8 ms·
Right, so this is a hugely political issue right now. Don't be surprised to get wildly differing answers. Republicans are pointing at public disorder and scream
by ksenzee 4y ago
Right, so this is a hugely political issue right now. Don't be surprised to get wildly differing answers. Republicans are pointing at public disorder and screaming about crime, and Democrats are accusing them of being fragile suburbanites who can't handle normal urban life. I'm a left-leaning independent, and I tend to agree with Democrats on a lot of their talking points, but I will say that everywhere I go I see more public disorder than I did a few years ago. There are more locked shelves everywhere, and I think people's perceptions of crime and disorder are also affected by the fact that there are way more encampments of people living in tents and RVs (which leads to more litter on the streets etc.). I live southeast of Seattle, in a straight-up middle-class area, and our local Target now has OTC pain relief behind locked glass doors. I stopped dead and stared. I'd never seen that except in a big city.
As for the issue of unhoused people, which I don't think is related to the actual crime rate but is very much related to perceptions of crime, we also have some tent encampments down in my area. In Seattle (I visit the International District weekly) a year ago there were huge tent cities under freeway overpasses, actual structures hacked together on sidewalks, people living in deplorable conditions. There have always been unhoused people in Seattle but it was an order of magnitude worse than normal. In the last several months Washington state and Seattle have made a huge effort to clear the tent cities and get people into transitional housing, and from what I can tell it's working: the sidewalk shacks are gone, the tents are gone, the areas are fenced off, and by all accounts they've gotten almost all the people living there into shelter of some kind. I'm paying attention to whether I hear less squawking about crime now that there's less visible disorder.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y agoHow's the housing work? Victoria and Vancouver tried this by buying old hotels and turning them into apartments but they filled them with junkies and were surprised that they soon became worse than the outdoor camps. Any solution that doesn't segregate the sick can't work.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ksenzee 4y agoDepends how you define "work." It would have to be pretty damn bad to be worse than what we had. I think King County is doing the "buy hotels and turn them into housing-first apartments" thing, so I do expect those to turn into really bad places. I would also rather have the really bad places behind walls and a roof.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y agoThey burn down as Vancouver found out. Not only does it get worse inside than out but then they're back on the street. It's not a bad solution, sorta. They should just send one to each cheap hotel in the country though. Split the problem up and spread it out so it isn't being reinforced. By 'work' I mean, for the junkies or the residents. Junkies living together escalate and it spills out. Those walls won't contain them. Ultimately nothing other than forcing them through rehab will turn them into anything other than drug zombies.
- ryan_lane 4y agoI'd like the organized retail theft (gangs of people robbing a store) cracked down on, but in general I'd prefer a softer touch on general petty shop lifting. These are different things, with different motivations, and cracking down on someone stealing because they have nothing doesn't actually prevent that from happening more (you need to address the underlying issue). The organized crime, however, should be harshly treated, because these folks are doing this to enrich themselves, and it's organized. The biggest problem here is that stopping this requires more than just police arresting people. It requires actual investigation work, and it seems that police funding tends to go to patrols and not investigation. Close rates for investigations are at all time lows. I really wish this was the focus of law & order republicans, rather than "we need to arrest people", because that only catches the easy, petty criminals.
- concordDance 4y ago> cracking down on someone stealing because they have nothing doesn't actually prevent that from happening more (you need to address the underlying issue). The petty shoplifters steal mostly because they can. They're not stealing a bag of rice because they're starving, they're stealing a new pair of jeans because there's no need to pay. There being unpleasant consequences for stealing actually would deter them.
- prawn 4y ago"I'd like the organized retail theft (gangs of people robbing a store) cracked down on, but in general I'd prefer a softer touch on general petty shop lifting. " What about door frames that launch an array of taser lines when someone hits a panic button?
- listenallyall 4y agoAlthough I generally agree there's little positive effect from harshly punishing very petty thieves, saying "address the underlying issue" is a major cop-out basically indicating you have no interest in fixing anything. What do you think the "underlying issue" is? Drug abuse? Lack of education? Paucity of low-skill jobs? Not enough affordable housing? Discrimination? Lack of opportunities for ex-prisoners? Inflation? Point is, there are plenty of reasons, not just one, that could lead a person to steal a few items from CVS, and they are far too numerous and widespread to believe you'll be able to do anything meaningful to "address" them.