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Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

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Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#431

Post by seanmcdirmid »

eternalban wrote: post #426
Convolutional wrote: post #185

I should point out to those not from the US that this is how Americans view the US. There is a lot of crime, the government and NGOs are on the side of the criminals etc. It is up voted to the top as well, with agreement in the replies, this is how Americans view the US. The US incarcerates more people than China, despite China having more than four times as many people, but the view obviously is the incarceration ra…

> The US incarcerates more people than China, despite China having more than four times as many people This is an apple & orange measure. Starting from first principles, that is how people behave in society, we can at least temper superficial reading of bare metrics. Human beings self police under surveillance. This is the entire point of setting up surveillance states. US in contrast tends more towards police state:…

China doesn’t count non-judicial punishment as incarceration, so there are lot more people forced into work camps for their behavior (or speech) than those numbers tell. Also, if you get caught stealing a wallet in say Shanghai, the victims friends are more likely to beat you up before the police arrive, with no penalty to them (I didn’t make up this example, I saw it for myself).

The problem with the USA’s prison system is that it doesn’t focus on rehabilitation at all and instead focuses on punishment. We get the exact results expected of such a system, which is a lot of repeat business.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#432

Post by kevviiinn »

pb7 wrote: post #330
kevviiinn wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I looked up "police state" and got this: >a totalitarian state controlled by a political police force that secretly supervises the citizens' activities Can you explain how the US is all of those things?

The police unions have a crazy amount of influence over politics where the basically just cry if they don't get their way and threaten to not go after criminals, it's happened in multiple states iirc

Basically every step of the way, whenever some sort of reform comes up they fight it tooth and nail while simultaneously grabbing every bit of extra power that they can.

These powers include things like surveillance and literal highway robbery in the form of civil forfeiture. In the way of surveillance, they can now purchase peoples data and there are companies selling services to police which analyze and track citizens movements without a warrant. Combine this with a story I saw on HN earlier today about a company purchasing live footage feeds from citizen surveillance cameras for cops to, again without a warrant, use at will.

But wait, there's more!

There are also electronic communications surveillance programs such as prism (NSA) and hemisphere (DEA) combined with the magic of parallel construction to obfuscate the fact that any surveillance was even used to spy on citizens illegally.

Cops basically get to do whatever they want without any sort of punishment when they do harm to citizens, which they do regularly including murdering innocent ones. Perhaps you've heard of the LASD gangs that terrorize the communities they're supposed to be protecting? It's well documented and has been going on for years, it still is.

Prosecutors and judges generally side with the cops because they need them to do their jobs, they have undue influence not only over prosecution but also legislation in the form of strikes and union lobbying.

Police unions are probably the only union I think should be dismantled, all other unions for workers are great but police unions are actively harmful to society.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#433

Post by unholythree »

Convolutional wrote: post #185

I should point out to those not from the US that this is how Americans view the US. There is a lot of crime, the government and NGOs are on the side of the criminals etc. It is up voted to the top as well, with agreement in the replies, this is how Americans view the US. The US incarcerates more people than China, despite China having more than four times as many people, but the view obviously is the incarceration ra…

A lot of commenters are on the parent post are of the opinion our American prison rates are high because of more criminal activity, which may be true, but I think it's also important to recall having a small prison population doesn't necessarily equal a just society.

There were very few long term prisoners in medieval society, not because of a progressive outlook but because most crimes were punished with some form of torture, execution, or both. Also, many things were crimes that now are thought of as basic human rights. You can have small prison population if your are willing to truly brutalize your population.

China performs about half of the execution in the world every year, is known to torture dissidents, and I doubt it reports those being re-educated as prisoners. I would hardly consider that more just than America.

A society can also have a small inmate population and be unjust because enforcement is rare, or selective either due to corrupt or ineffective law enforcement. Additionally if acts of vigilantism are common in a society you can have also have less prisoners since "justice" is found in the streets.

I think there are reasonable critiques of the American prisons, criminal justice system, and especially for profit prisons, but there are also much worse alternatives. The system we have really is an imperfect attempt in need of adjustment and not a deliberate attempt at cruelty. The cruelty is a bug not the feature.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#434

Post by giantg2 »

bluescrn wrote: post #363
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself a liberal, but while I think pretty much all drug possession charges should be dropped and decriminalized, violent crime? Robbery? Those folks should absolutely be in jail. I don't care if we have to build tent cities to incarcerate them. You hurt someone intentionally, you should not be breathing free air for a while.

The problem area seems to be property crime without direct violence. It can ruin the victims life just as much as non-lethal violence (taking away a person's source of income, or transport required to keep a job, or wrecking a business they've spent many years building), but many take the 'it's only property, it's probably insured!' attitude. And many at least see stealing from 'big nasty corporations' as relatively…

'it's only property, it's probably insured!'

I wonder why insurance is so high...

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#437

Post by khm »

Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys.

Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state law prevents Baltimore (and only Baltimore) from annexing suburbs to increase the tax base, which is how literally every city in America grows. This results in obvious financial problems, as the city cannot expand its income to keep up with costs of services to the impoverished people who remain after the exit of the steel industry and the tremendously reduced longshoreman cadre.

Into all of this, some asshole carmakers decided to sell machines which are ready theft targets, able to be started by anyone who can get their hands on a USB stick. The spike in thefts of these products has a material effect on police availability. Where is Baltimore supposed to get the funding to meet this increase in demand for city services? They can't annex taxable land. They can't control policing policies.

What would you do?

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#438

Post by flextheruler »

mindslight wrote: post #310
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself a liberal, but while I think pretty much all drug possession charges should be dropped and decriminalized, violent crime? Robbery? Those folks should absolutely be in jail. I don't care if we have to build tent cities to incarcerate them. You hurt someone intentionally, you should not be breathing free air for a while.

The fundamental problem is that the misguided attempt to criminalize drugs destroyed respect for the law for generations. Once you're at risk of being locked in a cage for decades for engaging in behavior that would otherwise just be called running a small business , then robbery isn't a huge leap. Especially after your industry ends up creating its own parallel justice system because the usual courts have been made…

I don’t have a problem with some drugs being state regulated and I know it would reduce violence but the harder drugs should never be state sold we already have huge issues with alcohol which is a very hard drug. Acting as if lone actors serving narcotics or prostitutes are regular small business owner is an insult to legitimate entrepreneurs

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#440

Post by khm »

ravensfan69 wrote: post #233
kevinthew wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is data on the Kia/Hyundai problem that is unique to these makes because they cut corners on safety features that are standard across industry -- I don't know why your anecdote of people getting carjacked is relevant at all?

> "Theft and violence reigns supreme in a lawless urban wasteland" > "How are these anecdotes relevant?" This is a tremendous leap in logic, but I am suggesting that Baltimore's problems can and do exist wholly independently of the engineering standards of Korean automakers

It doesn't. Cars which are easy theft targets have an actual impact on police availability, because they have to investigate this shit alongside problems that people didn't create for themselves by buying shitty cars. Just because it doesn't directly affect you, personally, doesn't indicate that problems are unrelated.
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