711–720 of 763 posts
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It’s not about blame. If Amazon can ship products to my house within 2-hours, it certainly can crack down on selling stolen goods. It just has zero incentive to.
New York City has tens of thousands of cops - they certainly can crack down on theft better than can Amazon.
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Regulating legitimate business activity out of existence to support progressive prosecutors ideas about shoplifting and street crime is the opposite of a solution.
Selling stolen goods isn't a legitimate business activity.
Without clicking is the answer people stealing and it ending up “fulfilled by Amazon”?
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You have it backwards. Saying it's the store's fault is like blaming a victim of rape. Once I chased a thief out to the waiting car, and blocked the door from closing, leaned into the car, and came to my senses... I let them go. It was only worth $750. And I wasn't about to brawl inside a car with two thugs. I could have been stabbed or shot. It's not worth the risk. And I was the store owner. Let me tell you straigh…
> And your favorite shoplifting fact is down-right offensive. If you were more balanced in your counterargument you'd also ask the reader: What is the cost to the public for added security, staff, deterrence tech, and lost merch? And lost sense of safety and security? Those are priceless in the eyes of most reasonable people. Sure, and the counterpoint is how much does it cost to provide those services publicly? The…
In the Baltimore-Washington stretch of Maryland, it's hard to find a retail store with an ATM in the front, because it's common for thieves to crash a vehicle through the glass into the ATM, load it into their vehicle, and drive away. I've talked with a couple store owners where it has happened, and apparently, nobody was ever caught in their cases.
Baltimore has some parts where you can't even enter stores. Instead, you have to wait in enclosed bulletproof glass areas while the clerks gather items for you.
The restaurant where I work at on the weekends once got a GrubHub driver open carrying with a bulletproof vest. One of our regular GrubHub drivers got carjacked by a man who shot a police officer right out front of the restaurant.
Everyone I've mentioned so far is black, in case it matters.
If we do not swallow the costs of jailing lawbreakers, then the rest of America will be like this.
>I'm sure not going to opt to spend an order of magnitude more trying to punish thieves.
Judges typically balance 3 primary factors in sentencing criminals:
- Punishment of the criminal.
- Protecting the community from the criminal.
- Provide justice and closure to victims of the criminal.
Punishing the thief is just one aspect of this. It's an important one, because it serves as a deterrent for future would-be thieves. Crime is going unpunished in Baltimore. As a result, the community is not protected and victims have no justice. People have been leaving for years now.
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Best trick on HN today.
good trick, but it really highlights how thin the article is.
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So on the one side I see news reports of dozens of cases of serial shoplifting offenders out on the streets, and the NYC DA informing his staff and letting the public know that if you steal less than $500 you will not go to jail. But you're claiming that the DA actually intended to send them to jail. So he was baiting them to commit the crime? I don't buy it. And you're claiming that his prosecutors have no discretio…
I am speaking of the perspective of having seen about 200 cases of this type in the last few years (this is a moderately low sample size among practitioners) in the place in question and from having discussed the issue with colleagues who have more experience than that over longer time periods in the same place. You are free to disregard my "word of mouth" claim in favor of an elected prosecutor's press releases and…
But now I'm not clear exactly what you are claiming. Of the 200 cases you've seen, how many were petit larceny cases that resulted in jail time? How much jail time?
Every source I can find indicates that the government can reduce charges or dismiss, and that in any event, jail time is unlikely.
"Jail is highly unlikely" (for petit larceny) https://stengellaw.com/larceny-lawyer-nyc/
"A petit larceny charge “would get a desk appearance ticket and fall under Bragg’s ‘no prosecution memo,’” said Joseph Giacalone, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor and ex-NYPD sergeant..." https://nypost.com/2022/01/08/alvin-bragg-underplayed-shopli...
I've lived in the same city now (not NYC) for 10+ years, so I'm moderately connected with all sorts of people and not just a bubble of affluent tech people. So I'll be real, I know some sketchy people that probably do drugs or at least know where to find some. What I don't know, however, is any "fences". That is, someone that traffics in stolen goods. Or maybe I do, they don't exactly advertise their services. I've n…
Bodegas.
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> As long as it's easier to take something than it is to pay for something, there will be people who take, and there will be groups that organize around taking. One of the basic functions of the state is to make it difficult for people to steal things.
No isn't. It's to impose sanctions on those who steal things. They have zero involvement in making in harder to do so. Neither laws nor police make it more difficult to steal things, they merely raise the cost of doing so, and as long as that cost is less than the benefit derived from stealing things, thievery will be there to do its thing.
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You know Singapore unabashedly beats the shit out of thieves, right?
I have started to think that corporal punishment might not be actually worst option.
That said, incarcerating people is liable to immerse them into the hardened criminal culture, which is not productive and calls for some alternatives.
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I would have thought Singapore had more policing in all respects versus US cities. Also the subway stories are probably more about general fear of whatever criminals are apparently lurking down there. It can get kind of scary in the subway when it's deserted. especially Upper Manhattan where it's so deep down. Meanwhile when I travel in developed Asian cities, it's not scary at all. Just really really crowded.
> I would have thought Singapore had more policing in all respects versus US cities. You only see police occasionally doing their patrols, so it can be argued there is less of a police presence than say NY. There is no need, there are cameras everywhere and its a small Island, you can't run anywhere. With respect to the parent's comment on subway deaths: > Singapore has entirely solved the root problem in a non-carce…