Earlier quoted context omitted.
A horrible way to prevent theft. Statistically a great way to create career criminals, break up families, and all the side effects that comes with (like more criminals).
But this attitude leads to the current situation, where the criminals face minimal risk, the deterrent factor of harsh punishments isn't there.
Train burglaries in LA
341–350 of 652 posts
Re: Train burglaries in LA
#342My 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…
And what you see in these coastal California cities is a result of this thinking, that it's always something else to blame and people should feel guilty for wanting their property to be secured or offenders punished or deterred.
And it's not nearly so simple as you say. Easy to steal or low consequences of stealing absolutely contributes to things being stolen. If one in every 4-5 container has been burglarized, surely there's a good argument things need to be made a bit more secure sitting around handwringing about the state of society and admonishing anybody who doesn't sympathize with the criminals certainly won't solve it, as California has demonstrated.
It's not that there aren't other factors that could be improved on a societal level to reduce this kind of crime, to be clear I'm not arguing that.
> I walked around last year, in an opera house, public building, no one in sight, empty building, unlocked doors, there were paintings on the walls, and I identified audio equipment for at least $10k, and it was not unlocked by mistake. Then it struck me, that we've done well in society when we can have this.
Must be nice to be so privileged. You know who suffers the most from street crimes, burglaries, and that kind of thing? It's poor people. Petty criminals know the police will descend on them like a ton of bricks if they went and started robbing rich people places. Just because you might not see police everywhere does not mean it is not protected by the threat of violence and incarceration.
Re: Train burglaries in LA
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
You make it sound like this is all necessity. I don't know if this is intentional or not. If it is intentional: Go look at the porch pirate glitterbomb videos and come back and tell me that it is because of necessity (I've only seen one go off in a pawn shop, the rest were people who wanted to improve their own home it seemed.) Trying to be intellectually honest here I'll note that maybe those videos weren't uploaded…
> - stealing must also not be accepted It's a bit more complex than that, in my opinion. This is also about whether people respect/love society. When you feel connected to society and feel thankful for what it gives to you, you will be much less likely to exhibit antisocial behavior. In my opinion, this lack of connection to society is caused by 1. The US being a lot harder on its participants than in the Norden coun…
What I write about above however is that even in the Nordic countries where everyone has all reason to be thankful people steal a lot.
Re: Train burglaries in LA
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crime rates go up when inequality goes up.
Do crime rates go up when you stop policing actual crimes?
No they don't. See all the studies that disprove the "broken windows theory" that tried to prove that crime rates go down when you enforce policing.
https://carder.uk/threads/does-broken-windows-theory-work.11...
The first book to disprove the broken window theory was Bernard Harcourt 's Illusion of Order, published in 2001. The author points out that over the 30 years of the existence of this theory, it has never been empirically confirmed, on the contrary, the available research contradicts it. The theory also relies on arbitrarily defined categories of "order" and "disorder", "law-abiding citizens" and "violators."
The first book to disprove the broken window theory was Bernard Harcourt 's Illusion of Order, published in 2001. The author points out that over the 30 years of the existence of this theory, it has never been empirically confirmed, on the contrary, the available research contradicts it. The theory also relies on arbitrarily defined categories of "order" and "disorder", "law-abiding citizens" and "violators."
First of all, the drop in crime in New York occurred simultaneously with the corresponding process in the entire United States. In another study, Harcourt notes that the drop in crime rates in New York coincided with the end of the crack drug epidemic. Christina Sterbenz adds that this trend has been fueled by declining unemployment (during the 1990s, its rate fell by 40%).
Criminologist Ralph Taylor is sure that socio-economic is a significant factor that affects the crime rate. Returning to the experiment with two cars - in the Bronx initially there was a low level of welfare, and in wealthy Palo Alto, a researcher must intervene in the experiment to provoke vandalism.
The theory of broken windows has also failed to pass the test of a massive social experiment. In 1994, the US government introduced the Moving to Opportunity program, which relocated 4,800 impoverished families to prime locations. The program was implemented in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Baltimore. Three quarters of the resettled households were on the brink of poverty, and two thirds of the participants were African American.
According to the theory, in the new environment the level of their involvement in offenses should have, but this did not happen, since the move did not improve their financial situation, but emphasized the social gap with their neighbors.Re: Train burglaries in LA
#345Earlier 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…
Hum, could I suggest an evil alternative? Just schedule a few meetings with the people that lend money to Hitler and explain them that he will try to keep the money and will go to extreme measures to avoid returning it, including killing them or their relatives if possible. Really bad investment, don't touch this turd with a thousand foot pole. Thank me later when you still own your castle in Europe.
Result: Hitler never climb in a position to became Hitler. Nobody dies, nobody needs to enter in a war to recover the investment and you don't became a murderer. Hollywood would be devastated for sure but, apart of this...everybody wins :-)
Re: Train burglaries in LA
#346My 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 see two ways to interpret this (1) make sure everyone has enough and they won't steal (2) promote a culture that stealing is unacceptable regardless of your situation I don't personally believe (1) is sufficient nor will it solve the problem. Most people stealing are not "that" poor. They are not starving etc... Instead they (we) have a culture that it's acceptable to steal. Even many well to do middle and upper mi…
There was a good bit on some Russian blog back in the day. Cops in Russia were very underpaid then, and someone floated the idea that they take bribes for that reason. The response:
"A cop takes bribes because his salary is low. Ok, what should his salary be? Like a minister's? But they say nowadays that ministers also take bribes like there's no tomorrow. Maybe we should make the cop's living standard like Zeus the god of all gods and then he'll stop taking bribes?"
Whether you're rich or poor, if you feel that it's ok to rob people, you'll rob people (in the way that your level affords). And if you hate the idea of robbing people, you won't.
Re: Train burglaries in LA
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Humans will always crave to have more than each other ad will steal, loot, defraud, do anything to get there. Yes and currently society has many many ways for the privileged to get even more than others than they already have, in ways that are legally accepted even if they’re morally reprehensible. And as long as we don’t change that and make the playing field more even, I don’t think judging petty theft so harshly…
When you don't judge theft harshly you actually promote a culture of dishonesty. It is the cruelest and vilest thing to do to those poor people who actually don't steal.
Yup. I wish we would start doing that.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/walmart-corporations-wage-t...
A scathing new report finds that hundreds of major corporations in the United States are repeat wage-theft offenders — committing the violations and then paying the subsequent fines as part of the cost of doing business.Re: Train burglaries in LA
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
The poor most probably aren't using 150 euro phones, and he probably meant RAM more so than storage.
Well, that's the lower end for smartphones these days, and the one I am using has 4GiB of RAM, the same amount the iPhone 13 has. Again, this is not about technical specifications, it's about faux elitism and the problems that come with it.
Re: Train burglaries in LA
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
> defunding police Police budgets are, by and large, still increasing in the US.
Faced with massive demonstrations over the murder of George Floyd, the Los Angeles City Council took a dramatic and symbolic step last year, cutting $150 million from the Police Department’s budget and promising to put that money into other social services.