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Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

nytimes.com

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Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#61

Post by nervousvarun »

dragonwriter wrote: post #45
veidr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure that nobody who says "we desperately need more cops" means "we desperately need more corrupt cops".

If you don't deal with the problems that lead to the existing cops being corrupt before trying to add new cops, that's what you get. So if you say "we desperately need more cops" without including "we first desperately need to deal with police corruption", when your present police department is noted for corruption, you are implicitly saying you need more corrupt cops. Or, at least, that you need more cops even if th…

Yeah sadly, it's the latter.

Arbitrary numbers but if your cops are 50% corrupt and you suddenly have twice as many total cops you still then double the number of non-corrupt cops. Obviously that's wasteful but... Fixing deep-routed cultural corruption is obviously extremely difficult.

So yeah, at this point I (and a lot of others who live here) would say we just need more cops because violent crime is increasing and the number of street cops out there is decreasing and that's just a bad combination.

So many lesser of two evils at play here :(

Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#62

Post by pcthrowaway »

krschultz wrote: post #55
ams6110 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm suspecting that it will eventually prove that those that don't remember history are doomed to repeat it. NYC in the '70s and '80s was not that safe. Street crime, muggings, etc. were common. In the 1990s Giuliani stepped up patrols and sarted enforcing what most people thought were petty crimes, such as loitering, graffiti, parking violations, subway-gate-jumping, etc. with the effect that more serious crimes als…

The truth of the matter is that we don't know why crime dropped over the last 30ish years. There are lots of theories, broken windows policing is just one of them. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/11/24/10-not-entirel...

Here in Vancouver, police appear to be fairly hands-off (of course this is coming from a white male perspective, and I don't know enough black people here to have an idea of how different their experience is).

And while we have a lot of drug activity, homelessness, streetwalking, etc. I believe there is a lower rate of violent/organized crime than NYC.

Of course, Canadians have a much different attitude towards gun ownership than Americans...

Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#63

Post by JulianMorrison »

ams6110 wrote: post #50
gharial wrote: post #29

I work in Manhattan and visit fairly shitty areas of Brooklyn and Queens regularly. These past few weeks have been the first time since I moved here that I've felt safe in the presence of cops. I'd read about enforcement being down just after the funeral for the officers shot in the Bronx but it really didn't click until a pair of them walked down the street by me in Chelsea. They didn't look at my SO like they were…

I'm suspecting that it will eventually prove that those that don't remember history are doomed to repeat it. NYC in the '70s and '80s was not that safe. Street crime, muggings, etc. were common. In the 1990s Giuliani stepped up patrols and sarted enforcing what most people thought were petty crimes, such as loitering, graffiti, parking violations, subway-gate-jumping, etc. with the effect that more serious crimes als…

NYC in the 70s was poor. Both the city, and the people in it.

Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#64

Post by everyOtherTime »

pyrophane wrote: post #28

From the Times editorial board: > If the Police Department’s current commanders cannot get the cops to do their jobs, Mr. de Blasio should consider replacing them. > He should invite the Justice Department to determine if the police are guilty of civil rights violations in withdrawing policing from minority communities. > He should remind the police that they are public employees, under oath to uphold city and state…

...so, like, were you the kid in class who always reminded the teachers when they forgot to assign homework?

After all, what this is really all about, is an attack aimed to reduce all the funds that those delicious, orange parking tickets generate. All the petty nuisance tickets, and summonses, and violations that harvest money from non-violent citizens, rather than produce burdens by incurring imprisonment costs.

You do realize this, right?

Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#65

Post by kailuowang »

gharial wrote: post #29

I work in Manhattan and visit fairly shitty areas of Brooklyn and Queens regularly. These past few weeks have been the first time since I moved here that I've felt safe in the presence of cops. I'd read about enforcement being down just after the funeral for the officers shot in the Bronx but it really didn't click until a pair of them walked down the street by me in Chelsea. They didn't look at my SO like they were…

Only a couple of decades ago, Manhattan has many shitty areas before the ramp up the police force. The real effect of this "protest" won't really show that quickly. Stopping hassling the "usual" targets may not be the only thing they do.

I don't think we should just sit back and let the situation fold out on its own. Whatever the intention is, if the police force is putting public safety in risk, it's critical to not let that happen.

Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#66

Post by angersock »

Steltek wrote: post #8
byerley wrote: post #3

As someone who fancies libertarianism but who's wary of its effectiveness in practice, I'm hoping we get to see this impromptu social experiment play out long enough to gather some useful statistics.

Err, extreme things like that really need to be entered into democratically rather than a very small minority foisting it on a city of millions. Especially when we're discussing public safety. I hope this ends quickly and conclusively.

...you mean like the democratic way we all voted for the current system? The one where we all get to vote, without being turned away at the voting booth because we "registered in the wrong precint", or don't have valid ID?

Don't kid yourself.

Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#67

Post by ctdonath »

raldi wrote: post #22
byerley wrote: post #3

As someone who fancies libertarianism but who's wary of its effectiveness in practice, I'm hoping we get to see this impromptu social experiment play out long enough to gather some useful statistics.

What's the connection to libertarianism?

Drastic reduction in regulations outside of "actual harm" and objective "social order" issues. Criminalize and prosecute robbery, murder, theft, etc (actual harm), along with parking violations, traffic control, etc (organizing a lot of people functioning in a compact space, things get very ugly in a hurry if you don't), but stop the aggressive pursuit of "victimless" crimes like selling individual cigarettes without a license, stopping/interviewing anyone carrying something heavy in a pocket (to wit: potential handgun), petty drug possession, etc.

It's interesting watching such things over several decades: urban rush away from conservative/libertarian principles to highly regulated progressivism subsequently leading to a backlash which, for many/most practical purposes, amounts to a return to conservative/libertarian values.

Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#68

Post by kailuowang »

ams6110 wrote: post #50
gharial wrote: post #29

I work in Manhattan and visit fairly shitty areas of Brooklyn and Queens regularly. These past few weeks have been the first time since I moved here that I've felt safe in the presence of cops. I'd read about enforcement being down just after the funeral for the officers shot in the Bronx but it really didn't click until a pair of them walked down the street by me in Chelsea. They didn't look at my SO like they were…

I'm suspecting that it will eventually prove that those that don't remember history are doomed to repeat it. NYC in the '70s and '80s was not that safe. Street crime, muggings, etc. were common. In the 1990s Giuliani stepped up patrols and sarted enforcing what most people thought were petty crimes, such as loitering, graffiti, parking violations, subway-gate-jumping, etc. with the effect that more serious crimes als…

That's the broken window theory that every programmer should be familiar with.

Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#69

Post by maxerickson »

msandford wrote: post #47
maxerickson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not read that book, but the answer here sort of blows it up: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-a... (That too many things are crimes is probably something I agree with; that accounting companies must only destroy documents according to retention policies and not after they find out one of their clients is a giant fraud is not something that worries me)

This is literally a real problem that Ohio has just taken steps to reform. http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/23/ohio-remembers-mens-rea

My point was that the book you cite is apparently a terrible resource on the issue. Which is material when you frame your statements so directly from it: even if the average American is in fact committing three felonies a day.

Re: Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities

#70

Post by Alupis »

UrMomReadsHN wrote: post #46
Alupis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sell off the armored division's tanks, to Ukraine perhaps People like to throw this line around... but I've yet to see an actual tank in the hands of a police department anywhere in the US. What I have seen are a lot of Armored Personnel Carriers (APC), which have no weaponry and are basically just heavily armored trucks designed specifically to protect the personnel inside (from riot, projectiles, bullets, explosi…

Part of what was said was that the police (in Ferguson) seemed ill trained to use this fancy gear. With little oversight on how and when it is used. Allegedly. http://mashable.com/2014/08/14/war-veterans-ferguson-police/ Personally, I think the problem is when there us no cost benefit analysis. What's the cost in terms of maintenence as well as public perception and trust.

> that the police (in Ferguson) seemed ill trained to use this fancy gear

I do realize you put the disclaimer "seemed", but I don't see any evidence that the police in Ferguson (or anywhere) were ill trained to drive an APC or use riot gear (gas masks included). APC's have been used by police departments for a long long time, just only they were purchasing them back then and now the military is giving them their old ones (as apposed to just scrapping them since they were bought and paid for with tax payer's money).

Ferguson was special, there were "riots" going on for a while (stores being raided, projectiles rockets and fireworks fired at police, even guns being shot). There were both peaceful protests happening simultaneously with full on riots.

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