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Metal thieves in America's cities

63 points by gumby 2y ago

office_drone 2y ago
https://archive.is/RiuFM https://archive.is/RiuFM
tomcam 2y ago
Be nice if the cities had police, and if they had prosecutors willing to put people in jail for property theft.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  If I hear “but the underlying causes” or “maybe they’re poor” one more time, so help me… But seriously, this isn’t an either/or game. We can and should fight the underlying causes simultaneously while arresting people, temporarily preventing them from doing further damage. Also, part of life is realizing there are people who commit crime just for the heck of it, who have no interest in reform, and arrive at that lifestyle from a wide array of backgrounds. I still vividly remember when a news station in LA chased a beggar and found they lived in a mansion.
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    That beggar must have inherited a lot of wealth because you normally have to commit way more lucrative crimes to own an LA mansion.
  - ok_dad 2y ago
    I guess we solid fund the scrap yards taking this material and punish them too, since they enable it. I suggest we jail the execs and managers there for not putting systems in place to prevent paying for stolen materials. I bet this would stop it really quick, and we only have to prosecute a few people rather than every thief, because of supply and demand; reducing demand immensely will make it not worth stealing infrastructure.
    - gjsman-1000 2y ago
      That’s a straw man because it shifts the blame onto the objects, and victims, of the theft rather than the thief. It doesn’t matter what it is, crime is typically opportunistic. Next week, it will be smashing houses to steal jewelry. A month from now, it will be catalytic converters. A year, robbing laptops and getting decryption keys at gunpoint. Who needs to be punished here? The thief. Who needs to change? The thief. Who needs to be taken out of society if they voluntarily choose to not change? The thief.
      - ok_dad 2y ago
        Scrapyards are what we’re talking about here, don’t expand into other arguments needlessly. We’re not talking about jewelry or electronics at the moment. Do you think it’s acceptable to take 300 feet of commercial copper wiring from a random dude and pay him for it without question? Punish the thieves, but also roll them over to testify against the obvious criminality happening in the scrapyards. You’re laying all the blame on the small thieves, but this kind of massive theft requires a supporting demand. Targeting one side is this equation doesn’t work.
        gjsman-1000 2y ago
        > Do you think it’s acceptable to take 300 feet of commercial copper wiring from a random dude and pay him for it without question? Well, here’s the problem with that: You’re showing that the scrapyards are acting as though we are living in a high-trust society, and act as though everything was legit. Your proposal is to once again force the scrapyard to change and act like a potential customer is a thief. This is dangerous logic, because consider: - Should computers have mandatory spyware? Many of their users do illegal things, some morally repugnant. - Should stores check your ID at the door, even Walmart? That would surely stop thieves, it’s their own fault if they don’t. My point is that there are no shortages of industries which have criminal customers. Even the company hosting your little web server. I don’t like scrapyards; but I believe that it is the job of police to allow society to function like we can trust each other. If that means the scrapyards are a little trashy; so be it.
- RRWagner 2y ago
  That would be contrary to lower taxes and less government, which many people claim to want.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    The highest tax cities I have been in have the worst police, the worst roads, and the worst trash handling. Police and other basic services are very cheap compared to many of the programs undertaken by high-tax cities.
    - hobs 2y ago
      That very much depends on your city, in some places cops take up more than 20% of city budgets, in some places more than 40% of the city budget is taken up by policing.
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago
        Where I live today, about 40% of the town budget goes to firefighters and police together. I was honestly surprised it was that low. However, it's one of the basic functions of a city and I live in a very low-tax place. I don't think you should generally be upset that police cost a lot of a town's budget, especially if the budget is small. By contrast, I used to live in NYC, which had a budget of over $100 billion, of which about 5% was the police department.
    - swayvil 2y ago
      A small city in southern il. Surrounded by prisons.The new home of choice for recently released prisoners. It's where all cities within 100 miles send their problem homeless. Primary industries: retirement communities, abortion services, care for the mentally disabled and a small university. Worst restaurants. Many trailer parks. Half the population collects welfare. High taxes Unreasonably large police station and train station. Seriously. Huge. It's like they're setting something up. Any other cities like this?
    - threatofrain 2y ago
- RRWagner 2y ago
  That would be contrary to lower taxes and less government, which many people claim to want.
  - vondur 2y ago
    Hmm, I see two examples from Los Angeles California, which isn't known for lower taxes and less government.
- pjmorris 2y ago
  It'd be nice if people were well-off enough that they didn't have to strip-mine the infrastructure. The economic optimization continues.
  - kurthr 2y ago
    It's pretty easy to do a few $k of drugs in a week. Do the calculation. The people buying the "recycled" metal are the ones making bank. Why bother investigating or prosecuting them? Also, this has been going on for decades.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
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- VoodooJuJu 2y ago
  I think it's more important for the cities to be tolerant and inclusive of theft culture. Theft is just part and parcel of living in a large city and diversity makes us stronger.
- sneak 2y ago
  It costs way more to jail people. Prison isn’t free.
  - IncreasePosts 2y ago
    Who cares? The point is we live in a society of laws, not that we choose which laws have teeth because the cost of punishing someone is greater than the cost of the crime.
    - silverquiet 2y ago
      > The point is we live in a society of laws I used to believe this, but watching the Trump presidency really shook something loose for me, and now I pretty much believe we live more in a society of "whatever you can get away with" if I was to put my feeling into words. You might think that that means I feel like I can do whatever I want, but it's sort of made me realize how important my own morality is to me and I feel like I'm living the best I have in my lifetime. I guess it didn't have that effect on everyone however.
dymk 2y ago
Scrap recyclers should be required to keep a log of who they're buying scrap from, so there's a paper trail to identify patterns with. Some states require scrap yards to do that with catalytic converters, for the same reason.
- rwmj 2y ago
  There was the same issue in the UK a few years ago (with thieves even stripping copper war memorials), and the solution was indeed this, making recyclers demand ID from people and keep logs.
  - PlunderBunny 2y ago
    Ditto New Zealand. The first time I took some scrap metal to a dealer, I had to fill in a lot of paperwork, but subsequent visits required me to only show my id.
- 50208 2y ago
  This ... it's the recyclers that need to stop this ... or be forced to stop it.
- sneak 2y ago
  These people are buying valuable resources for pennies on the dollar in cash. They are hugely incentivized to not ask too many questions.
  - christophilus 2y ago
    Hence, “should be required to…” If you make non-compliance with the law far more painful than the profits from illegal metals, you’ve fixed the incentive problem.
    - Ferret7446 2y ago
      It's pointless to require something if you can't enforce it.
phone8675309 2y ago
[flagged]
- Faaak 2y ago
  "Oh, sorry for the mistake.. and for your hands too, I guess?"
haburka 2y ago
Insane that we are at the level of poverty where deconstructing infrastructure makes economic sense to people. It’s insane the amount of effort and shamelessness people are willing to go through for a few hundred bucks. When you consider how high minimum wage is in LA too, it’s ridiculous they can’t find work instead of going as low as this.
- glass1122 2y ago
  when you are hungry, poor and desperate, the lines between shameless, guilt all starting to vanish.
  - sporc 2y ago
    more like "fiending" than "hungry".
  - docandrew 2y ago
    When they put hidden cameras inside packages to catch porch pirates, plenty of thieves have a decent apartment, big screen TV. They’re not stealing groceries, they’re stealing things to fence.
    - BadHumans 2y ago
      Stealing groceries doesn't pay the electricity bill.
      - pie420 2y ago
        of course it does. you steal 20 deoderant sticks, 3 jugs of laundry detergent, 6 packs of gillete razors, and a couple of 12 packs of RX Bars, and you can fence that for $60-80 in SF. You can easily do a couple of fencing runs a day. conservatively thats $2400 a month if you do 2x runs a day 5 days a week lol. Plenty of people in SF make a living like this. Every couple of months the feds catch a fencing operation selling millions of dollars of stolen items on ebay a year. Deoderant in particular is incredibly profitable because it sells super well on ebay. Just search old spice deoderant on ebay and look at all of the obviously stolen merchandise. It's funny though, because it kinda creates tons of jobs. the highly incompetent just steal and sell to fencers, the semi-incompetent buy stolen goods and fence them on ebay, and poor consumers get to buy slightly cheaper goods on ebay. the only people who lose are stores elling goods, and consumers who have to ask salespeople to open the locked up merchandise.
InfiniteTitan 2y ago
I’ll never understand promoting the hysterical media driven vilification of crimes of poverty.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 2y ago
  The costs of repairing the damage vastly exceed the earnings obtained by the criminal. The article gives the example $85k in damage incurred to repair damage that yielded $394 in scrap. This destruction of wealth harms overall welfare, and deprives the government of resources, which hurts poor people especially. In other words, even if you only care about people who live in poverty, you should support a crackdown that will deter crimes like this.
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    I wonder what the costs to prosecute a criminal are? I'm pretty cynical, so if I heard about $85K, I wouldn't be all that surprised.
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 2y ago
      You never have to prosecute the crimes you deter. And if you don’t deter at all the crimes will just keep increasing. A city where only gated communities have electricity is not good for the poor.
- monkmartinez 2y ago
  These are not crimes of poverty. These are crimes of people that literally don't give a f** about anyone but themselves and getting their next fix. Go ride along with your local PD or fire department to see the bulls** for yourself.
- happytoexplain 2y ago
  Even giving the benefit of the doubt that we can decide whether a thief was doing it to alleviate their poverty, it's still impossible to paint "poverty" theft as broadly sympathetic, since logically only a subset of thieves are making a sympathetic decision based on their personal circumstances. I.e. simply being poor doesn't mean you are stealing because you were forced into unfair circumstances and it's the only option you have left and your child is sick, etc. Yes, Americans have a problem regarding crime perception - a lack of sympathy and a thirst for punishment. But your attitude is simply the opposite problem. Trying to use your broad paintbrush is only going to create antagonism. People understandably hate crime - hate. It ruins homes, businesses, communities, one's sense of safety and camaraderie - all of the things we work hardest for and hold dearest. It's too much to ask.
kiratp 2y ago
Its really grating to see headlines phrased this way, implying extreme outcomes. To someone not living in a city, it paints an immediate picture of dystopia. It pushes the rural-city divide further - the last thing we need more of.
glzone1 2y ago
"social malaise lingering since the pandemic and soaring demand for metals, especially for copper, has brought this street crime to new levels." It's interesting that absolutely no mention of changes to policing / prosecution. Across Los Angeles County, more than 290 fire hydrants have gone missing since January. In my town we are having electric outages because of this (they call it "vandalism") "Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez joined Hernandez in opposing the motions, even though he had initially supported the idea. He asked his colleagues to understand that the thefts might be committed by people living in poverty who are pushed into acts of desperation." A note that the costs to report, schedule, supply, staff and roll a govt truck to do a fire hydrant or street light are not cheap. The poor person will get some money from wiring, but the city will be spending 10x - 100x that to get the infrastructure fixed up - so not sure allowing theft as a result of the pandemic or poverty is the most efficient way to address poverty? Insulated coper wire is about $1.50 per pound to recycle at a metal buyer.
- frankus 2y ago
  What makes the multiplier even more wild is when you consider the proceeds are probably being used (by the front-line thieves) to buy drugs whose cost is something like 10x–100x higher than the cost of production. Many (including me) would consider it unethical but I understand the temptation to cut out several layers of middlemen and just have the government hand out drugs.
rgreekguy 2y ago
[flagged]
- notaustinpowers 2y ago
  This has nothing to do with the Romani people and your low-effort, racist tropes do not belong on this message board.
  - therealdkz 2y ago
    have you coexisted with romani ppl?
    - notaustinpowers 2y ago
      Yes, I have, and?
erulabs 2y ago
You can say “just sort out who is doing this!” and you can say “what has happened to the world that it’s come to this!” And the answer to both is the same: Drugs. You’re stealing copper wiring because you’re an addict. You’re not getting a minimum wage job because you’re an addict. You live in poverty because you’re an addict. Comments lamenting the state of society are as useful as kicking dirt. Either build better bridges or make better medicine. Now one of you smart people comment something useful in this thread about tech that can cure dependency issues!
- mattlondon 2y ago
  Get them hooked on social media before they get hooked on drugs. But seriously, just regulate the recyclers where people are eventually taking this stuff.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  People live in poverty without being an addict; it's not an either/or, and you're punching down on both poor people and addicts, neither of which is helpful. Tech will not cure dependency issues, it's biochemists, biologists, and psychologists that are at the forefront of that, and there isn't a universal cure for addiction. Tech also won't solve poverty, which is a political issue.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Cheap access to GLP-1 agonists might help with addiction. I have facilitated someone getting access for alcoholism, and it’s like night and day, with them being fully functional. Appears to be an incredibly powerful force multiplier, just need to scale up (can be manufactured for less than $5/month/person). My apologies for going off topic, confirming your point to solve addiction to solve these second order effects of mental health challenges and poverty. Secure (basic needs), functional humans with basic needs met don't strip infra and homes for copper. > Tech will not cure dependency issues, it's biochemists, biologists, and psychologists that are at the forefront of that, and there isn't a universal cure for addiction. Tech also won't solve poverty, which is a political issue. Preach. https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/wegovy-and-ozempic-semaglutide-are https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/wegovy-and-ozempic-semaglu... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40565144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40565144 https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-case-for-using https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-cas... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48780-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48780-6
legitster 2y ago
> But the combination of the economic ills and social malaise lingering since the pandemic and soaring demand for metals, especially for copper, has brought this street crime to new levels. Hmmm. There's something missing from this explanation. While I don't think these reasons are wrong, we are being gaslit about some of the knock-on effects of our sudden cultural attitude towards our justice system that happened at this time. Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore.
- monkmartinez 2y ago
  > Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore. For good reasons too! It F**ing sucks dealing with ALL the problems of a city. Ask me how I know! None of us, first responders, are allowed/empowered to do our damn jobs. We have been effectively neutered by woke activists that think everyone is out to get them. All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes.
  - BadHumans 2y ago
    Blaming the "woke" people and not corrupt police officers that indiscriminately murder people or the system that protects them is pretty telling.
    - mythrwy 2y ago
      Can we blame both, but not use the term "woke"? Just "activists" is fine.
      - MisterBastahrd 2y ago
        It certainly makes it easier to ignore the people doing the complaining.
        anthony_d 2y ago
DaoVeles 2y ago
It is things like this that make me occasionally think we are in the modern version of the library of Alexandria. We have the peak of technology and knowledge and yet the core base of the society is rotting away, alas we know how it ended last time. Perhaps we to go the way of the neoplatonists?
- asdff 2y ago
  When has the core base of society ever not been rotten? I think what is changing now is that people went from a few happy go lucky decades of being flabbergasted that anything bad can happen, to the media pendulum swinging the other way of showing us the ugly truth too much and assuming things happen even more often than they truly do, at least in terms of your real personal odds of risk.
_fat_santa 2y ago
Looking at crime in general around cities and not just metal theft, I think that it's the result of a mismatch of incentives and disincentives. If you are in poverty in America and want to get help, it's pretty easy to get. You can get food stamps to buy food, to go a shelter or section 8 for housing, we have welfare and many other programs to take care of folks who ask for it. But each of those programs has rules, you can't buy booze with your food stamps and you can't bring drugs into a shelter for example. Some people don't like this tradeoff so they resort to theft, whether breaking into a car or stealing the copper wiring out of a lightpole. And that is where the issue is, while we are pouring tons and tons of resources into the inventive, we as a society are neglecting the fact that you also need disincentives. We need to make sure that we show people that we have incentives to get them back on their feet, get them healthy and get them fed but we also need to show equal disincentives if they choose to break the law.
- joe_the_user 2y ago
  If you are in poverty in America and want to get help, it's pretty easy to get. No, you're wrong. The only thing one can say is "many programs exist" but they are altogether inadequate even without their restrictions (which you're minimizing). Most places section 8 housing is nearly impossible to get with years waits common. Shelters have extremely restrictive conditions as well as being very unpleasant (being around people destroyed by the system isn't good for even those not yet in terrible condition). Also, drugs and alcohol are often by homeless people to get to sleep in circumstances where it would be otherwise impossible.
- CobrastanJorji 2y ago
  I'm not sure "pretty easy" is fair. In my city, there's a lottery for Section 8 housing. The applications are regularly closed. I think our applications might've been closed since 2020 (https://www.kcha.org/housing/vouchers/lottery https://www.kcha.org/housing/vouchers/lottery). The people who got on that list before 2020 are periodically chosen in a lottery when vouchers occasionally become available. Once they have the voucher, they are then responsible for finding a landlord that accepts Section 8 housing vouchers and has an availability. That's not to say that there aren't many options for aid, but many of these programs are much less available than you'd think.
Severian 2y ago
Prosecute the scrap metal yards more harshly, have a "police book" like used car lots and pawn shops. Document the person selling, get a photo of the same with the persons face, etc, etc. Only allow maximum amounts of metal to be recycled unless said person has a registered business, per day/week/whatever. Regulate it. There isn't an incentive if you can't sell it. As a commentator indicated below people were scrapping fire hydrants. Wouldn't this be a huge red flag?? "Oh yeah, I see you have 5 hydrants here to sell. I can't think of where these could have possibly have come from."
soperj 2y ago
Sackler family is likely the most responsible for this.
h2odragon 2y ago
quick look at my usual place shows them paying $0.15/lb for clean lead, 3cents less for batteries; and up to $2.20lb for clean copper. At the peak in 2007, lead was worth at least 1/3rd more. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lead https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lead ... so i dunno about "soaring demand for metals", cuz the market doesn't seem to show that. copper is higher than the 2011 peak, but not that much more. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper
mythrwy 2y ago
I replace my HVAC system last month. I did it myself (yes, this can be done with some research!). I took the old one to a metal scrap yard, inside unit and outside. They made me go back home and cut some stuff apart for "top dollar" (which wasn't worth it really but I did it anyway). Very surprised at what I received. I had over 200 pounds of "tin" (they called it) which was basically scrap steel. That fetched around $10 at $.04 a pound. The aluminum radiators fetched $.37 a pound coming to nearly $20. The old copper refrigerant lines however fetched around $3.50 a pound (nearly $60) and they were a small part of the whole system weight-wise, but most of the money. The owner got visibly excited when he saw the copper lines so I assume it's pretty profitable on that end too. Overall I got close to $100 which wasn't worth the work, but it needed to be disposed of anyway. It was also "interesting" as I'd never been in a scrap yard before. Lots of shady looking folks coming in (some on bicycles) while I was there. The disparity in metals pricing was surprising, with copper being worth more and aluminum way less then I'd thought. Also interesting was it was pretty close to a 10X ratio for each metal. Copper = 10X aluminum. Aluminum = 10X steel.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
Copper theft is totally a thing in Europe too, in many countries. First country I find by googling is Germany but copper thieves are stealing cables alongside railroad in France, Belgium, etc. https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/copper-railway-theft-europe-delays-costs-techniques-recycling https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/copper-railway-theft-eur... And it is regularly disrupting trains. These thieves do not care for the community. They do care about fake Luis Vuitton caps (convinced they're highly stylish with their Luis Vuitton caps and Luis Vuitton manpurses) and the latest iPhone though.
reader_x 2y ago
Last month while cleaning out a relative’s house, I made my first trip to a metal scrap yard. I had fishing weights (lead), old copper pipes, rolls of electrical wire, broken aluminum chairs - and street signs. I assumed the scrap yard would reject the street sign since, if they would accept it, why wouldn’t people steal them routinely? To my surprise they accepted everything, asked no questions nor asked for ID, and paid cash. The incentives here are clear. Maybe it’s the point of sale that needs closer scrutiny since police can’t guard all the light poles 24/7.
- Server6 2y ago
  Most scrap yards are run by shady goons who don't care enough to enforce the rules.
banish-m4 2y ago
It's roughly similar to what happened after the fall of the Soviet Union. Power lines were routinely stolen for scrap. When there is massive inequality (or rampant drug abuse) and inadequate law enforcement, people on the fringes cannibalize essential infrastructure and sacred spaces. Meanwhile, the very rich take advantage of the situation to gain more power and benefits.

63 points by gumby 2y ago

office_drone 2y ago

https://archive.is/RiuFM https://archive.is/RiuFM

tomcam 2y ago

Be nice if the cities had police, and if they had prosecutors willing to put people in jail for property theft.

gjsman-1000 2y ago
If I hear “but the underlying causes” or “maybe they’re poor” one more time, so help me… But seriously, this isn’t an either/or game. We can and should fight the underlying causes simultaneously while arresting people, temporarily preventing them from doing further damage. Also, part of life is realizing there are people who commit crime just for the heck of it, who have no interest in reform, and arrive at that lifestyle from a wide array of backgrounds. I still vividly remember when a news station in LA chased a beggar and found they lived in a mansion.
- silverquiet 2y ago
  That beggar must have inherited a lot of wealth because you normally have to commit way more lucrative crimes to own an LA mansion.
- ok_dad 2y ago
  I guess we solid fund the scrap yards taking this material and punish them too, since they enable it. I suggest we jail the execs and managers there for not putting systems in place to prevent paying for stolen materials. I bet this would stop it really quick, and we only have to prosecute a few people rather than every thief, because of supply and demand; reducing demand immensely will make it not worth stealing infrastructure.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    That’s a straw man because it shifts the blame onto the objects, and victims, of the theft rather than the thief. It doesn’t matter what it is, crime is typically opportunistic. Next week, it will be smashing houses to steal jewelry. A month from now, it will be catalytic converters. A year, robbing laptops and getting decryption keys at gunpoint. Who needs to be punished here? The thief. Who needs to change? The thief. Who needs to be taken out of society if they voluntarily choose to not change? The thief.
    - ok_dad 2y ago
      Scrapyards are what we’re talking about here, don’t expand into other arguments needlessly. We’re not talking about jewelry or electronics at the moment. Do you think it’s acceptable to take 300 feet of commercial copper wiring from a random dude and pay him for it without question? Punish the thieves, but also roll them over to testify against the obvious criminality happening in the scrapyards. You’re laying all the blame on the small thieves, but this kind of massive theft requires a supporting demand. Targeting one side is this equation doesn’t work.
      - gjsman-1000 2y ago
        > Do you think it’s acceptable to take 300 feet of commercial copper wiring from a random dude and pay him for it without question? Well, here’s the problem with that: You’re showing that the scrapyards are acting as though we are living in a high-trust society, and act as though everything was legit. Your proposal is to once again force the scrapyard to change and act like a potential customer is a thief. This is dangerous logic, because consider: - Should computers have mandatory spyware? Many of their users do illegal things, some morally repugnant. - Should stores check your ID at the door, even Walmart? That would surely stop thieves, it’s their own fault if they don’t. My point is that there are no shortages of industries which have criminal customers. Even the company hosting your little web server. I don’t like scrapyards; but I believe that it is the job of police to allow society to function like we can trust each other. If that means the scrapyards are a little trashy; so be it.
RRWagner 2y ago
That would be contrary to lower taxes and less government, which many people claim to want.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  The highest tax cities I have been in have the worst police, the worst roads, and the worst trash handling. Police and other basic services are very cheap compared to many of the programs undertaken by high-tax cities.
  - hobs 2y ago
    That very much depends on your city, in some places cops take up more than 20% of city budgets, in some places more than 40% of the city budget is taken up by policing.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      Where I live today, about 40% of the town budget goes to firefighters and police together. I was honestly surprised it was that low. However, it's one of the basic functions of a city and I live in a very low-tax place. I don't think you should generally be upset that police cost a lot of a town's budget, especially if the budget is small. By contrast, I used to live in NYC, which had a budget of over $100 billion, of which about 5% was the police department.
  - swayvil 2y ago
    A small city in southern il. Surrounded by prisons.The new home of choice for recently released prisoners. It's where all cities within 100 miles send their problem homeless. Primary industries: retirement communities, abortion services, care for the mentally disabled and a small university. Worst restaurants. Many trailer parks. Half the population collects welfare. High taxes Unreasonably large police station and train station. Seriously. Huge. It's like they're setting something up. Any other cities like this?
  - threatofrain 2y ago
RRWagner 2y ago
That would be contrary to lower taxes and less government, which many people claim to want.
- vondur 2y ago
  Hmm, I see two examples from Los Angeles California, which isn't known for lower taxes and less government.
pjmorris 2y ago
It'd be nice if people were well-off enough that they didn't have to strip-mine the infrastructure. The economic optimization continues.
- kurthr 2y ago
  It's pretty easy to do a few $k of drugs in a week. Do the calculation. The people buying the "recycled" metal are the ones making bank. Why bother investigating or prosecuting them? Also, this has been going on for decades.
  - deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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VoodooJuJu 2y ago
I think it's more important for the cities to be tolerant and inclusive of theft culture. Theft is just part and parcel of living in a large city and diversity makes us stronger.
sneak 2y ago
It costs way more to jail people. Prison isn’t free.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  Who cares? The point is we live in a society of laws, not that we choose which laws have teeth because the cost of punishing someone is greater than the cost of the crime.
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    > The point is we live in a society of laws I used to believe this, but watching the Trump presidency really shook something loose for me, and now I pretty much believe we live more in a society of "whatever you can get away with" if I was to put my feeling into words. You might think that that means I feel like I can do whatever I want, but it's sort of made me realize how important my own morality is to me and I feel like I'm living the best I have in my lifetime. I guess it didn't have that effect on everyone however.

dymk 2y ago

Scrap recyclers should be required to keep a log of who they're buying scrap from, so there's a paper trail to identify patterns with. Some states require scrap yards to do that with catalytic converters, for the same reason.

rwmj 2y ago
There was the same issue in the UK a few years ago (with thieves even stripping copper war memorials), and the solution was indeed this, making recyclers demand ID from people and keep logs.
- PlunderBunny 2y ago
  Ditto New Zealand. The first time I took some scrap metal to a dealer, I had to fill in a lot of paperwork, but subsequent visits required me to only show my id.
50208 2y ago
This ... it's the recyclers that need to stop this ... or be forced to stop it.
sneak 2y ago
These people are buying valuable resources for pennies on the dollar in cash. They are hugely incentivized to not ask too many questions.
- christophilus 2y ago
  Hence, “should be required to…” If you make non-compliance with the law far more painful than the profits from illegal metals, you’ve fixed the incentive problem.
  - Ferret7446 2y ago
    It's pointless to require something if you can't enforce it.

phone8675309 2y ago

[flagged]

Faaak 2y ago
"Oh, sorry for the mistake.. and for your hands too, I guess?"

haburka 2y ago

Insane that we are at the level of poverty where deconstructing infrastructure makes economic sense to people. It’s insane the amount of effort and shamelessness people are willing to go through for a few hundred bucks. When you consider how high minimum wage is in LA too, it’s ridiculous they can’t find work instead of going as low as this.

glass1122 2y ago
when you are hungry, poor and desperate, the lines between shameless, guilt all starting to vanish.
- sporc 2y ago
  more like "fiending" than "hungry".
- docandrew 2y ago
  When they put hidden cameras inside packages to catch porch pirates, plenty of thieves have a decent apartment, big screen TV. They’re not stealing groceries, they’re stealing things to fence.
  - BadHumans 2y ago
    Stealing groceries doesn't pay the electricity bill.
    - pie420 2y ago
      of course it does. you steal 20 deoderant sticks, 3 jugs of laundry detergent, 6 packs of gillete razors, and a couple of 12 packs of RX Bars, and you can fence that for $60-80 in SF. You can easily do a couple of fencing runs a day. conservatively thats $2400 a month if you do 2x runs a day 5 days a week lol. Plenty of people in SF make a living like this. Every couple of months the feds catch a fencing operation selling millions of dollars of stolen items on ebay a year. Deoderant in particular is incredibly profitable because it sells super well on ebay. Just search old spice deoderant on ebay and look at all of the obviously stolen merchandise. It's funny though, because it kinda creates tons of jobs. the highly incompetent just steal and sell to fencers, the semi-incompetent buy stolen goods and fence them on ebay, and poor consumers get to buy slightly cheaper goods on ebay. the only people who lose are stores elling goods, and consumers who have to ask salespeople to open the locked up merchandise.

InfiniteTitan 2y ago

I’ll never understand promoting the hysterical media driven vilification of crimes of poverty.

fshbbdssbbgdd 2y ago
The costs of repairing the damage vastly exceed the earnings obtained by the criminal. The article gives the example $85k in damage incurred to repair damage that yielded $394 in scrap. This destruction of wealth harms overall welfare, and deprives the government of resources, which hurts poor people especially. In other words, even if you only care about people who live in poverty, you should support a crackdown that will deter crimes like this.
- silverquiet 2y ago
  I wonder what the costs to prosecute a criminal are? I'm pretty cynical, so if I heard about $85K, I wouldn't be all that surprised.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 2y ago
    You never have to prosecute the crimes you deter. And if you don’t deter at all the crimes will just keep increasing. A city where only gated communities have electricity is not good for the poor.
monkmartinez 2y ago
These are not crimes of poverty. These are crimes of people that literally don't give a f** about anyone but themselves and getting their next fix. Go ride along with your local PD or fire department to see the bulls** for yourself.
happytoexplain 2y ago
Even giving the benefit of the doubt that we can decide whether a thief was doing it to alleviate their poverty, it's still impossible to paint "poverty" theft as broadly sympathetic, since logically only a subset of thieves are making a sympathetic decision based on their personal circumstances. I.e. simply being poor doesn't mean you are stealing because you were forced into unfair circumstances and it's the only option you have left and your child is sick, etc. Yes, Americans have a problem regarding crime perception - a lack of sympathy and a thirst for punishment. But your attitude is simply the opposite problem. Trying to use your broad paintbrush is only going to create antagonism. People understandably hate crime - hate. It ruins homes, businesses, communities, one's sense of safety and camaraderie - all of the things we work hardest for and hold dearest. It's too much to ask.

kiratp 2y ago

Its really grating to see headlines phrased this way, implying extreme outcomes. To someone not living in a city, it paints an immediate picture of dystopia. It pushes the rural-city divide further - the last thing we need more of.

glzone1 2y ago

"social malaise lingering since the pandemic and soaring demand for metals, especially for copper, has brought this street crime to new levels." It's interesting that absolutely no mention of changes to policing / prosecution. Across Los Angeles County, more than 290 fire hydrants have gone missing since January. In my town we are having electric outages because of this (they call it "vandalism") "Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez joined Hernandez in opposing the motions, even though he had initially supported the idea. He asked his colleagues to understand that the thefts might be committed by people living in poverty who are pushed into acts of desperation." A note that the costs to report, schedule, supply, staff and roll a govt truck to do a fire hydrant or street light are not cheap. The poor person will get some money from wiring, but the city will be spending 10x - 100x that to get the infrastructure fixed up - so not sure allowing theft as a result of the pandemic or poverty is the most efficient way to address poverty? Insulated coper wire is about $1.50 per pound to recycle at a metal buyer.

frankus 2y ago
What makes the multiplier even more wild is when you consider the proceeds are probably being used (by the front-line thieves) to buy drugs whose cost is something like 10x–100x higher than the cost of production. Many (including me) would consider it unethical but I understand the temptation to cut out several layers of middlemen and just have the government hand out drugs.

rgreekguy 2y ago

[flagged]

notaustinpowers 2y ago
This has nothing to do with the Romani people and your low-effort, racist tropes do not belong on this message board.
- therealdkz 2y ago
  have you coexisted with romani ppl?
  - notaustinpowers 2y ago
    Yes, I have, and?

erulabs 2y ago

You can say “just sort out who is doing this!” and you can say “what has happened to the world that it’s come to this!” And the answer to both is the same: Drugs. You’re stealing copper wiring because you’re an addict. You’re not getting a minimum wage job because you’re an addict. You live in poverty because you’re an addict. Comments lamenting the state of society are as useful as kicking dirt. Either build better bridges or make better medicine. Now one of you smart people comment something useful in this thread about tech that can cure dependency issues!

mattlondon 2y ago
Get them hooked on social media before they get hooked on drugs. But seriously, just regulate the recyclers where people are eventually taking this stuff.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
People live in poverty without being an addict; it's not an either/or, and you're punching down on both poor people and addicts, neither of which is helpful. Tech will not cure dependency issues, it's biochemists, biologists, and psychologists that are at the forefront of that, and there isn't a universal cure for addiction. Tech also won't solve poverty, which is a political issue.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Cheap access to GLP-1 agonists might help with addiction. I have facilitated someone getting access for alcoholism, and it’s like night and day, with them being fully functional. Appears to be an incredibly powerful force multiplier, just need to scale up (can be manufactured for less than $5/month/person). My apologies for going off topic, confirming your point to solve addiction to solve these second order effects of mental health challenges and poverty. Secure (basic needs), functional humans with basic needs met don't strip infra and homes for copper. > Tech will not cure dependency issues, it's biochemists, biologists, and psychologists that are at the forefront of that, and there isn't a universal cure for addiction. Tech also won't solve poverty, which is a political issue. Preach. https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/wegovy-and-ozempic-semaglutide-are https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/wegovy-and-ozempic-semaglu... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40565144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40565144 https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-case-for-using https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-cas... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48780-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48780-6

legitster 2y ago

> But the combination of the economic ills and social malaise lingering since the pandemic and soaring demand for metals, especially for copper, has brought this street crime to new levels. Hmmm. There's something missing from this explanation. While I don't think these reasons are wrong, we are being gaslit about some of the knock-on effects of our sudden cultural attitude towards our justice system that happened at this time. Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore.

monkmartinez 2y ago
> Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore. For good reasons too! It F**ing sucks dealing with ALL the problems of a city. Ask me how I know! None of us, first responders, are allowed/empowered to do our damn jobs. We have been effectively neutered by woke activists that think everyone is out to get them. All hell breaks loose when you ask, demand or otherwise force people to take responsibility for themselves and/or own their mistakes.
- BadHumans 2y ago
  Blaming the "woke" people and not corrupt police officers that indiscriminately murder people or the system that protects them is pretty telling.
  - mythrwy 2y ago
    Can we blame both, but not use the term "woke"? Just "activists" is fine.
    - MisterBastahrd 2y ago
      It certainly makes it easier to ignore the people doing the complaining.
      - anthony_d 2y ago

DaoVeles 2y ago

It is things like this that make me occasionally think we are in the modern version of the library of Alexandria. We have the peak of technology and knowledge and yet the core base of the society is rotting away, alas we know how it ended last time. Perhaps we to go the way of the neoplatonists?

asdff 2y ago
When has the core base of society ever not been rotten? I think what is changing now is that people went from a few happy go lucky decades of being flabbergasted that anything bad can happen, to the media pendulum swinging the other way of showing us the ugly truth too much and assuming things happen even more often than they truly do, at least in terms of your real personal odds of risk.

_fat_santa 2y ago

Looking at crime in general around cities and not just metal theft, I think that it's the result of a mismatch of incentives and disincentives. If you are in poverty in America and want to get help, it's pretty easy to get. You can get food stamps to buy food, to go a shelter or section 8 for housing, we have welfare and many other programs to take care of folks who ask for it. But each of those programs has rules, you can't buy booze with your food stamps and you can't bring drugs into a shelter for example. Some people don't like this tradeoff so they resort to theft, whether breaking into a car or stealing the copper wiring out of a lightpole. And that is where the issue is, while we are pouring tons and tons of resources into the inventive, we as a society are neglecting the fact that you also need disincentives. We need to make sure that we show people that we have incentives to get them back on their feet, get them healthy and get them fed but we also need to show equal disincentives if they choose to break the law.

joe_the_user 2y ago
If you are in poverty in America and want to get help, it's pretty easy to get. No, you're wrong. The only thing one can say is "many programs exist" but they are altogether inadequate even without their restrictions (which you're minimizing). Most places section 8 housing is nearly impossible to get with years waits common. Shelters have extremely restrictive conditions as well as being very unpleasant (being around people destroyed by the system isn't good for even those not yet in terrible condition). Also, drugs and alcohol are often by homeless people to get to sleep in circumstances where it would be otherwise impossible.
CobrastanJorji 2y ago
I'm not sure "pretty easy" is fair. In my city, there's a lottery for Section 8 housing. The applications are regularly closed. I think our applications might've been closed since 2020 (https://www.kcha.org/housing/vouchers/lottery https://www.kcha.org/housing/vouchers/lottery). The people who got on that list before 2020 are periodically chosen in a lottery when vouchers occasionally become available. Once they have the voucher, they are then responsible for finding a landlord that accepts Section 8 housing vouchers and has an availability. That's not to say that there aren't many options for aid, but many of these programs are much less available than you'd think.

Severian 2y ago

Prosecute the scrap metal yards more harshly, have a "police book" like used car lots and pawn shops. Document the person selling, get a photo of the same with the persons face, etc, etc. Only allow maximum amounts of metal to be recycled unless said person has a registered business, per day/week/whatever. Regulate it. There isn't an incentive if you can't sell it. As a commentator indicated below people were scrapping fire hydrants. Wouldn't this be a huge red flag?? "Oh yeah, I see you have 5 hydrants here to sell. I can't think of where these could have possibly have come from."

soperj 2y ago

Sackler family is likely the most responsible for this.

h2odragon 2y ago

quick look at my usual place shows them paying $0.15/lb for clean lead, 3cents less for batteries; and up to $2.20lb for clean copper. At the peak in 2007, lead was worth at least 1/3rd more. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lead https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lead ... so i dunno about "soaring demand for metals", cuz the market doesn't seem to show that. copper is higher than the 2011 peak, but not that much more. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper

mythrwy 2y ago

I replace my HVAC system last month. I did it myself (yes, this can be done with some research!). I took the old one to a metal scrap yard, inside unit and outside. They made me go back home and cut some stuff apart for "top dollar" (which wasn't worth it really but I did it anyway). Very surprised at what I received. I had over 200 pounds of "tin" (they called it) which was basically scrap steel. That fetched around $10 at $.04 a pound. The aluminum radiators fetched $.37 a pound coming to nearly $20. The old copper refrigerant lines however fetched around $3.50 a pound (nearly $60) and they were a small part of the whole system weight-wise, but most of the money. The owner got visibly excited when he saw the copper lines so I assume it's pretty profitable on that end too. Overall I got close to $100 which wasn't worth the work, but it needed to be disposed of anyway. It was also "interesting" as I'd never been in a scrap yard before. Lots of shady looking folks coming in (some on bicycles) while I was there. The disparity in metals pricing was surprising, with copper being worth more and aluminum way less then I'd thought. Also interesting was it was pretty close to a 10X ratio for each metal. Copper = 10X aluminum. Aluminum = 10X steel.

TacticalCoder 2y ago

Copper theft is totally a thing in Europe too, in many countries. First country I find by googling is Germany but copper thieves are stealing cables alongside railroad in France, Belgium, etc. https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/copper-railway-theft-europe-delays-costs-techniques-recycling https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/copper-railway-theft-eur... And it is regularly disrupting trains. These thieves do not care for the community. They do care about fake Luis Vuitton caps (convinced they're highly stylish with their Luis Vuitton caps and Luis Vuitton manpurses) and the latest iPhone though.

reader_x 2y ago

Last month while cleaning out a relative’s house, I made my first trip to a metal scrap yard. I had fishing weights (lead), old copper pipes, rolls of electrical wire, broken aluminum chairs - and street signs. I assumed the scrap yard would reject the street sign since, if they would accept it, why wouldn’t people steal them routinely? To my surprise they accepted everything, asked no questions nor asked for ID, and paid cash. The incentives here are clear. Maybe it’s the point of sale that needs closer scrutiny since police can’t guard all the light poles 24/7.

Server6 2y ago
Most scrap yards are run by shady goons who don't care enough to enforce the rules.

banish-m4 2y ago

It's roughly similar to what happened after the fall of the Soviet Union. Power lines were routinely stolen for scrap. When there is massive inequality (or rampant drug abuse) and inadequate law enforcement, people on the fringes cannibalize essential infrastructure and sacred spaces. Meanwhile, the very rich take advantage of the situation to gain more power and benefits.