4 ms·

There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times ca

by bko 10mo ago

There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted? I don't think people are pushing police to arrest more people. > Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said. Some engage in shoplifting as a trade, while others are driven by addiction or mental illness; the police did not identify the 327 people in the analysis. Not clear if that's only in 1 year, but 6,000 arrests for the same 327 people means 18 arrests per person on average. Maybe if you see the same person shoplifting more than 5 times you put him away for some real time. 10 times? Hell even 20 strikes and you're out would make a real dent and serve as a deterrent. https://archive.is/VCKkk#selection-473.0-473.379 https://archive.is/VCKkk#selection-473.0-473.379

porridgeraisin 10mo ago
Yeah, I always wonder why we can't have an "n strikes and you get the electric chair" type of law, where n can be decided. Clearly at that point that person is better off not alive.
- roughly 10mo ago
  That’s a hell of a take for shoplifting.
- throaway123123 10mo ago
  Yeah I definitely want the person who costs Wal-mart a couple thousand bucks to face execution. great idea.
  - porridgeraisin 10mo ago
    It's not that walmart lost something, it's that it's a general menace to others, and if you do it once fine but if you do it 10 times you're out. Get them to leave the country, if execution is not your thing.
    - throaway123123 10mo ago
      I don't get how you could even consider execution to be a proper punishment for minor theft.
      - porridgeraisin 10mo ago
        Stole something? No problem, just a telling off and compensation suffices. But repeat it 20-30 times? Then everyone's better off with you gone. Especially if it's the violent kind of theft (as opposed to something like pickpocketing) [Rhetoric "you" above]
TimorousBestie 10mo ago
> There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted? There’s plenty of desire to increase prosecution rates in American jurisdictions but little desire to raise taxes high enough to pay for lawyers, judges, courthouses, and humane incarceration—let alone assistance for the otherwise innocent families of criminals. The victims of petty crime are usually poor or middle-class and therefore lack the political power to meaningfully change policy.
- bko 10mo ago
  > victims of petty crime are usually poor or middle-class and therefore lack the political power to meaningfully change policy This is just not true. Most of this is organized exploiting a lenient justice system. From my original NYT article: > Last year, 41 people were indicted in New York City in connection with a theft ring that state prosecutors said shoplifted millions of dollars worth of beauty products and luxury goods that were sold online. The idea that these 300 people are just stealing bread to feed their families is a myth.
  - TimorousBestie 10mo ago
    I think you misread? That sentence isn’t describing the criminals, it’s describing the victims. Wealthy people (mostly) didn’t own the Kias and Hyundais that were stolen en masse during the early 2020’s for instance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge Targeting a wealthy person for property crime is a high-risk, high-reward scenario, but there is still the risk of enforcement. A poor person is a much softer target and law enforcement will almost certainly tell them there’s no hope of being made whole.
  - heavyset_go 10mo ago
    The idea that organized retail theft is significant or "most" is a myth[1] [1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/retail-theft-in-us-cities-separating-fact-from-fiction/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/retail-theft-in-us-cities...
heavyset_go 10mo ago
I have to deal with the same kind of bugs all day long, doesn't mean I get to refuse to do my job for years at a time until someone I like is voted into office.
LorenPechtel 10mo ago
Welcome to the reality of the Black Lives Matters protests. They got what they wanted--fewer Blacks shot by the police. But that's because the police weren't being as aggressive in doing their job. Crime rates went up, the number of Blacks killed went up--fewer by cops being offset by more from other criminals. And we see the result of bail reform. The old system was not good--for lesser offenses they were typically sentenced to time served. This amounts to skipping over the determining guilt part of "justice". But when they took action on that they didn't notice that that was what was actually keeping them off the streets. The justice system simply does not have remotely the capacity to actually prosecute as many crimes as they catch.

by bko 10mo ago

porridgeraisin 10mo ago

Yeah, I always wonder why we can't have an "n strikes and you get the electric chair" type of law, where n can be decided. Clearly at that point that person is better off not alive.

roughly 10mo ago
That’s a hell of a take for shoplifting.
throaway123123 10mo ago
Yeah I definitely want the person who costs Wal-mart a couple thousand bucks to face execution. great idea.
- porridgeraisin 10mo ago
  It's not that walmart lost something, it's that it's a general menace to others, and if you do it once fine but if you do it 10 times you're out. Get them to leave the country, if execution is not your thing.
  - throaway123123 10mo ago
    I don't get how you could even consider execution to be a proper punishment for minor theft.
    - porridgeraisin 10mo ago
      Stole something? No problem, just a telling off and compensation suffices. But repeat it 20-30 times? Then everyone's better off with you gone. Especially if it's the violent kind of theft (as opposed to something like pickpocketing) [Rhetoric "you" above]

TimorousBestie 10mo ago

> There's probably some of this, but I think it's driven by district attorney not prosecuting people. We see people that have 20+ prior arrests. How many times can a cop arrest the same person and do the paperwork if he's not going to be prosecuted? There’s plenty of desire to increase prosecution rates in American jurisdictions but little desire to raise taxes high enough to pay for lawyers, judges, courthouses, and humane incarceration—let alone assistance for the otherwise innocent families of criminals. The victims of petty crime are usually poor or middle-class and therefore lack the political power to meaningfully change policy.

bko 10mo ago
> victims of petty crime are usually poor or middle-class and therefore lack the political power to meaningfully change policy This is just not true. Most of this is organized exploiting a lenient justice system. From my original NYT article: > Last year, 41 people were indicted in New York City in connection with a theft ring that state prosecutors said shoplifted millions of dollars worth of beauty products and luxury goods that were sold online. The idea that these 300 people are just stealing bread to feed their families is a myth.
- TimorousBestie 10mo ago
  I think you misread? That sentence isn’t describing the criminals, it’s describing the victims. Wealthy people (mostly) didn’t own the Kias and Hyundais that were stolen en masse during the early 2020’s for instance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge Targeting a wealthy person for property crime is a high-risk, high-reward scenario, but there is still the risk of enforcement. A poor person is a much softer target and law enforcement will almost certainly tell them there’s no hope of being made whole.
- heavyset_go 10mo ago
  The idea that organized retail theft is significant or "most" is a myth[1] [1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/retail-theft-in-us-cities-separating-fact-from-fiction/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/retail-theft-in-us-cities...

heavyset_go 10mo ago

I have to deal with the same kind of bugs all day long, doesn't mean I get to refuse to do my job for years at a time until someone I like is voted into office.

LorenPechtel 10mo ago

Welcome to the reality of the Black Lives Matters protests. They got what they wanted--fewer Blacks shot by the police. But that's because the police weren't being as aggressive in doing their job. Crime rates went up, the number of Blacks killed went up--fewer by cops being offset by more from other criminals. And we see the result of bail reform. The old system was not good--for lesser offenses they were typically sentenced to time served. This amounts to skipping over the determining guilt part of "justice". But when they took action on that they didn't notice that that was what was actually keeping them off the streets. The justice system simply does not have remotely the capacity to actually prosecute as many crimes as they catch.