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There are a lot of poor people who are not thieves. I’ve always felt this framing condescends to them. Sure, there’s certainly more incentive to steal at the a

There are a lot of poor people who are not thieves. I’ve always felt this framing condescends to them. Sure, there’s certainly more incentive to steal at the academic extremes (bread for your starving family), but people raiding trains for packages is something else. There should be police response to this, and people doing it should get charged.

Someone 5y ago
I don’t see anybody arguing that people doing this shouldn’t get charged. I do read people (rightfully, IMO) claiming that societal changes can significantly decrease the number of people doing this. I don’t believe USA has so many people in prison because its population _is_ more criminal than that of other countries.
- bart_spoon 5y ago
  > I don’t believe USA has so many people in prison because its population _is_ more criminal than that of other countries. I do. I’ve lived in some foreign countries and have come to realize that culture plays just as much if not more of a role in crime as material conditions. America has some toxic aspects to our culture that contribute to our population being more likely to commit crimes. We are hyper individualist, and more violent across all socioeconomic levels.
  - Someone 5y ago
    I think we agree. I wasn’t clear enough, but I wrote the underscores in “its population _is_ more criminal” to implicitly contrast it with “its population _behaves_ more criminal”. It certainly does the latter, but that doesn’t imply the former. Simplifying things, the USA tends to think that all people who _do_ crimes _are_ criminals and, hence, should be locked up in order to decrease the amount of crime, while other countries think circumstances may have made them perform crimes, and changing circumstances may be the best way to decrease crime because it’s cheaper and/or leads to a happier population. (In general, I think (again simplifying things), the USA prefers sending in the cavalry to save the day over doing things to prevent the need for a cavalry. You see that in infrastructure maintenance, reactions to natural disasters, and in the way it does diplomacy in the middle east, too. California is somewhat of an exception there. It invests heavily preparing for the big one)
- gonehome 5y ago
  > "I don’t see anybody arguing that people doing this shouldn’t get charged." This comment is basically arguing that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29932479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29932479 They frame it a little indirectly, but it's the underlying core of their point. You can advocate for policy that reduces crime while still enforcing laws against criminals and not excusing the criminal behavior.
  - Someone 5y ago
    I don’t see that claiming anything about whether to punish people who commit crimes. IMO, it argues that keeping people out of jail by making it easier for them to not perform crimes is better for everyone. Even if it does, I didn’t see that comment when I wrote mine. HN currently shows my comment as 10 hours old, the one you mention as 9, so I also think I couldn’t have seen it. Comment numbers also support that observation (29932220 < 29932479)

Someone 5y ago

I don’t see anybody arguing that people doing this shouldn’t get charged. I do read people (rightfully, IMO) claiming that societal changes can significantly decrease the number of people doing this. I don’t believe USA has so many people in prison because its population _is_ more criminal than that of other countries.

bart_spoon 5y ago
> I don’t believe USA has so many people in prison because its population _is_ more criminal than that of other countries. I do. I’ve lived in some foreign countries and have come to realize that culture plays just as much if not more of a role in crime as material conditions. America has some toxic aspects to our culture that contribute to our population being more likely to commit crimes. We are hyper individualist, and more violent across all socioeconomic levels.
- Someone 5y ago
  I think we agree. I wasn’t clear enough, but I wrote the underscores in “its population _is_ more criminal” to implicitly contrast it with “its population _behaves_ more criminal”. It certainly does the latter, but that doesn’t imply the former. Simplifying things, the USA tends to think that all people who _do_ crimes _are_ criminals and, hence, should be locked up in order to decrease the amount of crime, while other countries think circumstances may have made them perform crimes, and changing circumstances may be the best way to decrease crime because it’s cheaper and/or leads to a happier population. (In general, I think (again simplifying things), the USA prefers sending in the cavalry to save the day over doing things to prevent the need for a cavalry. You see that in infrastructure maintenance, reactions to natural disasters, and in the way it does diplomacy in the middle east, too. California is somewhat of an exception there. It invests heavily preparing for the big one)
gonehome 5y ago
> "I don’t see anybody arguing that people doing this shouldn’t get charged." This comment is basically arguing that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29932479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29932479 They frame it a little indirectly, but it's the underlying core of their point. You can advocate for policy that reduces crime while still enforcing laws against criminals and not excusing the criminal behavior.
- Someone 5y ago
  I don’t see that claiming anything about whether to punish people who commit crimes. IMO, it argues that keeping people out of jail by making it easier for them to not perform crimes is better for everyone. Even if it does, I didn’t see that comment when I wrote mine. HN currently shows my comment as 10 hours old, the one you mention as 9, so I also think I couldn’t have seen it. Comment numbers also support that observation (29932220 < 29932479)