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I agree with pretty much everything except for this: >Crime is lower on pretty much every metric than it was 20-30 years ago where the last big panic set in th

I agree with pretty much everything except for this: >Crime is lower on pretty much every metric than it was 20-30 years ago where the last big panic set in the mandatory minimum mania and the carceral state exploded. I see 'crime' all over now... it just isn't considered a crime now that it's been decriminalized. 20-30 years ago, I never ever saw open drug sales and drug use, open prostitution, mass looting/shoplifting, deaths from overdoses are exponentially worse, car break ins constantly, etc. And I do agree with the copaganda arguments in general, but I just can't align how much visible crime is all over the West Coast and this vague notion that crime isn't getting worse. Yeah, maybe if you're only tracking murders... but everything else is so much worse and our kids will be exposed to things we never saw until we were well past adulthood.

jmyeet 3y ago
> I see 'crime' all over now.. This is anecdotal. The data just doesn't back it up (eg [1]). You've brought up a number of issues As for retail theft, even the Walgreens CEO had to admit the problem was overstated [2]. There are a bunch of reasons for it. One is the crime narrative. Another is its easier for companies to blame theft rather than poor inventory management and retail operations. When you say you "see" crime everywhere, I suspect you mean it's all over your [social media of choice]. Today everyone has a camera. Another example is kidnapping. It wasn't that long ago we had the generation with TV ads asking parents if they knew where their kids were and telling them to come home when the street lights came on. Now? There's a completely overblown fear of kidnappings. We hear figures of >800K children being reported missing a year. Almost all of them are custody issues. Stranger kidnappings are more like ~8/year [3]. Fomenting fear of a crime epidemic is an intentional and well-funded political objective. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shoplifting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli... [3]: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N2SY199/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N2SY199/
- diogenescynic 3y ago
  No, I mean I see it with my own eyes when I walk/drive the same streets of California I have my entire life. When I was a kid, I would go to the skatepark at 10 years old and be there all day and basically have zero parent supervision and it was 'safe'. There was only one homeless person who was basically an older guy who pushed around a TV and plugged it in at various public outlets. Now, I go to the same public places and they are literally infested with fentanyl zombies who are stripping the copper wire out of the street lights... I see prostitutes walking the streets in public half naked in LA. If you have lived in SF, LA, Sacramento, or any of the other major metro areas--you can see it with your own eyes. It simply wasn't like this when I was a teenager in the early 2000s. >Fomenting fear of a crime epidemic is an intentional and well-funded political objective. Sure, but I just want to be able to walk in public and feel safe. That has all rapidly changed since Prop 47 passed in 2014. The entire west coast of America is in rapid decline and it's incredibly apparent--just look at any underpass or freeway offramp. Go to east Oakland and check out the Mad Max style homeless camps--it's not something that was there in 2001. I had a bullet come through my bathroom wall in SF and SFPD threw it in a sandwich baggie and never called me or did any investigation. I had multiple trespassers at my apartment building but SFPD never did anything until I finally got a restraining order... but they'd only remove them and then they'd come right back. When my grandpa died a few years ago, within a few days squatters somehow found out and moved in. Things are pretty objectively worse than they were 20 years ago. And all the stats are juked and tweaked because cops won't arrest, juries won't convict, and judges won't sentence criminals in California. The statistics are just fake at that point. I blame it on the rise of fentanyl and meth. Drugs are cheaper than ever and more widely available due to decriminalization.
  - hacoo 3y ago
    This is all correct. Stats lie. Crime is an extremely localized issue, so it's easy for people to handwave away if they are in an area that doesn't experience it.

jmyeet 3y ago

> I see 'crime' all over now.. This is anecdotal. The data just doesn't back it up (eg [1]). You've brought up a number of issues As for retail theft, even the Walgreens CEO had to admit the problem was overstated [2]. There are a bunch of reasons for it. One is the crime narrative. Another is its easier for companies to blame theft rather than poor inventory management and retail operations. When you say you "see" crime everywhere, I suspect you mean it's all over your [social media of choice]. Today everyone has a camera. Another example is kidnapping. It wasn't that long ago we had the generation with TV ads asking parents if they knew where their kids were and telling them to come home when the street lights came on. Now? There's a completely overblown fear of kidnappings. We hear figures of >800K children being reported missing a year. Almost all of them are custody issues. Stranger kidnappings are more like ~8/year [3]. Fomenting fear of a crime epidemic is an intentional and well-funded political objective. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shoplifting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli... [3]: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N2SY199/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N2SY199/

diogenescynic 3y ago
No, I mean I see it with my own eyes when I walk/drive the same streets of California I have my entire life. When I was a kid, I would go to the skatepark at 10 years old and be there all day and basically have zero parent supervision and it was 'safe'. There was only one homeless person who was basically an older guy who pushed around a TV and plugged it in at various public outlets. Now, I go to the same public places and they are literally infested with fentanyl zombies who are stripping the copper wire out of the street lights... I see prostitutes walking the streets in public half naked in LA. If you have lived in SF, LA, Sacramento, or any of the other major metro areas--you can see it with your own eyes. It simply wasn't like this when I was a teenager in the early 2000s. >Fomenting fear of a crime epidemic is an intentional and well-funded political objective. Sure, but I just want to be able to walk in public and feel safe. That has all rapidly changed since Prop 47 passed in 2014. The entire west coast of America is in rapid decline and it's incredibly apparent--just look at any underpass or freeway offramp. Go to east Oakland and check out the Mad Max style homeless camps--it's not something that was there in 2001. I had a bullet come through my bathroom wall in SF and SFPD threw it in a sandwich baggie and never called me or did any investigation. I had multiple trespassers at my apartment building but SFPD never did anything until I finally got a restraining order... but they'd only remove them and then they'd come right back. When my grandpa died a few years ago, within a few days squatters somehow found out and moved in. Things are pretty objectively worse than they were 20 years ago. And all the stats are juked and tweaked because cops won't arrest, juries won't convict, and judges won't sentence criminals in California. The statistics are just fake at that point. I blame it on the rise of fentanyl and meth. Drugs are cheaper than ever and more widely available due to decriminalization.
- hacoo 3y ago
  This is all correct. Stats lie. Crime is an extremely localized issue, so it's easy for people to handwave away if they are in an area that doesn't experience it.