You really are not grasping what I am saying. Unless you can say that absent this one burglar, NO burglaries would occur AT ALL, then you are not addressing my position AT ALL. I am not interested in individuals here; I am taking a STATISTICAL approach, and saying that the failure of US society to take the necessary steps to give citizens a certain minimum level of wealth WILL INEVITABLY lead to crime; and that while that crime cannot be predicted - either in the detail of who will be a perpetrator or who will be a victim - the argument that crime AS A WHOLE could, potentially, be prevented in such a social structure (by policing, or by deterrence, or by people all choosing to get jobs instead of turning to crime), is insane.
The very tedious and oft repeated debate on these boards about whether a given shooting in a given set of circumstances was or was not 'justified' is completely irrelevant to my point. Theft and burglary is common in the US, DESPITE homeowners being able to use deadly force; DESPITE harsh sentences for convicted offenders; DESPITE the fact that it is an incredibly risky thing to do. And the reason for this is that NOT ALL AMERICANS CAN GET WHAT THEY WANT BY LAWFUL MEANS.
I know that contradicts your national myth; but it is true - and obviously so. You have significant unemployment; and inadequate support for the unemployed. So you get lots of crime.
No, I am not assuming anything. I am saying that, regardless of this individual case, there is necessarily going to be someone in his position, due to the fundamentals of the US economy and social structure.
You are assuming crime is driven by needs, rather than wants.
Not at all. I am accepting that if
reasonable wants are not met, then you will have
unreasonable levels of crime. Of course, there will always be people with unreasonable wants who commit crime whatever support they are given; but they are very few and far between.
You are assuming facts not in evidence.
I am making a reasonable assumption. There were interviews with his family members. All had clothes on that were fine, far from threadbare. And his brother had a smart phone to his ear during the interview. Then there were Facebook photos of the deceased shown in the interviews - decent, newish clothes, nice sneakers, even jewelry. He definitely did not look like somebody driven to crime out of desperation.
Nevertheless, you are assuming facts not in evidence. You think your assumptions are reasonable; but I disagree - and it is irrelevant to my point either way. I don't care about the specifics of this case; they are irrelevant to the wider point, which is that crime is a function of poverty - hence the sister's quite perceptive question, 'How he gonna get his money?'.
No, and I don't need to, for the reasons I already gave, and which I am unsurprised that you cannot grasp.
Yet you are making excuses for this burglar as well as others.
No, I am not. I don't give a flying fuck about this burglar as an individual; just as a symptom of a far larger (and far less tedious) issue.
Show me evidence that these kinds of crimes (theft, burglary, robbery) are driven by genuine needs rather than wants.
Are you seriously going to argue that nobody in the USA today has unmet NEEDS?
The US does NOT have adequate programs to help the poor; as evidenced by the existence of a massive number of poor people in the world's richest nation. Civilized countries do NOT have poverty on the scale seen in the USA.
Yes, many countries have more generous social safety net, that is true. But it is also true that people in poor neighborhoods in the US enjoy conspicuous consumption, buying luxury items they can't afford.
"Shopping While Black": Is Conspicuous Consumption Related to the Black/White Wealth Gap?
Note that Alternet is a left wing rag and that they defend this practice (while blaming whites for everything bad that happens to blacks). But how can one defend irresponsible behavior like this:
Alternet said:
Consequently, a poor black single mother in a ghetto underclass community may see it as a perfectly “rational” behavior to spend hundreds of dollars on a toddler’s sneakers and jeans. Alternatively, a middle aged black working class man may judge it “rational” to spend 600 dollars a month to lease a luxury car--even when he does not own his own home.
Nuff said.
Not just not enough to fund conspicuous consumption. Not enough to keep people from a life of crime.
Or maybe those who engage in the life of crime need to dial their desires back. Because it's better wearing $20 jeans and $15 shirt from Walmart than being shot dead by the person you burgled. Duh!
If you want to reduce crime, that's your benchmark right there.
And personal responsibility of the wannabe criminal does not enter into it at all?
I don't give a shit about the details of this case; nor do I care to get dragged in to yet another stupid and pointless debate about race politics in the USA.
Personal responsibility is irrelevant while the society is structured such that not everyone can possibly meet a civilized standard of personal responsibility. We need not be able to say WHO, specifically will fail (nor who, specifically will succeed despite hardship) to be able to predict that MANY will.
Discussing 'personal responsibility' is irrelevant to the wider question of theft and burglary at the criminological level; You might as well try to understand the Niagara Falls by reference to the motion of individual water molecules.
