361–370 of 652 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Police are focusing all of their efforts elsewhere. They don't care about property crime like this. Also, as pointed out elsewhere on the thread, policing the tracks is the responsibility of the railroad company, not LAPD.
Do they publish what they do spend time on?
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-10/appeals-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Are you saying that the LAPD budget isn’t increasing?
In billions of dollars:
2014-2015: $1.338
2015-2016: $1.438
2016-2017: $1.485
2017-2018: $1.578
2018-2019: $1.609
2019-2020: $1.733
2020-2021: $1.721
2021-2022: $1.760
The city also took on $47 million in overtime debt in the year that the budget was cut [2]
[1] https://lacontroller.org/budgets/ [2] https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/la-cut-the-police-budget...
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…
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…
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…
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ove…
> What if I declare that the root cause of all this is being human. What do you do? Ask you what your evidence is for that assertion given that crime rates vary so widely around the world for disparate reasons. The prevalence and types of crimes committed really do vary widely as well (though its often hard to get a clear picture since different countries have different reporting mechanisms (or none at all)).
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Fixing this is a two part issue. One, we cannot get rid of physical security, as everyone should have the right to protect themselves and their property. Two, the way to prevent crime from happening is to make people feel in the heart and soul that crime is morally wrong and destructive for the community around them. This is not instinctual human behavior. For those who learn this and live this, great. For those who…
You want to know why I don't steal? It's because I don't have to. I have sufficient security of income and opportunity that it's not necessary. I'm not bragging, though, what I'm getting at is that you're missing a huge part of why people steal - maybe even the largest part: because they feel they have to survive, or because it's okay because society is stacked against them. This is what above was talking about when…
One doesn’t need to be impoverished to steal. Some subset of individuals will always be driven to obtain “more”, even if through illicit means.
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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.…
These types of crimes are generally opportunistic. Opportunistic crimes are committed by people who literally don't think of any future, they don't see any risk, only the chance of a reward. Prison is not on their mind. Similar types of crime would be most house burglaries where entrance is easy, pick pocketing and street mugging. For house burglary the way to deter opportunistic criminals is to harden down the house…
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…
To solve most of them, it appears A) everybody has to simultaneously change their behavior at once or B) some entity with a lot of resources will end up taking hits until culture changes. We're too deeply divided for A and class divides/corporate-civilian divides prevent anyone from stepping up and doing B.
Since it's too hard we're taking the easy way out into anger, revenge, and apathy--and if you live in a bad area the solution is to make or have enough money to move. The constant mobility mostly driven by job and money chasing makes culture impossible for those who need to work and don't have significant assets--which is most people--and without a culture the tendency to not care about each other tends to win.
Eventually we will run out of room in this country (we always sell out to developers) and we'll have to actually solve problems, but that's probably a good 100 years from now assuming we haven't broken up into separate countries by then.
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 assume you're talking about poor people. I don't know how much experience you have with lower socio-economic people in the US, but from my experience, most are honest hardworking and industrious. Some are immigrants without a formal education or even language skills that came to this country for opportunity.
It's a little offensive to deny them basic autonomy to not steal and trash a rail-yard. The people that I came across in my life that do petty crime like this are not poor desperate people. They're usually highly anti-social borderline sociopaths. They're organized by informal networks of other people exploiting them. There's organization involved to keep lookout, know when and were to go and how to avoid getting caught. And if you get caught, there is a whole system around that as well. And since they're organized, they are fully aware of the risk-reward tradeoffs. This includes the recent trend of being soft on these kinds of crimes or looking the other way, as you're doing.
Think about the skill you need to pull this off. You need to be young and physically fit, to run from police. You have to be able to keep a lot of information in your head and make snap decisions about what to open, what to keep and what to toss. You have to show up on time and plan. The people doing these heists could easily be employed as warehouse or delivery workers and make an honest, probably even more lucrative living, especially when you consider long term risk of being arrested. They choose not to.
Poor people are not to blame for this savagery.