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Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

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Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#81

Post by loldk »

rayiner wrote: post #74
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…

I’m not squeamish about urban areas—I lived in downtown Baltimore, Wilmington Delaware, and Atlanta. But you’re missing some perspective. The captain is talking about gangs. The presence of gang members means that law abiding citizens are driven out of these public places. So the folks who are “loitering” typically aren’t up to anything good. I just met an Uber driver from Germany the other day. He lives in Georgia (…

Here's a radical idea: invest in mental health, food security & education, and community programs to directly combat the source of the gangs and bad behavior, rather than try to control people's behavior.

That is the distinction you've seemed to miss here.

Controlling others' behavior is ineffective at best. It's treating symptoms with pain killers while ignoring the source of the problem. It's weak leadership, and, it gives broken people the ability to manipulate the system to hurt others.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#82

Post by claytongulick »

rayiner wrote: post #74
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…

I’m not squeamish about urban areas—I lived in downtown Baltimore, Wilmington Delaware, and Atlanta. But you’re missing some perspective. The captain is talking about gangs. The presence of gang members means that law abiding citizens are driven out of these public places. So the folks who are “loitering” typically aren’t up to anything good. I just met an Uber driver from Germany the other day. He lives in Georgia (…

Hello from a former MD and Wilmington resident too :-)

I moved to Texas in '05 to raise kids.

I got tired of syringes in the playground, and constant threat and danger everywhere we went.

With the tax savings and lower house prices, we were able to buy a great house near a lake, with good schools and a safe, walkable town.

It was a huge leap for us, but one of the best choices I ever made.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#84

Post by calvinmorrison »

anigbrowl wrote: post #34
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…

Also tough shit if you were used to catching the bus there and now have to find and probably walk farther to another stop. There used to be 'beat cops' whose job was to just walk around neighborhoods and be familiar with them; not the most efficient approach to policing, but also not the most intimidating or heavy-handed. Now you only see police outside a cruiser if they're doing crowd control, managing a crime scene…

Because humanizing your chattel is a poor idea. It leads to corruption, favoritism, and being soft on the law. Community policing is a great idea, except for enforcers who realized that having people from the same neighborhood enforcing violence on the population tended to leave those enforcers a little soft.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#85

Post by SantalBlush »

anigbrowl wrote: post #34
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…

Also tough shit if you were used to catching the bus there and now have to find and probably walk farther to another stop. There used to be 'beat cops' whose job was to just walk around neighborhoods and be familiar with them; not the most efficient approach to policing, but also not the most intimidating or heavy-handed. Now you only see police outside a cruiser if they're doing crowd control, managing a crime scene…

I only see law enforcement looking friendly on their Facebook page. In person, they are armed to the teeth and not to be spoken to.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#86

Post by claytongulick »

Gigachad wrote: post #50
AviationAtom wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally people hanging out that don't have good intentions in mind, which might include drug transactions.

I imagine since in the US, no one walks and there is nothing of interest outside, anyone who is out standing around is probably engaging in some criminal activity. What a sad society where this is the case.

That's a pretty broad brush you're painting one of the largest and most diverse countries in the world with.

Certainly where I live, everyone walks, rides bikes, and spends a huge amount of time outside.

> there is nothing of interest outside

Whew. I don't even know where to start with this one.

If this is how you perceive the United States, I think there's a huge opportunity for you to learn more about this country.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#87

Post by thaumasiotes »

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…

> Technically, being high on heroin in a public place isn’t a crime.

That's hard to believe. If it's apparent to anyone else, it will be a crime in a few different ways. For example:

> A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he or she:

> (1) Engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; [or]

> (2) Makes unreasonable noise or offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display, or addresses abusive language to any person present

( https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/25/11.441 , apparently a rule of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the crime exists everywhere with somewhat variable definitions.)

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#88

Post by bluedino »

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.…

"Violent crime" might be 1/3rd the 1990 rate but the number of murders are only about 100 lower than back then. The amount has really climbed up in the last decade.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#89

Post by rayiner »

claytongulick wrote: post #82
rayiner wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not squeamish about urban areas—I lived in downtown Baltimore, Wilmington Delaware, and Atlanta. But you’re missing some perspective. The captain is talking about gangs. The presence of gang members means that law abiding citizens are driven out of these public places. So the folks who are “loitering” typically aren’t up to anything good. I just met an Uber driver from Germany the other day. He lives in Georgia (…

Hello from a former MD and Wilmington resident too :-) I moved to Texas in '05 to raise kids. I got tired of syringes in the playground, and constant threat and danger everywhere we went. With the tax savings and lower house prices, we were able to buy a great house near a lake, with good schools and a safe, walkable town. It was a huge leap for us, but one of the best choices I ever made.

I had been hoping for an upswing in those cities, but unfortunately it has regressed. We moved to Anne Arundel when our daughter started school. My job is tied to DC, but otherwise I’d probably move to Dallas.

Re: Fighting crime by checking buildings, not suspects

#90

Post by hbarka »

I don’t know what the statistics are for stolen license plates but it seems to me, here in the San Francisco Bay Area anyway, that whenever there’s a recorded incident of a robbery or assault where the perpetrators used a getaway car, in all likelihood they put stolen plates on the car.

One way to fight crime in San Francisco and Oakland is to analyze cars crossing the toll plaza and use image recognition methods to match the car’s make and model to the license plate information. I bet data science techniques can easily reveal and discover patterns of criminal activity. Fighting crime by checking objects, not suspects.

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