5 ms·

My guess is the carpenter knows someone that knows someone in the police department that they actually did something, but in a normal situation, definitely they

My guess is the carpenter knows someone that knows someone in the police department that they actually did something, but in a normal situation, definitely they won’t bother.

FireBeyond 2y ago
Yeah, I pointed the police to someone who was selling fifty plus obviously stolen MacBooks and iPhones, including mine (all described as "locked", "no charger, no accessories", etc., etc.) and the could not possibly care less. "He probably was not the one who stole them." "Isn't it still a crime to sell stolen goods?" "Shrug."
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  The roots of police departments are the paid security forces of business owners, and their values as organizations reflect this. Business owners worked with local governments to create police departments to socialize some of the cost of securing their private property; their rented homes, their warehouses, their stores. And they reflect this to this day. Individual property crime doesn't mean shit. A criminal can sell your Macbook if they like, but if they steal from Apple itself? Oh man there will be hell to pay.
  - nickff 2y ago
    Where did you get this idea about the origins of police? It doesn’t agree with the history on Wikipedia, or my understanding of their origin (having more to do with rulers maintaining order). Corporations, and what you call ‘businesses’ are a very modern concept, long predated by rulers, courts, and police. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police
    - mingus88 2y ago
      OP’s description of police sounds very similar to the history of the Pinkerton organization in the U.S. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) Fast forward to today and it’s very common for private security to be composed of ex-cops and former military, creating a very fluid dynamic of all policing as a paramilitary organization in support of capitalism.
    - boomboomsubban 2y ago
      From your link >The first example of a statutory police force in the world was probably the High Constables of Edinburgh, formed in 1611 to police the streets of Edinburgh, then part of the Kingdom of Scotland. The constables, of whom half were merchants and half were craftsmen, were charged with enforcing 16 regulations relating to curfews, weapons, and theft. That sounds a lot like businesses working with government to secure their property.
      - nickff 2y ago
        Those 'statutory police' were predated by others by thousands of years, and it seems more like the king enlisted business owners to enforce the king's laws in the city than 'paid security forces of business owners'.
      - gravescale 2y ago
        Conversely, one of the first recognisably modern police force was Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police, which was explicitly not paramilitary and had (still does) a mandate to police by consent according to what are now called the Peelian Principles which quickly spread all round the country. This replaced, rather then grew out of, a mishmash of informal local watchmen and constables.
  - nick238 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ljf 2y ago
      I went to read a bit more about this - as this was something I was only vaguely aware of: https://theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-policing-from-slave-patrols-to-traffic-stops-112816 https://theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-pol... It seems there were police in the States before the Slave Patrols though.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      What do you think Slave Patrols were...? Security to enforce private property. Slaves were property. Runaway slaves might be property that stole itself, effectively, but it's the same thing. And also, the slave patrol link has much stronger ties in the southern states where slavery was more prominent. That's not to say it didn't happen in the north, of course it did, but it happened more in the south, the south's economy was near dependent upon both the slave trade and the massive amounts of free-at-point-of-use human labor that supplemented their agricultural industries. That's why the civil war happened and don't start with me about how it wasn't about slavery, the confederate constitution lays out in black and white (beige?) that it was absolutely, definitely about slavery. The south's economy would've utterly collapsed with total abolition.
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        > free-at-point-of-use human labor Slavery was not free. The slaver still had to guard, feed, house, and provide medical care. Contrary to common belief, the only industry where it was profitable to use slaves was cotton. (One reason the South failed to industrialize.) One of the problems the South had was even that was becoming steadily less profitable. The US became the dominant economic power of the world because of free (as in freedom) labor.
  - jjmarr 2y ago
    A common good like security should be socialized because the alternative is multiple independent groups enforcing property rights, and when they start to conflict, you get a civil war won by the person who spent the most on security. The idea that police are inherently corrupt because they developed from paid security forces ignores that the very process of development is what enshrined the rule of law over power.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      I don't disagree that security should be a socialized good, it's a good idea. That doesn't change the fact that police in the United States and elsewhere were formed in the basis of law not to protect people but to protect property. Even today courts have ruled that police are under no obligation to protect civilians from direct, inevitable harm. They are not there to protect you, they are there to protect "the peace" which can be fucking anything.
      - nicoburns 2y ago
        > police in the United States and elsewhere were formed in the basis of law not to protect people but to protect property. Be as that may (and as shitty as that is), this thread is about police forces utterly failing to protect property (or even attempt to).
        ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        Well right, my point is the damaged party is in the wrong class. That's why it's not being resolved.
        lliamander 2y ago
        The mass of unpunished retail crimes that has afflicted US cities these last several years rather undermines your narrative.
      - FireBeyond 2y ago
        > Even today courts have ruled that police are under no obligation to protect civilians Yeah, LAPD's "protect and serve" was dreamed up by the City's marketing arm in the 1950s. And those rulings have come because PDs have stood up and said "We have no obligation to prevent crime or protect people" and the courts have said, "Yup, you're right."
  - defen 2y ago
    > A criminal can sell your Macbook if they like, but if they steal from Apple itself? Oh man there will be hell to pay. Where do you get the idea that there will be "hell to pay" if you steal from Apple itself? People regularly run out of Apple stores with tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and never get caught.
    - cwmma 2y ago
      There is an amount of theft that apple is OK with because preventing it would hurt sales and occasional theift of product they can easily brick is certainly under that limit, plus there is likelyreporting biases, as it's likely you've seen videos of it happening but when there are arrests or recoverys you havn't seen those reports.
      - google234123 2y ago
        This is a regressive and defeatist attitude. We actually don't have to tolerate this in a society- those engaging in it should be punished and forcibly removed if they aren't able to change.
        ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        Evidence has shown that punitive penalties for crime do not affect crime rates.
        senderista 2y ago
        Studies have shown that reality conforms to my prejudices.
        WalterBright 2y ago
        Recent events show that not prosecuting crimes leads to crime waves.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        "those engaging in it should be punished" isn't a call for harsher penalties, it's a call for consistent penalties, which is a good idea.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  If you are asking a best cop, what can they do? Legos shoplifted from Target were being openly sold at a thrift stall in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, everyone knew they were stolen, but until there was someone to formally connect the dots (they noticed legos from their store stolen at the thrift shop), the cops really couldn’t do anything about it.
  - hcknwscommenter 2y ago
    Seriously? Cops really can't do anything unless all the evidence is gathered by citizens and then handed to them?
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      They have detectives and can go do stings and such. But a beat cop, no, not really.
      - themacguffinman 2y ago
        It's possible for a beat cop to hand off a complicated case to detectives in their police department. I realize this kind of collaboration requires the police to give a shit, but it is possible.

My guess is the carpenter knows someone that knows someone in the police department that they actually did something, but in a normal situation, definitely they won’t bother.

FireBeyond 2y ago

Yeah, I pointed the police to someone who was selling fifty plus obviously stolen MacBooks and iPhones, including mine (all described as "locked", "no charger, no accessories", etc., etc.) and the could not possibly care less. "He probably was not the one who stole them." "Isn't it still a crime to sell stolen goods?" "Shrug."

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
The roots of police departments are the paid security forces of business owners, and their values as organizations reflect this. Business owners worked with local governments to create police departments to socialize some of the cost of securing their private property; their rented homes, their warehouses, their stores. And they reflect this to this day. Individual property crime doesn't mean shit. A criminal can sell your Macbook if they like, but if they steal from Apple itself? Oh man there will be hell to pay.
- nickff 2y ago
  Where did you get this idea about the origins of police? It doesn’t agree with the history on Wikipedia, or my understanding of their origin (having more to do with rulers maintaining order). Corporations, and what you call ‘businesses’ are a very modern concept, long predated by rulers, courts, and police. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police
  - mingus88 2y ago
    OP’s description of police sounds very similar to the history of the Pinkerton organization in the U.S. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency) Fast forward to today and it’s very common for private security to be composed of ex-cops and former military, creating a very fluid dynamic of all policing as a paramilitary organization in support of capitalism.
  - boomboomsubban 2y ago
    From your link >The first example of a statutory police force in the world was probably the High Constables of Edinburgh, formed in 1611 to police the streets of Edinburgh, then part of the Kingdom of Scotland. The constables, of whom half were merchants and half were craftsmen, were charged with enforcing 16 regulations relating to curfews, weapons, and theft. That sounds a lot like businesses working with government to secure their property.
    - nickff 2y ago
      Those 'statutory police' were predated by others by thousands of years, and it seems more like the king enlisted business owners to enforce the king's laws in the city than 'paid security forces of business owners'.
    - gravescale 2y ago
      Conversely, one of the first recognisably modern police force was Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police, which was explicitly not paramilitary and had (still does) a mandate to police by consent according to what are now called the Peelian Principles which quickly spread all round the country. This replaced, rather then grew out of, a mishmash of informal local watchmen and constables.
- nick238 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ljf 2y ago
    I went to read a bit more about this - as this was something I was only vaguely aware of: https://theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-policing-from-slave-patrols-to-traffic-stops-112816 https://theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-pol... It seems there were police in the States before the Slave Patrols though.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    What do you think Slave Patrols were...? Security to enforce private property. Slaves were property. Runaway slaves might be property that stole itself, effectively, but it's the same thing. And also, the slave patrol link has much stronger ties in the southern states where slavery was more prominent. That's not to say it didn't happen in the north, of course it did, but it happened more in the south, the south's economy was near dependent upon both the slave trade and the massive amounts of free-at-point-of-use human labor that supplemented their agricultural industries. That's why the civil war happened and don't start with me about how it wasn't about slavery, the confederate constitution lays out in black and white (beige?) that it was absolutely, definitely about slavery. The south's economy would've utterly collapsed with total abolition.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      > free-at-point-of-use human labor Slavery was not free. The slaver still had to guard, feed, house, and provide medical care. Contrary to common belief, the only industry where it was profitable to use slaves was cotton. (One reason the South failed to industrialize.) One of the problems the South had was even that was becoming steadily less profitable. The US became the dominant economic power of the world because of free (as in freedom) labor.
- jjmarr 2y ago
  A common good like security should be socialized because the alternative is multiple independent groups enforcing property rights, and when they start to conflict, you get a civil war won by the person who spent the most on security. The idea that police are inherently corrupt because they developed from paid security forces ignores that the very process of development is what enshrined the rule of law over power.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    I don't disagree that security should be a socialized good, it's a good idea. That doesn't change the fact that police in the United States and elsewhere were formed in the basis of law not to protect people but to protect property. Even today courts have ruled that police are under no obligation to protect civilians from direct, inevitable harm. They are not there to protect you, they are there to protect "the peace" which can be fucking anything.
    - nicoburns 2y ago
      > police in the United States and elsewhere were formed in the basis of law not to protect people but to protect property. Be as that may (and as shitty as that is), this thread is about police forces utterly failing to protect property (or even attempt to).
      - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        Well right, my point is the damaged party is in the wrong class. That's why it's not being resolved.
        lliamander 2y ago
        The mass of unpunished retail crimes that has afflicted US cities these last several years rather undermines your narrative.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      > Even today courts have ruled that police are under no obligation to protect civilians Yeah, LAPD's "protect and serve" was dreamed up by the City's marketing arm in the 1950s. And those rulings have come because PDs have stood up and said "We have no obligation to prevent crime or protect people" and the courts have said, "Yup, you're right."
- defen 2y ago
  > A criminal can sell your Macbook if they like, but if they steal from Apple itself? Oh man there will be hell to pay. Where do you get the idea that there will be "hell to pay" if you steal from Apple itself? People regularly run out of Apple stores with tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and never get caught.
  - cwmma 2y ago
    There is an amount of theft that apple is OK with because preventing it would hurt sales and occasional theift of product they can easily brick is certainly under that limit, plus there is likelyreporting biases, as it's likely you've seen videos of it happening but when there are arrests or recoverys you havn't seen those reports.
    - google234123 2y ago
      This is a regressive and defeatist attitude. We actually don't have to tolerate this in a society- those engaging in it should be punished and forcibly removed if they aren't able to change.
      - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        Evidence has shown that punitive penalties for crime do not affect crime rates.
        senderista 2y ago
        Studies have shown that reality conforms to my prejudices.
        WalterBright 2y ago
        Recent events show that not prosecuting crimes leads to crime waves.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        "those engaging in it should be punished" isn't a call for harsher penalties, it's a call for consistent penalties, which is a good idea.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
If you are asking a best cop, what can they do? Legos shoplifted from Target were being openly sold at a thrift stall in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, everyone knew they were stolen, but until there was someone to formally connect the dots (they noticed legos from their store stolen at the thrift shop), the cops really couldn’t do anything about it.
- hcknwscommenter 2y ago
  Seriously? Cops really can't do anything unless all the evidence is gathered by citizens and then handed to them?
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    They have detectives and can go do stings and such. But a beat cop, no, not really.
    - themacguffinman 2y ago
      It's possible for a beat cop to hand off a complicated case to detectives in their police department. I realize this kind of collaboration requires the police to give a shit, but it is possible.