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Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

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Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#61

Post by Hizonner »

newsclues wrote: post #45
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #31

> For example, in Kansas City a bus stop at a particular intersection was attracting drug sales and loitering. So the police called the local transportation authority and had the bus stop moved. > “I think within a week, maybe not even that, that immediately cut down on the loitering and foot traffic,” Capt. Jonas Baughman told the local press. As an outsider, I have no words for how absurd this is to me. The fact th…

Isn’t loitering and foot traffic code for drug dealers selling drugs illegally to their customers?

That's how they want you to read it. They literally measure it by whether anybody goes to a place or stays in it. So if you make some part of your city into a place nobody wants to be in, then nobody will be there.

And, sure, the people who aren't there won't be committing crimes there. They'll go commit their crimes somewhere else. Or I guess maybe they'll just sit at home until they shoot themselves...

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#62

Post by sandworm101 »

SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #31

> For example, in Kansas City a bus stop at a particular intersection was attracting drug sales and loitering. So the police called the local transportation authority and had the bus stop moved. > “I think within a week, maybe not even that, that immediately cut down on the loitering and foot traffic,” Capt. Jonas Baughman told the local press. As an outsider, I have no words for how absurd this is to me. The fact th…

>> loitering and foot traffic

I laugh at how in this article that foot traffic is seen as a bad thing. HN has seen hundreds of threads opining on how we should get rid of car lanes and open up space for pedestrian traffic. But this article talks of pedestrians as a scourge to be eliminated. Cops in cop cars are out there keeping the sidewalks clear of people. How many pedestrians or mass transit riders, fearing police encounters, will op to travel instead by private car?

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#64

Post by RajT88 »

lupire wrote: post #12
RajT88 wrote: post #3

Community improvement should be the focus of policing efforts. Not maximizing penalties. Systemically, you are going to have better long term outcomes.

> Community improvement should be the focus of policing efforts. Why drag police into this? The basic problem with policing is sending in strangers with guns to do social work. The PD isn't the only city agency.

To your point, yes police should have a smaller scope than they do.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#65

Post by sumy23 »

SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #31

> For example, in Kansas City a bus stop at a particular intersection was attracting drug sales and loitering. So the police called the local transportation authority and had the bus stop moved. > “I think within a week, maybe not even that, that immediately cut down on the loitering and foot traffic,” Capt. Jonas Baughman told the local press. As an outsider, I have no words for how absurd this is to me. The fact th…

It really depends on the specific situation. Public space is for everyone’s enjoyment. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of their right to the space in a way that detracts from everyone. Take a park for example. Typically, a great place to take your kids. However, if someone strung out on heroin loiters in the park, it suddenly becomes a much worse place for everyone else. Technically, being high on heroin in a public place isn’t a crime. This person is well within their rights to use the public space. But in many cases, people like this form a small minority that ruins the public space for everyone. Discouraging this type of person is actually maximizing the utility of public space.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#66

Post by nabilhat »

SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #31

> For example, in Kansas City a bus stop at a particular intersection was attracting drug sales and loitering. So the police called the local transportation authority and had the bus stop moved. > “I think within a week, maybe not even that, that immediately cut down on the loitering and foot traffic,” Capt. Jonas Baughman told the local press. As an outsider, I have no words for how absurd this is to me. The fact th…

It's true - reducing foot traffic, social activity, and on-site jobs (transit drivers) is counterproductive to passive crime prevention. A persistent presence of crime-averse residents, professionals, and activities can inform effective response better than brute force law enforcement labor, often without police involvement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_prevention_through_envir...

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#67

Post by bombcar »

jeffbee wrote: post #53
ipnon wrote: post #36

Five Points was once the worst neighborhood in the United States. It was razed and replaced with Columbus Park. Now its a safe center of the community in Manhattan's Chinatown. Gangs in Chicago were concentrated into a few high-rises owned by the public housing administration until the 1990s. The buildings were razed in an effort to curtail the rampant crime within them. The unintended consequence was that the once u…

Surely you are not arguing that crime increased in frequency in Chicago (or any other American city) after 1990, because the statistics all indicate the opposite. Violent crime had fallen by half from 1990 rates by 2000, and now stands at less than 1/3rd the 1990 rate. Some fairly famous research indicates that homicide in Chicago is still highly concentrated, in real geographic distance and in social graph distance.…

If there are ten thousand homeless people in a city confined to one area, and it is reduced to 5k but spread all over the city, the people will see it as an increase.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#68

Post by pgt »

sumy23 wrote: post #65
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #31

> For example, in Kansas City a bus stop at a particular intersection was attracting drug sales and loitering. So the police called the local transportation authority and had the bus stop moved. > “I think within a week, maybe not even that, that immediately cut down on the loitering and foot traffic,” Capt. Jonas Baughman told the local press. As an outsider, I have no words for how absurd this is to me. The fact th…

It really depends on the specific situation. Public space is for everyone’s enjoyment. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of their right to the space in a way that detracts from everyone. Take a park for example. Typically, a great place to take your kids. However, if someone strung out on heroin loiters in the park, it suddenly becomes a much worse place for everyone else. Technically, being high on heroin in…

By...removing the park?

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#70

Post by sandworm101 »

pgt wrote: post #68
sumy23 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on the specific situation. Public space is for everyone’s enjoyment. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of their right to the space in a way that detracts from everyone. Take a park for example. Typically, a great place to take your kids. However, if someone strung out on heroin loiters in the park, it suddenly becomes a much worse place for everyone else. Technically, being high on heroin in…

By...removing the park?

If you remove a vehicle lane then traffic is reduced. Pull up the sidewalks and loitering pedestrians disappear. Remove the parks and there will be fewer people sleeping in parks. Under-inclusive metrics generally lead to poor decisions.
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