10 ms·

Neat analogy, but you didn't finish it. It would be like if the garbage men took the trash out and at the end of the month and the person in charge of the dump

Neat analogy, but you didn't finish it. It would be like if the garbage men took the trash out and at the end of the month and the person in charge of the dump released it all back out on the streets. Certainly you would have a garbage strike, which is what happened, and the dump manager (DA) was recalled. When you arrest the same person over and over again and they are just let out by the DA, you may just not arrest that person again. You aren't refusing to do your job, you're listening to an elected official that has more power than you do. Do you have any criticisms to direct at the DA, or do you agree with their actions?

sophacles 4y ago
Most of the sanitation workers I know would love it because of job security. Maybe if we treated cops like people with jobs, we'd be able to hire some that work.
slg 4y ago
>When you arrest the same person over and over again and they are just let out by the DA, you may just not arrest that person again. Great, so everyone agrees the current approach doesn't work. Now we need to come up with a better solution. Option 1 is to throw these repeat offenders in jail and consider the situation fixed. Option 2 is to take the money that we are paying the cop that now refuses to arrest anyone and instead pay someone who is willing to work with this repeat offender and help get them a home, job, treatment, or whatever else they need to stop living life like this.
- eternalban 4y ago
  Soon we will have colonies on other planets and there will be an option 3. Police that refuse to do their job because the DA's office is politically indoctrinated are not helping anything. It's almost immature. Police have unions and associations, political connections (even today), connections with the press (even today), so we're not talking about some powerless sector of society. The mature response is for SF police to do its job (because if we do the math, it is also wasting the time of criminals), and have its organizational arms make a stink about it in the public space. Publish statistics and weekly 'wtf DA?' blog posts. I mean it's the 21st century.
- ummonk 4y ago
  I prefer Option 3 - executions - but I'll settle for Option 1.
  - Georgelemental 4y ago
    Some people are too far gone for Option 2, but don't deserve 1 or 3. Like serial shoplifters, first-time drunk drivers, non-violent drug dealers… We used to know how to deal with these people, and many countries still do. Corporal punishment and public shaming have been the go-to solutions for millions of years. We should bring them back. You can make a criminal deeply and viscerally regret their crime, without destroying their life.
    - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
      > Corporal punishment and public shaming have been the go-to solutions for millions of years. We should bring them back. You can make a criminal deeply and viscerally regret their crime, without destroying their life. People have a hard time with the idea that caning or standing on the street with a sandwich board detailing your crime can be the empathic answer. Better than letting you hurt others, and letting the crime harden you until you need harsher responses. > Like serial shoplifters, first-time drunk drivers, non-violent drug dealers… Then non-violent drug dealer has to mean someone selling something that can't kill or seriously injure you. Fentanyl dealers might as well be selling arsenic and should be treated accordingly.
      - Georgelemental 4y ago
        Drunk driving kills too. The intent here is that small-time drug dealing, like drunk driving, is something easy to slip into—especially if you are an addict yourself and in debt. Of course the bigger dealers should get worse.
- bakugo 4y ago
  Ah yes, the classic "all criminals are just misunderstood and will stop committing crime if you give them money" argument.
  - slg 4y ago
    What is the counterargument? "All criminals are just evil people and will never stop committing crime unless they are thrown in jail"? The original line of argument was that crime went up because punishments went don't. This implicitly is built on the belief that criminals are rational actors responding to a changing incentive structure. We can therefore reduce crime by changing the incentives again so that crime is a less attractive option. There is no reason why that change needs to be the reintroduction of harsh punishments. We can also change incentives by reducing the positive benefit of crime by making sure people's basic needs are satisfied.
    - bakugo 4y ago
      You assume people need external incentives to commit crime, which is completely wrong. People need external incentives to NOT commit crime, because most crimes already include inherent incentives. For example, stealing comes with the inherent reward of gaining whatever it is you stole. You don't need to be homeless and starving to want more money or physical goods. I am living a comfortable life, all of my basic needs are satisfied, and I have never stolen anything. But if I could just walk into a store, grab things and walk out with the knowledge that I was not going to be punished for it in any way, I absolutely would. Why wouldn't I? Because it's "wrong"? I'm sorry but the world doesn't work that way. If I didn't, someone else would.
      - kelnos 4y ago
        > People need external incentives to NOT commit crime, because most crimes already include inherent incentives. That's a pretty cynical view of human nature that I don't share. > But if I could just walk into a store, grab things and walk out with the knowledge that I was not going to be punished for it in any way, I absolutely would. I absolutely wouldn't. I mean, zero-consequence thefts seem to be a true state of affairs for many places like pharmacies in SF, and yet I don't feel any desire to walk into a Walgreens and start walking out with stuff without paying. Sure, I'm pretty comfortable financially, and that's a factor. But I would have to be pretty hard-up financially, like "I'm going to be out on the streets if I don't steal" levels of hard-up, to consider stealing at all, let alone habitually (and I'd still feel guilty about it). And I frankly can't blame people in that position; in many cases society has failed them, so I can't fault them for ignoring society's rules. > Why wouldn't I? Because it's "wrong"? Yes! Laws only work because people agree that they're a good idea in general, even if we may not agree with every individual law. I agree with laws around theft because I think it's shitty to deprive someone else of something that's theirs. Maybe it's a little muddier in the "personalization" aspect when we're talking about goods for sale owned by a huge corporation, but massive, ongoing, consequence-free theft from a particular store means that store is eventually going to shut down, and deprive regular people from jobs and their livelihoods. I wouldn't want that on my conscience. > I'm sorry but the world doesn't work that way. If I didn't, someone else would. Ah, yes, the "if I'm not an asshole, someone else will be, so I might as well just be an asshole and reap undeserved rewards" anti-morality play. That's reprehensible; I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your approach to being a human.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  The problem is that lack of enforcement leads to criminals that act not out of desperation, but because they analyzed the rules of the game and realized that the reward for a criminal career is better than the reward for a legitimate career, with few downsides. Why work 20 days a month and make a modest living when you can steal and rob 3 days a month, fence on the 4th, and live in relative luxury? Throwing people in jail doesn't help with crimes of despair, but it does help with such calculated crime, because it suddenly is no longer worth it.
  - slg 4y ago
    > they analyzed the rules of the game and realized that the reward for a criminal career is better than the reward for a legitimate career, with few downsides. I don't think you realize that you are agreeing with me. There are benefits to committing crime. There are benefits to not committing crime. There are downsides to committing crime. There are downsides to not committing crime. These all come together to help influence a person's decision. We can impact that decision by tweaking any one of these 4 results. Yes, increasing the penalties for crime is one way to address it, but we can have the same influence be decreasing the benefit of committing crime or increasing the benefit of not committing crime. I happen to think that is the morally superior choice because the result is fewer people in jail and the US already jails more people per capita than any other country.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
      How do you want to decrease the benefit of committing crime or increase the benefit of not committing crime? Without punishment, the benefit of stealing $1000 is roughly $1000. Again, I'm not talking about crimes of desperation, I'm talking about "I want $shiny_expensive_thing and stealing it/stealing for it is going to be an easier way to get that than working for it".
      - slg 4y ago
        As you said: >Why work 20 days a month and make a modest living when you can steal and rob 3 days a month, fence on the 4th, and live in relative luxury? What if that modest living takes 10 days of work instead of 20. Do you think that will impact the number of people who turn to crime?
- orjustexecute 4y ago
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  "Throw them in jail to rot there forever" vs "slap on the wrist, coddle them and give them money" is a false dichotomy. We used to have a third option; it worked; many countries still do and it still works. We should reintroduce short-term but painful punishments (a day in the stocks, public caning, etc) for moderately severe offenses. Some people need more than just a slap on the wrist to change, but don't deserve to have their life ruined forever by a 30-year jail sentence. Physical pain and public shaming have worked well for millions of years (literally) they still work today in many countries, and they are far more compassionate than a long jail sentence. Humans are just another animal species, sometimes animal incentives are what we need.
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    Option 2 is not a "slap on the wrist, coddle them and give them money." It's solving the actual problem. This is supported by research. Stop strawmanning. Even the DoJ agrees: https://www.justice.gov/archives/prison-reform https://www.justice.gov/archives/prison-reform
8note 4y ago
Which part is "predicting the DA's decision" in a police officer's job description? Why hasn't it been replaced by ML? For a different analogy, at a startup, the pm changes the requirements every so often, therefore the engineers are fine to play foosball all day?
- hunterb123 4y ago
  It's not about predicting the DA's decision, it's about enforcing the current laws that were decided upon by the people. The problem was the DA was letting people off even though they were breaking said laws.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    You're presuming the outcome of the charge. DAs often don't prosecute because the arrest or paperwork is deficient and the case won't stand up in court.

sophacles 4y ago

Most of the sanitation workers I know would love it because of job security. Maybe if we treated cops like people with jobs, we'd be able to hire some that work.

slg 4y ago

>When you arrest the same person over and over again and they are just let out by the DA, you may just not arrest that person again. Great, so everyone agrees the current approach doesn't work. Now we need to come up with a better solution. Option 1 is to throw these repeat offenders in jail and consider the situation fixed. Option 2 is to take the money that we are paying the cop that now refuses to arrest anyone and instead pay someone who is willing to work with this repeat offender and help get them a home, job, treatment, or whatever else they need to stop living life like this.

eternalban 4y ago
Soon we will have colonies on other planets and there will be an option 3. Police that refuse to do their job because the DA's office is politically indoctrinated are not helping anything. It's almost immature. Police have unions and associations, political connections (even today), connections with the press (even today), so we're not talking about some powerless sector of society. The mature response is for SF police to do its job (because if we do the math, it is also wasting the time of criminals), and have its organizational arms make a stink about it in the public space. Publish statistics and weekly 'wtf DA?' blog posts. I mean it's the 21st century.
ummonk 4y ago
I prefer Option 3 - executions - but I'll settle for Option 1.
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  Some people are too far gone for Option 2, but don't deserve 1 or 3. Like serial shoplifters, first-time drunk drivers, non-violent drug dealers… We used to know how to deal with these people, and many countries still do. Corporal punishment and public shaming have been the go-to solutions for millions of years. We should bring them back. You can make a criminal deeply and viscerally regret their crime, without destroying their life.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    > Corporal punishment and public shaming have been the go-to solutions for millions of years. We should bring them back. You can make a criminal deeply and viscerally regret their crime, without destroying their life. People have a hard time with the idea that caning or standing on the street with a sandwich board detailing your crime can be the empathic answer. Better than letting you hurt others, and letting the crime harden you until you need harsher responses. > Like serial shoplifters, first-time drunk drivers, non-violent drug dealers… Then non-violent drug dealer has to mean someone selling something that can't kill or seriously injure you. Fentanyl dealers might as well be selling arsenic and should be treated accordingly.
    - Georgelemental 4y ago
      Drunk driving kills too. The intent here is that small-time drug dealing, like drunk driving, is something easy to slip into—especially if you are an addict yourself and in debt. Of course the bigger dealers should get worse.
bakugo 4y ago
Ah yes, the classic "all criminals are just misunderstood and will stop committing crime if you give them money" argument.
- slg 4y ago
  What is the counterargument? "All criminals are just evil people and will never stop committing crime unless they are thrown in jail"? The original line of argument was that crime went up because punishments went don't. This implicitly is built on the belief that criminals are rational actors responding to a changing incentive structure. We can therefore reduce crime by changing the incentives again so that crime is a less attractive option. There is no reason why that change needs to be the reintroduction of harsh punishments. We can also change incentives by reducing the positive benefit of crime by making sure people's basic needs are satisfied.
  - bakugo 4y ago
    You assume people need external incentives to commit crime, which is completely wrong. People need external incentives to NOT commit crime, because most crimes already include inherent incentives. For example, stealing comes with the inherent reward of gaining whatever it is you stole. You don't need to be homeless and starving to want more money or physical goods. I am living a comfortable life, all of my basic needs are satisfied, and I have never stolen anything. But if I could just walk into a store, grab things and walk out with the knowledge that I was not going to be punished for it in any way, I absolutely would. Why wouldn't I? Because it's "wrong"? I'm sorry but the world doesn't work that way. If I didn't, someone else would.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      > People need external incentives to NOT commit crime, because most crimes already include inherent incentives. That's a pretty cynical view of human nature that I don't share. > But if I could just walk into a store, grab things and walk out with the knowledge that I was not going to be punished for it in any way, I absolutely would. I absolutely wouldn't. I mean, zero-consequence thefts seem to be a true state of affairs for many places like pharmacies in SF, and yet I don't feel any desire to walk into a Walgreens and start walking out with stuff without paying. Sure, I'm pretty comfortable financially, and that's a factor. But I would have to be pretty hard-up financially, like "I'm going to be out on the streets if I don't steal" levels of hard-up, to consider stealing at all, let alone habitually (and I'd still feel guilty about it). And I frankly can't blame people in that position; in many cases society has failed them, so I can't fault them for ignoring society's rules. > Why wouldn't I? Because it's "wrong"? Yes! Laws only work because people agree that they're a good idea in general, even if we may not agree with every individual law. I agree with laws around theft because I think it's shitty to deprive someone else of something that's theirs. Maybe it's a little muddier in the "personalization" aspect when we're talking about goods for sale owned by a huge corporation, but massive, ongoing, consequence-free theft from a particular store means that store is eventually going to shut down, and deprive regular people from jobs and their livelihoods. I wouldn't want that on my conscience. > I'm sorry but the world doesn't work that way. If I didn't, someone else would. Ah, yes, the "if I'm not an asshole, someone else will be, so I might as well just be an asshole and reap undeserved rewards" anti-morality play. That's reprehensible; I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your approach to being a human.
tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
The problem is that lack of enforcement leads to criminals that act not out of desperation, but because they analyzed the rules of the game and realized that the reward for a criminal career is better than the reward for a legitimate career, with few downsides. Why work 20 days a month and make a modest living when you can steal and rob 3 days a month, fence on the 4th, and live in relative luxury? Throwing people in jail doesn't help with crimes of despair, but it does help with such calculated crime, because it suddenly is no longer worth it.
- slg 4y ago
  > they analyzed the rules of the game and realized that the reward for a criminal career is better than the reward for a legitimate career, with few downsides. I don't think you realize that you are agreeing with me. There are benefits to committing crime. There are benefits to not committing crime. There are downsides to committing crime. There are downsides to not committing crime. These all come together to help influence a person's decision. We can impact that decision by tweaking any one of these 4 results. Yes, increasing the penalties for crime is one way to address it, but we can have the same influence be decreasing the benefit of committing crime or increasing the benefit of not committing crime. I happen to think that is the morally superior choice because the result is fewer people in jail and the US already jails more people per capita than any other country.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
    How do you want to decrease the benefit of committing crime or increase the benefit of not committing crime? Without punishment, the benefit of stealing $1000 is roughly $1000. Again, I'm not talking about crimes of desperation, I'm talking about "I want $shiny_expensive_thing and stealing it/stealing for it is going to be an easier way to get that than working for it".
    - slg 4y ago
      As you said: >Why work 20 days a month and make a modest living when you can steal and rob 3 days a month, fence on the 4th, and live in relative luxury? What if that modest living takes 10 days of work instead of 20. Do you think that will impact the number of people who turn to crime?
orjustexecute 4y ago
Georgelemental 4y ago
"Throw them in jail to rot there forever" vs "slap on the wrist, coddle them and give them money" is a false dichotomy. We used to have a third option; it worked; many countries still do and it still works. We should reintroduce short-term but painful punishments (a day in the stocks, public caning, etc) for moderately severe offenses. Some people need more than just a slap on the wrist to change, but don't deserve to have their life ruined forever by a 30-year jail sentence. Physical pain and public shaming have worked well for millions of years (literally) they still work today in many countries, and they are far more compassionate than a long jail sentence. Humans are just another animal species, sometimes animal incentives are what we need.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  Option 2 is not a "slap on the wrist, coddle them and give them money." It's solving the actual problem. This is supported by research. Stop strawmanning. Even the DoJ agrees: https://www.justice.gov/archives/prison-reform https://www.justice.gov/archives/prison-reform

8note 4y ago

Which part is "predicting the DA's decision" in a police officer's job description? Why hasn't it been replaced by ML? For a different analogy, at a startup, the pm changes the requirements every so often, therefore the engineers are fine to play foosball all day?

hunterb123 4y ago
It's not about predicting the DA's decision, it's about enforcing the current laws that were decided upon by the people. The problem was the DA was letting people off even though they were breaking said laws.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  You're presuming the outcome of the charge. DAs often don't prosecute because the arrest or paperwork is deficient and the case won't stand up in court.