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I live in Oakland and this is a difficult topic. The type of crime common here is nearly impossible to address without technological assistance. People steal c
by spankalee 1y ago
I live in Oakland and this is a difficult topic.
The type of crime common here is nearly impossible to address without technological assistance. People steal cars, drive into neighborhoods, then break into other cars and houses. They're gone sometimes before a 911 call can even be made, and far before the police arrive. The criminals know this and are just incredibly brazen about it. They'll finish the job with people watching and recording because they know there's no way for them to be caught. People get followed home and held up in their driveway. The criminals are often armed, and people have been shot and killed for even the mildest of resistance. One guy was killed a block from where I was standing for knocking on the window of a getaway car of some guys stealing another car in broad daylight.
Leaving aside broader and more fundamental fixes for crime, which are much longer term projects, the only near-term thing that actually reduces this kind of crime is arrest and conviction rates. In SF, drones have helped reduced car break-ins, because they've actually caught some crews. Oakland doesn't have drones that I know of, but Flock cameras have enabled enough tracking for police to sometimes actually find these people quickly, even several miles away, and make an arrest.
Those are just the plain facts of the situation. It's understandable that people want some kind of solution here. Without at least starting from that understanding, it'll be very difficult to convince people that a solution that is having a positive impact already is not worth the other costs and risks.
And to me, this is the core conflict at a really high level: the economic and societal fixes for crime are usually opposed by the same people who abuse these kind of surveillance systems for authoritarian purposes. To me it's no coincidence that their preferred solution to crime just happens to help them keep an eye on the whole population.
- ghushn3 1y agoThere's a hugely material difference between deterring local property crime and handing ICE this information. ICE is deporting people to death camps (e.g. CECOT), not giving people due process, operating masked and with military support. ICE is a gestapo in all but name. By all means, find ways to get your community police departments to address crime in your communities. Work with systems outside of police to fix the systemic root causes (crime doesn't "just happen", it's a symptom of other problems). But you don't need the secret police to fix car jackings and break-ins.
- simianparrot 1y ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 1y ago> ICE is deporting illegals. How is that equivalent to the Gestapo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws "The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households; and the Reich Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens." The Holocaust was, broadly speaking, legal under German law at the time. The Gestapo were frequently enforcing laws with their actions. Eventually, Jews were deported to concentration camps; they were made "illegal". "Legal" and "moral" are sometimes related, but not always. The Gestapo didn't start with the killings.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago"illegal" is not a noun and the use of it as such dehumanizes people for terrible reasons.
- yahoozoo 1y agoMerriam-Webster says otherwise.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agooh, good, hate wins again.
- simianparrot 1y agoAre you seriously arguing there’s no such thing as an illegal immigrant? That’s actually insane, if so
- grumio 1y ago
- Hilift 1y agoThis is hardly a philosophical debate. Oakland is a mess. The previous police chief was fired, and the person that fired him, the mayor, was recalled by voters. And the DA in 2023-2024 was recalled by voters. The governor warned Oakland in the past to reverse its policy on not engaging in police pursuits. Not surprisingly, the new police chief is proposing changing that policy. https://oaklandside.org/2025/05/23/oakland-police-pursuit-policy-proposed-revisions/ https://oaklandside.org/2025/05/23/oakland-police-pursuit-po...