Instead of `paps`, you could also try ... | sed -re 's/$/\n\n/' | uniq | man -Tps -l - | ... If you have groff, you can also have `man` go straight to PDF.
I chose paps over enscript or groff because it handles utf8. With groff you get garbage like âshrinkâ, and enscript generates "Buttons marked â\200\234call for assistanceâ\200\235". Fun times
I'll remember this if I ever recreate my RSS to five-column-PDF-emailed-to-myself-every-morning setup. I had to do some ungood things to make BBC articles safe for LaTeX back then.
The article says prosecutors don't go after these thefts but I'd think the issue is with the cops and the number of arrests. After the BLM protests of 2020 (George Floyd) cops basically went hands off on these so called minor crimes, and so I'd imagine many of them don't even make it to prosecutors. We'd need a graph of incidents and arrests for years prior to 2020 (or months in early vs late 2020) to see the change.
In Chicago there has been a dramatic drop off: the arrest rate for retail theft went from 43%-54% in 2016-2019 to 18% in 2021 and the number of cases brought to Chicago police has dropped from 8986-10792/year to 6166. https://abc7chicago.com/smash-and-grab-robberies-chicago-org...
What is the cause of the arrest drop?
Prosecutor policy, police strike, Covid masking and office closures confounding the operation of the law enforcement system, or something else?
The article says prosecutors don't go after these thefts but I'd think the issue is with the cops and the number of arrests. After the BLM protests of 2020 (George Floyd) cops basically went hands off on these so called minor crimes, and so I'd imagine many of them don't even make it to prosecutors. We'd need a graph of incidents and arrests for years prior to 2020 (or months in early vs late 2020) to see the change.
> The article says prosecutors don't go after these thefts the article says that was speculated but not borne out by the data. > What is behind this unwelcome rise? Some speculated that prosecutors had gone soft on looting after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. But it is hard to see any such trend in the data: generally states with more shoplifting prosecute more shoplifters (see chart).
As stated in another comment, the articles claim makes no sense. More shoplifting = more prosecuting has nothing to do with there having been a change after some event. There could still be a linear relationship between incidents and prosecutions, but a lower line after George Floyd. Specifically, a single cross sectional data point cannot prove anything about a time series or a claim about it.
That sounds a little like you think criminals aren't a necessary symptom of "living in a scarcity society" itself...? As long as it's easier to take something than it is to pay for something, there will be people who take, and there will be groups that organize around taking. Pretending that crime is some kind of quirk that you can get rid of if only [fill in reasons here], and that the grey and black markets wouldn'…
I used to be able to go buy a stick of deodorant without waiting five minutes for somebody to come over with a key and get it for me. That economics has a just-so story to explain why this is exactly what I should expect doesn't change the fact that I didn't used to have to do this, and now I do have to do this.
Oh no, inconvenience! Welcome to everyone who needs to buy some rubbing alcohol. You can live with it just fine.
This is such a big nationwide problem that Target actually mentioned it during their earnings report (this is stated in the article.) Some states/cities have made it near impossible to prosecute these people, so the risk/reward is very favorable to stealing and reselling. Some stores have even closed down in certain areas because of it. When we talk about "food deserts" in some cities, it could one day be we have mas…
I don’t know of any states that have made it near impossible to prosecute shoplifters. What are you referring to?
Having the penalty be a slap on the wrist and having the person is released same day, it’s essentially the same as not prosecuting them. NY state bail reforms, and in San Fran;
“ In 2014, a ballot referendum passed that downgraded the theft of property less than $950 in value from a felony charge to a misdemeanor.”
I've lived in the same city now (not NYC) for 10+ years, so I'm moderately connected with all sorts of people and not just a bubble of affluent tech people. So I'll be real, I know some sketchy people that probably do drugs or at least know where to find some. What I don't know, however, is any "fences". That is, someone that traffics in stolen goods. Or maybe I do, they don't exactly advertise their services. I've n…
Most major stores and chains are willing to sell stolen goods.
Regulating legitimate business activity out of existence to support progressive prosecutors ideas about shoplifting and street crime is the opposite of a solution.
Knowing your suppliers and that their goods are legitimate is a pretty basic function of a business, and calling people progressive to enforce that is a bit strange. Amazon isn't a pawn shop. They have a lot of choice when it comes to dealing with known businesses.
The government already has a mandate to prosecute crimes. It doesn't have a mandate to interfere with liberty. If they aren't going to do the job they already have why should they be allowed to find another excuse to avoid doing that job?
We have been, obviously. That's why we have the largest prison population in the world (and we have to pay for it). It just doesn't work. So if you actually care about reducing crime, and not just getting petty revenge, shouldn't we try something different finally?
> It just doesn't work.
Raises hand: uh, I think harshly punishing crimes works just fine. Things were pretty safe while I was growing up, in fact it was even getting safer every year. It really wasn't until we actually did "try something different" with these DAs who don't believe in prosecution and the defund movements that crime actually started to go up again.