While a sad and interesting story, why is this on HN?
There's an extremely strong bias toward urban living here on HN, and this is a fairly stereotypical "middle class person tries to move into the big city" story.
Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
21–30 of 155 posts
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#22I really hate to see blind hatred for the police on HN. It's a tough goddamn job, people, made all the more so by political pressure to improve statistics. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, police are forced to focus on serious crimes and solvable crimes and avoid minor and unsolvable crimes. Nobody wants it to work that way, but departments are hammered when they bring down crime stats. This story is pretty o…
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Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#23I really hate to see blind hatred for the police on HN. It's a tough goddamn job, people, made all the more so by political pressure to improve statistics. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, police are forced to focus on serious crimes and solvable crimes and avoid minor and unsolvable crimes. Nobody wants it to work that way, but departments are hammered when they bring down crime stats. This story is pretty o…
Blind hatred for police seems to stem from experience. My father said once (after I had a particularly horrible, and unfair besting, by the police) that I had no respect for the police because I had never been in a situation where I had seen heroism, or been helped. The police have never stopped a robber from burgling my house, or stopped a violent crime from happening to me or anyone I know.
The point is, that anecdotally, the police have never appeared to be a positive force around me, except intangibly. They only seem to focus on things I myself, and many of my peers, consider acceptable victimless crimes. They focus on padding revenue by stopping speeding violations, and petty drug offenses.
Largely, police appear to regularly abuse their authority, ignore relevant data, and serve an agenda I am diametrically opposed to. Obviously, this isn't a scientific study, but I think it encapsulates the hatred for police.
Also, there are many instances on youtube and the news, of them either covering for fellow officers, or ignoring basic laws, like speeding, cell-phone use ore petty drugs. They need to wear cameras for objective scrutiny rather than be allowed to BE the law.
EDIT: I should say that of course, there are police officers who work hard, are incorruptible and are genuine upstanding citizens who enforce laws and are just. The simple fact is that a percentage of bad actors can disrupt the flow enough to severely damage an institution if given significant power. See the banking industry for an analogy of this. I do not mean to discount all police, and many do positive things in society.
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#24Take care of the small stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself.
The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into more serious crime[1].
From the article: There also was no proof who did the smash-and-grab, so even if [the police] had come, it would have been tricky to charge them with anything.
That's hogwash. Possession of stolen property is a criminal offence in Washington State[2].
The crime and disorder in downtown Seattle is shocking, even to people from other big cities[3]. In 2013, Seattle had 2,356 property crimes per 100,000 population[4]. By comparison, New York City had a property crime rate of just 795 per 100,000[5].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
[2] http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/possession-stolen-prope...
[3] http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021696782_westneat28...
[4] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/p...
[5] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/p...
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#25If it were a celebrity or any other high-profile citizen, you know they would bring out the SWAT team and the criminals would be locked up for 20 years. But, when it's a "nobody important" tax paying citizen, then go f-yourself. Congrats goes out to everyone who voted in the current representatives. Wonderful job.
>Congrats goes out to everyone who voted in the current representatives.
Perhaps there are more fundamental issues than "people voted for the wrong person". For example, there may be problems with the governmental structure itself, not just who populates the structure.
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#26I really hate to see blind hatred for the police on HN. It's a tough goddamn job, people, made all the more so by political pressure to improve statistics. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, police are forced to focus on serious crimes and solvable crimes and avoid minor and unsolvable crimes. Nobody wants it to work that way, but departments are hammered when they bring down crime stats. This story is pretty o…
Wouldn't reducing petty crime lead to a reduction in overall crime? This is a serious question because I really don't know the answer. It could go both ways:
(a) You catch small crooks, and they lead you to bigger fish. (b) You catch small crooks, and they can't do the job, so bigger fish recruits new small fish and the cycle begins again. (c) You catch small crooks, the big fish gets angry and starts to cause real serious damage, leading to move and move violent crimes.
There must be some statistic from the past history that would shine a light on this. Thoughts?
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#27If it were a celebrity or any other high-profile citizen, you know they would bring out the SWAT team and the criminals would be locked up for 20 years. But, when it's a "nobody important" tax paying citizen, then go f-yourself. Congrats goes out to everyone who voted in the current representatives. Wonderful job.
Do you really believe that voting in team A instead of team B would have helped ordinary citizens?
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#28This article is beyond stupid. The author spends a thousand words or more whining without once mentioning either budgets or civilian oversight of the police force. It's like the policy was created from thin fucking air, for no reason at all! A cursory googling found this:
In the weeks before Monday's formal unveiling, McGinn released several
details of his 2012 proposal, which will now be scrutinized by the City
Council. Councilmembers, who will pass a final plan in November, have
already indicated they're leery of the mayor's idea to reduce the Seattle
Police Budget by $2.4 million by keeping 26 sworn officer positions vacant. [1]
[1] http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/McGinn-budget-cuts-11...
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#29Seattle has half the cops that some big cities have (20 per 10,000 residents). New York and Chicago have around 40, Boston 33.
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/police-offi...
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#30Take care of the small stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself. The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into more serious crime[1]. From the…
sf is the same -- the city is a dump, and people there tolerate a level of misbehavior from the street trash that is stunning. One of them attempted to kill my so by chasing her around a parked car with a screwdriver trying to stab her while a bunch of sf asshole pedestrians crossed the street to avoid getting involved. In the middle of the afternoon. We came from nyc and stuff like this -- and it's far from the only incident -- wasn't tolerated.