4 ms·

Do you have any sources I can read through on this? I'm very interested to hear that this is the case.

waiseristy 5y ago
Not a read, but this feature from KOMO goes over the Seattle situation pretty well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WijoL3Hy_Bw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WijoL3Hy_Bw
- abrahamepton 5y ago
  That piece, and KOMO's larger project, are toxic right-wing propaganda. Please don't consider that a reliable source.
  - hik 5y ago
    I don't think calling it propaganda is quite right. "Muckraking" is probably more accurate.
    - abrahamepton 5y ago
      Muckraking implies at least a casual desire to stick to the facts, which is entirely absent from Sinclair-owned stations.
  - waiseristy 5y ago
    I don't even want to begin to engage upon what you purport KOMO to be, because I don't really care... But the people and lives that video shows are real. Do you have left-wing friendly media pieces to balance it out? This is not something that is typically portrayed positively in media in Seattle, so it's not easy to find good news
    - waiseristy 5y ago
      You do you HN. Downvote the uncomfortable opinions! That'll surely help everyone
  - kyleblarson 5y ago
    Have you walked through Pioneer Square or down Third Avenue in Seattle recently?
    - abrahamepton 5y ago
      Yep, I have! Homelessness is a profound and society-wide problem, with no easy answers unless you consider "spend way more money, build way more housing" an easy answer (which I do). Until we do those things, it should be no surprise that a region with skyrocketing rents has a housing crisis, and that will present itself in myriad unpleasant ways.
abrahamepton 5y ago
There's a great book on ~roughly this topic - Ghettoside, by Jill Leovy. The thesis is that police in some cities (her work is in LA, but I lived in Chicago for a while and the idea transfers seamlessly) do an abysmal job of solving homicides. That has all sorts of knock-on effects: people close to a murder victim lose the sense that the state will do something about their loss, so they take the matter into their own hands; people who commit homicide are a tiny minority but if they're not apprehended, they can keep committing homicides, which makes a broader society feel less safe; people sense that the state, their city, their neighbors, etc don't care about them because if the homicide was of someone in a richer neighborhood, it would be more likely to be solved; etc. Been a while since I read it so I'm forgetting a lot. I think this goes some way towards explaining why people in neighborhoods where lots of violent crime is committed have such ambivalent feelings about the police - they are at once underpoliced (police don't solve major crimes in their neighborhood) and overpoliced (police bust people for all kinds of small-time stuff, which has devastating long-term consequences). At the same time as all of the above, it's also true that it's basically never been safer to live in a big American city (ok ok, at least since like the 1960s - before then the picture gets significantly more complicated). So it's safer than ever, but big crimes don't get prosecuted or solved, unless they happen in the "right" neighborhoods. The solution therefore isn't more of the same police; maybe it's more policing but the policing itself needs to change.
- femiagbabiaka 5y ago
  This has already been a fantastic read: thank you!!

Not a read, but this feature from KOMO goes over the Seattle situation pretty well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WijoL3Hy_Bw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WijoL3Hy_Bw

abrahamepton 5y ago
That piece, and KOMO's larger project, are toxic right-wing propaganda. Please don't consider that a reliable source.
- hik 5y ago
  I don't think calling it propaganda is quite right. "Muckraking" is probably more accurate.
  - abrahamepton 5y ago
    Muckraking implies at least a casual desire to stick to the facts, which is entirely absent from Sinclair-owned stations.
- waiseristy 5y ago
  I don't even want to begin to engage upon what you purport KOMO to be, because I don't really care... But the people and lives that video shows are real. Do you have left-wing friendly media pieces to balance it out? This is not something that is typically portrayed positively in media in Seattle, so it's not easy to find good news
  - waiseristy 5y ago
    You do you HN. Downvote the uncomfortable opinions! That'll surely help everyone
- kyleblarson 5y ago
  Have you walked through Pioneer Square or down Third Avenue in Seattle recently?
  - abrahamepton 5y ago
    Yep, I have! Homelessness is a profound and society-wide problem, with no easy answers unless you consider "spend way more money, build way more housing" an easy answer (which I do). Until we do those things, it should be no surprise that a region with skyrocketing rents has a housing crisis, and that will present itself in myriad unpleasant ways.

abrahamepton 5y ago

There's a great book on ~roughly this topic - Ghettoside, by Jill Leovy. The thesis is that police in some cities (her work is in LA, but I lived in Chicago for a while and the idea transfers seamlessly) do an abysmal job of solving homicides. That has all sorts of knock-on effects: people close to a murder victim lose the sense that the state will do something about their loss, so they take the matter into their own hands; people who commit homicide are a tiny minority but if they're not apprehended, they can keep committing homicides, which makes a broader society feel less safe; people sense that the state, their city, their neighbors, etc don't care about them because if the homicide was of someone in a richer neighborhood, it would be more likely to be solved; etc. Been a while since I read it so I'm forgetting a lot. I think this goes some way towards explaining why people in neighborhoods where lots of violent crime is committed have such ambivalent feelings about the police - they are at once underpoliced (police don't solve major crimes in their neighborhood) and overpoliced (police bust people for all kinds of small-time stuff, which has devastating long-term consequences). At the same time as all of the above, it's also true that it's basically never been safer to live in a big American city (ok ok, at least since like the 1960s - before then the picture gets significantly more complicated). So it's safer than ever, but big crimes don't get prosecuted or solved, unless they happen in the "right" neighborhoods. The solution therefore isn't more of the same police; maybe it's more policing but the policing itself needs to change.

femiagbabiaka 5y ago
This has already been a fantastic read: thank you!!