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Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

bbc.com

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Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#331

Post by adharmad »

fosco wrote: post #215
Fuxy wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survival and civility are not compatible. Until you have been forced to the brink of dying from starvation you will not understand. It's quite simple when you think about it would you rather die in the streets from lack of food or go into a supermarket and take some to live another day hell even if you get caught you go to prison where you get fed. There's no point in punishing these people the punishment is actually…

just to add.....it is not uncommon in certain cities for homeless to break windows or steal with the intention of getting caught as the weather gets extreme... for the sole purpose of having a 'comfortable'(everything is relative) jail to sleep in.

There is an O'Henry short story on this exact theme: "The Cop and the Anthem"

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#332

Post by krzrak »

lorenzhs wrote: post #102
krzrak wrote: post #74

Do you need to be hungry and poor, or just hungry? If latter - you can just help yourself in the supermarket whenever you wish?

To quote the article, the court ruled the way it did because he took those things "in the face of the immediate and essential need for nourishment". Having a craving in the supermarket is not the same thing.

One doesn't need to be poor to experience "immediate and essential need for nourishment". I.e. you couldn't have time to eat breakfast, and you forgot to take your wallet with you.

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#333

Post by jerf »

pyrale wrote: post #260
jerf wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History has a lot to say on this topic. I don't think it supports the thesis that people should just be allowed to steal because Privilege. Society is much better off with some people helping the poor and law and order being maintained. It's rather a black-and-white view to think we must choose only one or the other. If you want to feel moral, go feed a poor person today. You'll feel much better. Don't assault the ba…

> History has a lot to say on this topic. [...] Society is much better off with some people helping the poor and law and order being maintained. What history has to say is that, at many points, society has failed to provide help for the poor on a volunteer basis, and that said people have died of starvation and/or violated the law to avoid it. If you expect that the normal order of things is for people to voluntarily…

I'm going to come back to the concrete on this, though. Do we have any reason to believe Italy is in this situation, though? We're not really arguing a hypothetical here. I readily concede the analysis might get more difficult in Somalia or in a war-torn area, but this is Italy. Is there really no other option for this person other than theft? Because I find that hard to believe.

Who cares about hypotheticals that don't apply to the current situation? Well, philosophers, sure, but it's a completely different question than what we're actually faced with here.

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#334

Post by steego »

KirinDave wrote: post #306
steego wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still maintain that there is never a reason to steal from your fellow man. * Stealing something back * Stealing Hitler's secret plans * Stealing a portion of everybody's property/income, but providing vital protection, infrastructure and social services in return. * Stealing the heart of a girl from a guy who abuses her. * Stealing land from the commons to efficiently put it to work * Stealing land at market valu…

The casual misogyny of this thread is impressively internalized.

I deserved that.

I have a great capacity to become an asshole when I'm being glib. I would like to add that there's nothing impressive with how well casual prejudice becomes internalized because that is literally the easiest and laziest thing a brain can do.

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#335

Post by lorenzhs »

krzrak wrote: post #332
lorenzhs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote the article, the court ruled the way it did because he took those things "in the face of the immediate and essential need for nourishment". Having a craving in the supermarket is not the same thing.

One doesn't need to be poor to experience "immediate and essential need for nourishment". I.e. you couldn't have time to eat breakfast, and you forgot to take your wallet with you.

Nope, that's called being hungry, not starving. Skipping breakfast does not make an essential need for nourishment. If you're a healthy person you'd probably be fine without food for at least a couple of days, so you don't have an excuse to go around stealing stuff ;)

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#336

Post by ta0967 »

kpil wrote: post #276
dragonwriter wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many legal systems recognize a defense of necessity (either personal or in the service of others) against things that would otherwise be crimes (often in a general way, not defined explicitly as part of each crime), rendering them not crimes when done out of necessity meeting the applicable legal standard. So, this isn't that odd.

Yes. You are allowed to drive under the influence of alcohol if you are trying to save someones life. Or even shoot someone, as long as you could reasonably expect that your or someone else life was in danger. Even if it turns out that there was no real danger, for instance you where threatened with an unloaded or even a fake gun. If you are very hungry, and steel a sausage, the crime compared to the need is very low…

i've read you comment, and it looks to me like this is a fair rephrasing. can you offer better alternatives where i mischaracterize your position?

* you are allowed to drive under the influence of alcohol and endager other people's lives * you are allowed to kill another as long as they weren't 100% obviously harmless * stealing food is worse than threatening or terminating others' lives

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#338

Post by dang »

wahsd wrote: post #163

Well, there you go folks. All of Africa should simply surge into Italy and take what they want. Problem solved.

Please don't post unsubstantive or inflammatory comments.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11620760 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#339

Post by talmand »

peterwwillis wrote: post #315
talmand wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risk for the owner's business does go up, because the pricing has to be adjusted to offset the theft; which affects everybody. Since theft is legal under this definition that means risk for the owner has gone way up now. Eventually insurance would not cover theft because there's little recourse to prevent it. Also, judges are not perfect and are known to make mistakes.

Pricing won't go up because theft won't go up. Think through this whole process the way the judge did. So now a homeless guy reads "Food is free if you're hungry!". He goes... really?? Walks into store. Right away, the store security is eyeballing him, because he's homeless, and the store owner reads the news, too. So now the homeless guy has a decision: since he's being watched even closer now, does he give up early…

I think there's plenty of examples of a small opinion resulting in big, unintended consequences. If people start thinking there's no long-term punishment for theft if caught then no one will attempt to take advantage of it? I'm not saying hordes of people will suddenly start a thieving life, that's just nonsense that no one is really claiming. But there will be people emboldened by such things.

Some people thought a similar thing a few years back in the US. The thought was that since sometimes innocent people are injured due to police chases that there should be restrictions on such chases, most of them involved giving up. The leading argument against was that you are essentially telling criminals to always run because the police will break off. I believe cooler heads prevailed that instituted new policies that did not allow such nonsense.

As for your example; do you think the store just returns the attempted stolen item to be placed back on the shelf to sell to another customer? Even if the thief is caught, there is a form of loss due to the product likely being useless to them.

Finally, yes the guy was caught but not punished. That is not necessarily a recourse for the owner of the stolen property, they are still out the stolen property. It's not like the neighbor's kid stealing your bike that can be returned, they can't sell food handled by a thief, security, and or police. If the effect on the bottom-line is nearly zero then why bother trying to prevent theft at all?

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#340

Post by Avshalom »

jerf wrote: post #333
pyrale wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> History has a lot to say on this topic. [...] Society is much better off with some people helping the poor and law and order being maintained. What history has to say is that, at many points, society has failed to provide help for the poor on a volunteer basis, and that said people have died of starvation and/or violated the law to avoid it. If you expect that the normal order of things is for people to voluntarily…

I'm going to come back to the concrete on this, though. Do we have any reason to believe Italy is in this situation, though? We're not really arguing a hypothetical here. I readily concede the analysis might get more difficult in Somalia or in a war-torn area, but this is Italy. Is there really no other option for this person other than theft? Because I find that hard to believe. Who cares about hypotheticals that do…

Well we have the judge's ruling in this exact case we are discussing right now as evidence that sometimes people in Italy need to steal food to survive.
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