Post by brobdingnagians »

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…

There are situations that make it more likely that people will steal, but I don't think it is wise to off-load all of the responsibility to society.

Some people will never steal even to save their own life, because they have principles which guide them in that direction.

I think it is important to recognize that our society has less respect for property laws and is more accepting of dishonesty, theft, and general lack of honor than many previous societies. As the cultural value of integrity declines, people see no reason to refrain from theft and violence, so if a situation presents itself where it seems advantageous to them, they take it, even if it is not advantageous to society or causes great harm to someone else. It seems that empathy is lacking in our society as well.

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