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> recruited people living on the street to ransack the containers. This is what happens when the richest country in the world has some of the poorest populatio
by Hokusai 5y ago
> recruited people living on the street to ransack the containers.
This is what happens when the richest country in the world has some of the poorest populations in the world. Poor people are neither violent nor thieves. But they can be convinced to become that when inequality is so high.
- mberning 5y agoIt could be that. Or it could be the lax prosecution of property crimes.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- awb 5y agoOr the difficulty in actually solving them.
- Hokusai 5y agoThe USA has death penalty and the highest rate of incarceration in the world. It's it the safest, thou?
- smsm42 5y agoNo, because having death penalty for the most heinous of crimes does not help everyday safety, if the lower level crimes are deliberately left without prosecution - which is exactly what is happening now in California.
- ameister14 5y agoWith 2.2 million people in jail or prison I think it's a bit ridiculous to argue that the US has lax prosecution as an issue relative to any other countries. I'll be a bit more specific - there are about 400,000 people currently incarcerated in the US for property crimes. That's higher than the per capita rate of incarceration for any crime in Canada. If the US is lax in prosecuting property crimes, then I don't think any other developed country is hard on crime.
- smsm42 5y agoYou're confusing several different things, which is excusable for a person not living in the US, but still very misleading. What is overwhelmingly driving US's incarceration rate is War on Drugs. US has some insane policies - depending on the state, but it's a large contributor to the overall figure - regarding drug-related crimes. Legalization of some drugs, like in California, helps a bit - but given an insane amount of regulation and taxation the legal business is beset by, the illegal route is still very attractive and profitable. The other side is the proliferation of "woke" prosecutors and local managers, refusing to prosecute crimes like petty theft (in SF, theft below $900 is in essence legal), property destruction, simple assault, etc. That is compounded by extremely permissive policies towards public homelessness and establishing homeless camps on any public property, often even burdening the adjacent private property with tolerating and supporting them. All this creates a very fertile ground for certain type of crime - there's a bunch of people that aren't very connected to social norms at the best of times, but also they know they'd never suffer any consequences for robbing a store or breaking into a car, or punching someone on the street. And there's organized crime, which knows these people can be exploited as foot soldiers in a criminal enterprise of stealing high-value items and reselling them in ad-hoc markets, or online - which is never being prosecuted, because people who are supposed to stop this are ideologically bound to address "societal roots of the crime" - which never happens - instead of going for the criminals. So yes, you can have both high incarceration rates and extremely lax prosecution for certain crimes - at the same time. Worst of the both worlds.
- ameister14 5y ago>What is overwhelmingly driving US's incarceration rate is War on Drugs. Yeah, that's only a part of it. While a significant problem, drug related crimes make up only 20% of the total incarcerated number. (That 1/5 is still on its own more than the incarcerated per capita rates for all crimes in comparable countries like Canada and the UK, so it's definitely a big deal.) The numbers for non-violent drug crimes are higher as an overall percentage in the Federal system than they are at the State level. Again, 400,000 is just property crimes. About 1 in 3 people currently held in jail for property crimes are there for larceny/theft or stolen property. I don't agree about the 'fertile ground' for crime you're talking about in part because I have never seen any evidence for it. It's in movies, but I haven't really seen it in real life, and I've been looking at the data for a little while now. I am completely willing to be schooled on that if you've got some evidence though.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sennight 5y agoIf that were true, then it would be reflected in crime stat jumps during periods of recession, but it isn't.
- HarryHirsch 5y agoWait, copper theft did go up around 2007, didn't it?
- Ourgon 5y agoCopper theft went up with the price of copper, this is a global phenomenon. I live in Sweden where this is a regular news item.
- sennight 5y agodunno, but lets assume it did: is it more likely that existing thieves switched to a higher returning crime, or that out of work kindergarten teachers started stripping roof AC units? Wait, if the gap in wealth inequality has been doing nothing but expanding... why does the crime rate do nothing but fall? With very few, and very brief, exceptions - this is the case.
- nuclearnice1 5y ago> We find that the average arrest rate for a cohort entering the labour market during a recession is 10.2% higher than for an otherwise similar cohort entering a more buoyant labour market. [1] … > Weinberg and his collaborators Eric D. Gould of Hebrew University and David Mustard of the University of Georgia examined young males with no more than a high school education—the demographic group that commits the most crime—they found that average wages and unemployment rates were directly linked to the incidence of property crimes. [2] … > Crime has increased during every recession since the late 1950s, sociologists said. [3] [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/03/do-recessions-increase-crime/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/03/do-recessions-increas... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-recessions-increase-crime/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-recessions-inc... [3] https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSTRE50Q6FR20090127 https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/...
- gjsman-1000 5y agoBeing poor is not an excuse for criminality. These people aren't stealing bread to live or clothing to not freeze. They are stealing valuables ("Louis Vuitton purses, designer clothes, toys, lawnmowers, power equipment, power tools") because they can, knowing their poor status will cause people like you to express sympathy for them and thus allowing them to get away with it. They aren't stealing out of necessity - they are stealing because they can.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Hokusai 5y ago> Being poor is not an excuse for criminality. Nor being rich.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoNever said it was.
- sigmaprimus 5y agoThe sad part of this situation is the initial people that broke into the containers on the trains are long gone with their loot, now the marginalized people are getting caught digging through the discarded items that were not valuable enough for ones that broke in and most likely they will be the ones prosecuted for political gains even if they get out on no cash bail. What needs to happen in these cities is some auditing of the second hand sellers. Pawn shops are required by law to record all items that they purchase but many of the people advertising and selling online are moving larger volumes of product with zero accountability. The Kijiji and Craigslist type sites have mostly been allowed to operate in a gray area but there is no doubt they are facilitating the buying and selling of stolen items and as such a percentage of their profit is actually subject to seizure through proceeds of crime legislation.
- californical 5y agoYou don’t really believe that rich people stormed in and stole all of the good stuff before the poor people got there, do you? If you’re stealing things off a train, you’re already in a pretty bad place in life, it’s not like the earlier people were any better off than the later people
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Ourgon 5y agoIsn't it odd that crime is skyrocketing in places which are governed by people who think in these terms? It is almost as if policies which are based on those ideas lead people into a life of crime where they would otherwise have been given the satisfaction of taking care of themselves. It is not as if it is hard to get a job right now after all?
- nopenopenopeno 5y agoIf you think The Democratic Party gives a damn about poor people, you are the one getting taken for a ride. And if you think “a job” is all it takes to not be poor, then you are just completely out of touch with reality.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Ourgon 5y agoNote how I did not state the people doing the stealing are poor. If you think they are, please explain the many images of people driving up in fairly new and rather shiny cars to fill them with looted goods. This looting is not done by "the poor" and they are not stealing "to fill their hungry children's mouths". They are looting because it is free season, they'll either use or sell off whatever loot they get and spend the returns on whatever they fancy.
- Hokusai 5y ago> It is not as if it is hard to get a job right now after all? What makes you think that poor people does not have jobs? Search the term "the working poor".
- leto_ii 5y ago> Search the term "the working poor". Better yet, check out "working homeless" (take [1] for example). That things like this happen in the richest, most powerful country in history is beyond belief. [1] https://www.npr.org/2018/09/30/652572292/working-while-homeless-a-tough-job-for-thousands-of-californians?t=1642368731254 https://www.npr.org/2018/09/30/652572292/working-while-homel...
- cjbgkagh 5y agoI think statistically less intelligence correlates to higher violence and poverty. Therefore, those who are poor due to low intelligence are more likely to also be violent.
- Hokusai 5y ago> less intelligence correlates to higher violence and poverty. Poverty and violence causes mental and physical health problems. Fix poverty if you want educated and intelligent citizens.
- cjbgkagh 5y agoI agree there is room for improvement, however intelligence appears to largely genetic. Studies put it at 40-80%, I’m of the view that it’s at the high end of that. If the mechanism was better understood then it may be possible to induce higher intelligence even in those who don’t have the genetic predisposition.
- Hokusai 5y ago40% is not largely but the opposite. It means that it's largely not genetic.
- cjbgkagh 5y ago40% is not the median of the studies which appear to have it at 70%. I’m of the view that it’s 80%+. I think there are some improvements that can be made to the studies but I have not had a good enough reason to redo their math.
- jl2718 5y ago“Japan has some of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world, according to a UNICEF report. It ranked Japan 34th out of 41 industrialised countries. According to Japan's Health Ministry statistics, as of May 2017, 16% of Japanese children live below the poverty line.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Japan
- tomp 5y agoYou're conflating two issues: poverty and inequality. US is one of the richest countries, has less poor people than other rich countries, the "poor" in the US are richer than the "poor" in e.g. UK or Italy, and "average" (mean and median) incomes in UK or Italy would be considered "poor" in the US. see: https://twitter.com/CPopeHC/status/1469070902813995014 https://twitter.com/CPopeHC/status/1469070902813995014 So, inequality is irrelevant, only absolute poverty is relevant. EDIT: NOTE: the graph in the link above is disposable income (a.k.a. above cost of living) Personally, I don't think that poverty is the issue here. People aren't looting Apple stores because they're poor. But the lack of social safety net (income, health, mental health) for the poorest probably doesn't help.
- tomjakubowski 5y ago> only absolute poverty is relevant. No it isn't. Cost of living matters. Impoverished people in richer countries have, to a limited extent, some advantage from increased capital investment in their vicinity (e.g. in theory, on average, better local infrastructure than in absolutely poorer countries). They are still crushed by living expenses.
- jl2718 5y agoOkay then let’s hear why they are looting Apple stores.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- alphabettsy 5y agoThis doesn’t seem hard to figure out. A person doesn’t steal 10 iPhones to use them personally. If you steal 10 iPhones you might end up with thousands of dollars and that keeps the lights on and feeds you for awhile. If you steal a loaf of bread and a pack of lunch meat you eat for a week.
- jdkee 5y agoNot many Barnes and Nobles were looted in the summer of 2020.
- walrus01 5y agoOne needs only google "income inequality chart usa" and look at images to see that the present trends are not going to result in anything good in the long run. What we'll end up with is something like wealthy parts of mexico where the richest 1-2% live in fortified enclaves protected by private armed security, and the poor are desperately poor. Not unlike the rich burbclaves predicted in Snow Crash, actually.
- jl2718 5y agoSo you’re saying they steal not because they are poor and need things, but because other people are rich and have things.
- BobbyJo 5y agoOne need only look at a smattering of poor villages around the world to see that this is indeed true. When they are as well off as their neighbors, people rarely complain, or steal to get ahead. One problem is that the internet has given everyone extremely wealthy neighbors.
- nitwit005 5y agoThere's nothing unusual about it though. In every country in the world, when criminals need to recruit people, they generally target the poor. Why would a wealthy person want to participate? They can just buy the stuff and not be involved in a crime.
- smsm42 5y agoThis has nothing to do with "inequality". The existence of Elon Musk does not make people rob the trains. The refusal of the law enforcement - openly and clearly proclaimed - to actually enforce the law does. If it has been publicly said that theft won't be prosecuted and in general property crime is not a true crime ("it's all ensured!") then why not do it? There's literally not a single reason not to do it. So people are starting to do it.
- Diesel555 5y ago> This is what happens when the richest country in the world has some of the poorest populations in the world. I find this statement to be misleading. If one person in the entire country lived in extreme poverty than there would be some population that is among “some of the poorest populations in the world.” However, while the US does have issues which should not be ignored, the US cannot be compared to countries where much of the population lives in extreme poverty and other human rights issues. This comparison hurts the real cause that other countries desperately need help and that entire populations do truly live in extreme poverty. The United Nations Development Programme puts out the Human Development report which has a great website and iPhone / Android app to access the data. A good indicator is the percentage of the population living below the income poverty line. Explore this site, it’s great. Here is a link to one stat. http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/167106 http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/167106 App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/human-development-report-app/id1516406765 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/human-development-report-app/i...