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Train burglaries in LA

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Re: Train burglaries in LA

#191

Post by gonehome »

donny2018 wrote: post #166
DanHulton wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to know why I don't steal? It's because I don't have to. I have sufficient security of income and opportunity that it's not necessary. I'm not bragging, though, what I'm getting at is that you're missing a huge part of why people steal - maybe even the largest part: because they feel they have to survive, or because it's okay because society is stacked against them. This is what above was talking about when…

I live in a 3-rd world country that has like 40 times less GDP per capita than the United States. The vast majority of our people work in the fields growing crops and are much poorer than the poorest communities in the US. Our people have to survive, like for real. By your logic, theft, crime, murders and robberies should be rampant in my country because they “have to”. But my country is much safer in that regard tha…

Imo the comment you’re replying to is a kind of progressive left-wing university faculty lounge flavor of upper middle class politics and is not representative of the vast majority of Americans (but is overrepresented online).

I’d suspect most Americans (across the political spectrum) would see these train robberies and think “these people should go to jail”, rather than moralizing about why it’s not their fault.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#192

Post by furyg3 »

gonehome wrote: post #178
baby wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing has been happening in SF with homelessness. A lot of people think they should go to prison or be displaced somewhere else. It’s like refusing to accept that there’s a root cause.

Arguably SF’s lack of police response enables continued drug abuse and homelessness. See: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/rescuing-jessica-s... This person has no interest in treatment. They want to do drugs and take advantage of what’s provided to keep doing that. You can’t fix that with hotels. You either need to require treatment or imprison (paired with arresting dealers). On the more progressive end, m…

Arresting dealers / busting drug rings is one of the few policing activities that directly leads to MORE crime.

What happens when you bust a drug ring and arrest some big players? You immediately create a power vacuum, which leads to a turf war where other players (in the gang or between gangs) start jockeying for power, spreading their mayhem across the area.

The only solution here is legalization, treatment, and general social welfare.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#193

Post by jl6 »

mngnt wrote: post #145
dusted wrote: post #102

My observation from the comment sections to this post-apocalyptic video is the following: People focusing on how to prevent the theft of these cars, funding police, armed guards on trans, better security. I think this is an interesting perspective, it's very "American", it's like it has been accepted by these commenters that rampant thievery is a perfectly natural part of life and so, must be worked around rather tha…

The cause is the same as it always has been: it is easier for some people to get to the desired standard of living by stealing/other crime than by working. Why crime us going up? Because of higher desired standard (every body needs an iPhone, brand name shoes and hats), more difficulty with earning a wage (largely, difficulty getting a job at all) and decreased difficulty in crime (defunding police, more aesily avail…

> Why crime us going up?

It’s not. The long term trend in property crime in the US is down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#194

Post by vidarh »

gonehome wrote: post #178
baby wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing has been happening in SF with homelessness. A lot of people think they should go to prison or be displaced somewhere else. It’s like refusing to accept that there’s a root cause.

Arguably SF’s lack of police response enables continued drug abuse and homelessness. See: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/rescuing-jessica-s... This person has no interest in treatment. They want to do drugs and take advantage of what’s provided to keep doing that. You can’t fix that with hotels. You either need to require treatment or imprison (paired with arresting dealers). On the more progressive end, m…

Your thinking here is still focused on symptoms rather than causes.

Most people don't develop debilitating drug addictions without underlying problems. Even most people with drug addictions don't get to a point where they can't hold down a job or have a need to carry out crime to fund it, but of those who do it's worth considering why when e.g. a typical heroin addict can hold down a job and could have funded their addiction for ~$20/day if they had access to clean, medical grade heroin (we know the price, because e.g. the UK NHS buys medical grade heroin for use for post-operative pain management - under the generic name diamorphine).

So there's a long path there from failure to address mental health issues and other social problems, via failure to provide safe, clean supplies and early intervention for those who still get addicted to drugs, failure to regulate healthcare properly (e.g. the prescription oxy -> black market oxy -> heroin recruitment path), and failure to ensure availability of jobs, and lacking welfare options, before worrying about treatment and emergency housing is even in the picture.

Start addressing root causes and a lot of the problems later in that chain would either go away or at least be substantially diminished.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#195

Post by rjmunro »

iakov wrote: post #155
Ansil849 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unilaterally and directly harm other people. Which is precisely what "punishment" does. Try being less vindictive and more understanding about the root circumstances that lead someone to perform an act of desperation.

How is stealing electronics and covid tests an act of desperation? They are not stealing food and hygiene products, right?

The containers don't have big signs telling them which ones to steal for the food and which ones to ignore because they only contain TVs and covid tests.

If you are desperate, you steal anything and try to sell it to buy food and hygiene products.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#196

Post by oefrha »

buran77 wrote: post #183
mngnt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause is the same as it always has been: it is easier for some people to get to the desired standard of living by stealing/other crime than by working. Why crime us going up? Because of higher desired standard (every body needs an iPhone, brand name shoes and hats), more difficulty with earning a wage (largely, difficulty getting a job at all) and decreased difficulty in crime (defunding police, more aesily avail…

When risking getting caught stealing is more attractive than working then it's safe to say the working opportunities for those people aren't worth almost anything. People take the easier option. You choose "lock your trains well" despite knowing the answer will be "crack those locks well" because it was the easy answer. The view is simple. Eventually the train will be a rolling mountain of steel protected by an army.…

> When risking getting caught stealing is more attractive than working then it's safe to say the working opportunities for those people aren't worth almost anything.

That assumes thieves are rational actors capable of assessing risks at least somewhat accurately. Often times (the vast majority of times, even) they are not.

It's also worth bringing up that certain American subcultures glorify criminals. The criminal lifestyle is seen as glamorous by a large number of people, while honest labor is just dull, whether it pays enough or not.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#197

Post by vidarh »

barbacoa wrote: post #179
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're like some of my older relatives, people choose to become "beggars" because they "want something for nothing" and would rather do that than work a job and live in stable accommodation.

In Austin Texas when they legalized urban camping the short term effect was the homeless shelters and transitional housing programs cleared out in favor of camping in the posh downtown parks. There was a sudden increase in young rastafarian looking white kids living on the streets. When the ban was reinstated all those newcomers just melted away to wherever they came from. Didn't seem like that bad of a life while it…

Or you could consider that if camping in "posh downtown parks" being legal was enough to make that better than the life they already had, perhaps that is a clue to social problems that you just didn't see before because it just wasn't out on the streets in front of your eyes.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#198

Post by rjmunro »

yes_really wrote: post #49
Seattle3503 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Additionally, mail theft laws which include prison as a consequence should be extended to package thefts if they don't already cover them. But it is a nonviolent crime. It seems like finding some way to prevent the thefts is better.

I think putting the criminals in prisons for a long time, and the threat of the criminals being caught, is already a good way to prevent thefts.

I think putting people away for a longer time doesn't help much. You need to focus on probability of being caught (by which I mean at least arrested, not chased away).

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#199

Post by wiseleo »

Ansil849 wrote: post #31
20after4 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very difficult to make a lock that is really secure. Bolt cutters and battery powered saws / grinders are very powerful, portable and effective tools to cut through metal.

Average time needed to get into a container (X) needs to be > average time train pauses (Y). This seems like it should be a solvable problem. For example, just thinking out loud, what about some sort of container door hinge mechanism which takes five minutes (or an adjustable amount of time) to open the door?

Let me introduce you to 12" hydraulic bolt cutters. They cut through the toughest bike U-locks. No lock survives them. If the lock is stronger, there are stronger hydraulic cutters. Containers tend to be protected by puck-style locks. There are specialized hydraulic tools for defeating those also. There are also, of course, blowtorches.

The only solution is armed escort for trains through slow zones.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#200

Post by NeverFade »

buran77 wrote: post #183
mngnt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause is the same as it always has been: it is easier for some people to get to the desired standard of living by stealing/other crime than by working. Why crime us going up? Because of higher desired standard (every body needs an iPhone, brand name shoes and hats), more difficulty with earning a wage (largely, difficulty getting a job at all) and decreased difficulty in crime (defunding police, more aesily avail…

When risking getting caught stealing is more attractive than working then it's safe to say the working opportunities for those people aren't worth almost anything. People take the easier option. You choose "lock your trains well" despite knowing the answer will be "crack those locks well" because it was the easy answer. The view is simple. Eventually the train will be a rolling mountain of steel protected by an army.…

> When risking getting caught stealing is more attractive than working then it's safe to say the working opportunities for those people aren't worth almost anything.

Except when these thefts are de-facto decriminalized in Califronia, and police is either defunded or directed not to fight these crimes, the "risk of getting caught" is effectively zero.

That means that unless you start handing out iPhones for free in local malls, the thefts will continue.

Let's stop pretending these thieves are "starving". Starving people don't pull up to a Gucci or Louis Vuitton in a Porsche and casually steal a luxury handbag for their girlfriend.

If all work is slavery to you, how about the people who produced all these iPhones and LV bags?

We're dealing here with people who are happy to steal the products of other people's work, instead of doing any work themselves.

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