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Breakdown In Civil Order

https://www.marketplace.org/2023/09/11/is-retail-theft-really-rising/

Heard this interview on NPR(maybe it was the Make Me Smart podcast) and thought it was an interesting discussion on the shoplifting stuff. Data shows that thefts aren't actually increasing much more than expected but the sometimes more violent nature of a percentage of those thefts does look to be increasing. And those are the instances that get the headlines and cause the Daily Mail to proclaim that America is on fire.

I thought the interview was longer but i've been on travel for the last week and don't fully recall.
 
Because regular shoppers are getting annoyed about marauding gangs of violent mass shoplifters, our local WalMart has established regular looting hours, and forbidden looting during other open hours. What a PITA.
 
We are living in open air psychiatric wards;

Ryan Carson, 32, was stabbed in the chest multiple times, and the blade pierced his heart, during the unprovoked attack at 4am near Lafayette Avenue and Malcom X Boulevard in Brooklyn. Ryan was with his girlfriend when the suspect - wearing a dark colored sweatshirt with his hood up - asked 'What the f**k are you looking at?' before violently stabbing him in the chest.
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Daily Mail
 
TSwizzle said:
We are living in open air psychiatric wards;

Ryan Carson, 32, was stabbed in the chest multiple times, and the blade pierced his heart, during the unprovoked attack at 4am near Lafayette Avenue and Malcom X Boulevard in Brooklyn. Ryan was with his girlfriend when the suspect - wearing a dark colored sweatshirt with his hood up - asked 'What the f**k are you looking at?' before violently stabbing him in the chest.
Click to expand...

Daily Mail
Click to expand...
What should be done about this?
 
Politesse said:
TSwizzle said:
We are living in open air psychiatric wards;

Ryan Carson, 32, was stabbed in the chest multiple times, and the blade pierced his heart, during the unprovoked attack at 4am near Lafayette Avenue and Malcom X Boulevard in Brooklyn. Ryan was with his girlfriend when the suspect - wearing a dark colored sweatshirt with his hood up - asked 'What the f**k are you looking at?' before violently stabbing him in the chest.
Click to expand...

Daily Mail
Click to expand...
What should be done about this?
Click to expand...
Well, Brooklyn (and indeed all of New York City) clearly needs to be made back into a safe place to wander around at 4am, like it famously was back in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s.
 
The Golden Age of Crime used to be thought of as the Prohibition Era, so it wasn't all that safe in major cities even a hundred years ago.
 
bilby said:
Politesse said:
TSwizzle said:
We are living in open air psychiatric wards;

Ryan Carson, 32, was stabbed in the chest multiple times, and the blade pierced his heart, during the unprovoked attack at 4am near Lafayette Avenue and Malcom X Boulevard in Brooklyn. Ryan was with his girlfriend when the suspect - wearing a dark colored sweatshirt with his hood up - asked 'What the f**k are you looking at?' before violently stabbing him in the chest.
Click to expand...

Daily Mail
Click to expand...
What should be done about this?
Click to expand...
Well, Brooklyn (and indeed all of New York City) clearly needs to be made back into a safe place to wander around at 4am, like it famously was back in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s.
Click to expand...
How?
 
Politesse said:
TSwizzle said:
We are living in open air psychiatric wards;

Ryan Carson, 32, was stabbed in the chest multiple times, and the blade pierced his heart, during the unprovoked attack at 4am near Lafayette Avenue and Malcom X Boulevard in Brooklyn. Ryan was with his girlfriend when the suspect - wearing a dark colored sweatshirt with his hood up - asked 'What the f**k are you looking at?' before violently stabbing him in the chest.
Click to expand...

Daily Mail
Click to expand...
What should be done about this?
Click to expand...
Two things - don't read the Daily Fail and DNFTT
 
laughing dog said:
Politesse said:
TSwizzle said:
We are living in open air psychiatric wards;

Ryan Carson, 32, was stabbed in the chest multiple times, and the blade pierced his heart, during the unprovoked attack at 4am near Lafayette Avenue and Malcom X Boulevard in Brooklyn. Ryan was with his girlfriend when the suspect - wearing a dark colored sweatshirt with his hood up - asked 'What the f**k are you looking at?' before violently stabbing him in the chest.
Click to expand...

Daily Mail
Click to expand...
What should be done about this?
Click to expand...
Two things - don't read the Daily Fail and DNFTT
Click to expand...
Ryan Carson's death is a real event; the Daily Mail did not make it up, nor did the person you are accusing of being a "troll".

www.google.com

Ryan Carson, social justice advocate, stabbed to death in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn

People who knew Ryan Carson, 32, said he dedicated his life to trying to change things for the better.
www.google.com www.google.com
 
Politesse said:
bilby said:
Politesse said:
TSwizzle said:
We are living in open air psychiatric wards;

Ryan Carson, 32, was stabbed in the chest multiple times, and the blade pierced his heart, during the unprovoked attack at 4am near Lafayette Avenue and Malcom X Boulevard in Brooklyn. Ryan was with his girlfriend when the suspect - wearing a dark colored sweatshirt with his hood up - asked 'What the f**k are you looking at?' before violently stabbing him in the chest.
Click to expand...

Daily Mail
Click to expand...
What should be done about this?
Click to expand...
Well, Brooklyn (and indeed all of New York City) clearly needs to be made back into a safe place to wander around at 4am, like it famously was back in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s.
Click to expand...
How?
Click to expand...
Sorry, I omitted the sarcasm tags, as I assumed that it was obvious that I was implying that the whole idea that you can make any large city completely safe to wander around at 4am is absurd and impossible, and that the Daily Fail is insane to imply that there ever was a time when the stabbing they're reporting would have been a shocking deviation from the expected norm.
 
Some days I just have no patience at all. And the older I get, the less I have. Most of this thread seems like it's two diametrically opposed sides hollering at each other. On one side are people who say "The world is going to hell, the sky is falling, crime is out of control". On the other side are people saying "Everything is fine, you're just hysterically repeating right-wing lies".

FFS. How hard is it for rational adults to look at this and recognize that in several areas, particularly in some large cities, our law enforcement and judicial approach is not working. The types of crimes being committed should not be considered acceptable in a civilized society, and law abiding citizens shouldn't be expected to just deal with it and let it happen. It's not all crimes, and it's not everywhere... but neither should it be handwaved away.
 
Emily Lake said:
Some days I just have no patience at all. And the older I get, the less I have. Most of this thread seems like it's two diametrically opposed sides hollering at each other. On one side are people who say "The world is going to hell, the sky is falling, crime is out of control". On the other side are people saying "Everything is fine, you're just hysterically repeating right-wing lies".

FFS. How hard is it for rational adults to look at this and recognize that in several areas, particularly in some large cities, our law enforcement and judicial approach is not working. The types of crimes being committed should not be considered acceptable in a civilized society, and law abiding citizens shouldn't be expected to just deal with it and let it happen. It's not all crimes, and it's not everywhere... but neither should it be handwaved away.
Click to expand...
I don't doubt that crimes are occurring; Nor that something needs to be done about it. And you are absolutely correct that the current approach isn't working.

But it's a HUGE stretch from all of that to the conclusion that we need more totalitarianism, less personal freedom, and harsher punishments as the only possible solution.

The USA incarcerates an insanely large proportion of her population, but doesn't have lower crime rates than places that do not. So advocates for more and/or longer prison sentences are not actually advocating for lower crime.

"Something must be done; Harsh sentences are something; Therefore harsh sentences must be done" is broken logic.

What needs to be done is to emulate those places where crime is low. Such places generally have less harsh treatment of convicted criminals than in the USA, as part of a wider framework of societal structures that are genuinely effective in reducing crime rates, but which are unacceptable to petty fascists because they lack the cruelty that such people consider an essential feature of any system of laws.
 
bilby said:
Emily Lake said:
Some days I just have no patience at all. And the older I get, the less I have. Most of this thread seems like it's two diametrically opposed sides hollering at each other. On one side are people who say "The world is going to hell, the sky is falling, crime is out of control". On the other side are people saying "Everything is fine, you're just hysterically repeating right-wing lies".

FFS. How hard is it for rational adults to look at this and recognize that in several areas, particularly in some large cities, our law enforcement and judicial approach is not working. The types of crimes being committed should not be considered acceptable in a civilized society, and law abiding citizens shouldn't be expected to just deal with it and let it happen. It's not all crimes, and it's not everywhere... but neither should it be handwaved away.
Click to expand...
I don't doubt that crimes are occurring; Nor that something needs to be done about it. And you are absolutely correct that the current approach isn't working.

But it's a HUGE stretch from all of that to the conclusion that we need more totalitarianism, less personal freedom, and harsher punishments as the only possible solution.

The USA incarcerates an insanely large proportion of her population, but doesn't have lower crime rates than places that do not. So advocates for more and/or longer prison sentences are not actually advocating for lower crime.

"Something must be done; Harsh sentences are something; Therefore harsh sentences must be done" is broken logic.

What needs to be done is to emulate those places where crime is low. Such places generally have less harsh treatment of convicted criminals than in the USA, as part of a wider framework of societal structures that are genuinely effective in reducing crime rates, but which are unacceptable to petty fascists because they lack the cruelty that such people consider an essential feature of any system of laws.
Click to expand...
Look, I agree that "more people in jail" is not exactly the right answer. But I also don't think that "don't prosecute crimes" is a good answer either. I'd be all for releasing the vast majority of non-violent offenders. Most drug users shouldn't be in prison - but neither should they have free run of the streets. Because even if we have sympathy for the pains of addiction, you can't ignore the harm they do to others. Most petty thieves shouldn't be in prison, but neither should their thefts be hand-waved away. The US justice system needs a pretty comprehensive overhaul. It's not a case of "harsher sentences must be done", it's a case of "the right sentences must be done".

That said, I've got low tolerance for the wishy-washy snobbery of "emulate countries with low crime rates". I have several reasons for this. The first and biggest reason is that THE US IS FUCKING ENORMOUS. We are 90% of an entire continent and we have a LOT of people. If you can make a case that the US should "emulate" the entirety of Europe, you might have a point. But Europe as a whole does NOT have a stellar record of low crime. Europe as a whole is not materially different from the US as a whole. And making the shallow and thoughtless argument that the entire US should just mirror what works in one tiny little sliver of the world is a blatantly silly approach.

The second reason, which is directly related to the first is that you seriously underestimate the degree of cultural diversity the US has, as well as the volume of immigration that we have. And when I talk about cultural diversity, I'm talking about Mississippi versus Minnesota, California versus New York, Louisiana versus Montana. We have as much difference in cultural tradition and "how we do things" as exists between England and France, Greece and Spain, Russia and Denmark. And you non-USans simply don't give that nearly the consideration you ought to. Honestly, would you ever tell Greece in its entirety that it should just emulate whatever the fuck works in Sweden, even though those two countries have vastly different cultures, traditions, and different problems?

The places that get held up as north stars for low crime tend to be culturally and racially homogeneous, with relatively low immigration - and tightly controlled immigration at that. It's tiring to constantly get told "Oh, you should just do what Norway does, they're great!" Norway has 1/100th the population of the US, all within one climate zone, and almost all the same color, sharing the same overall cultural outlook and the same traditions. If you want to compare Norway to say... Minnesota, be my guest. Let's start with something that's at least reasonably comparable. Although Minnesota is still more culturally and racially diverse than Norway.

So yeah. The country that comprises 90% of the North American CONTINENT has some problems that need to be addressed. Yes. We absolutely do. But the constant disdainful response of "Oh just do what that tiny little all-white country with all the same beliefs does" is frankly dumb.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bit of a rant, I know. But it's been years that this same inane approach has been rolled out over and over. It's not a winning argument, it's not even a *starting* argument. It's a non-argument. It's not apples and oranges, it's apples and hedgehogs. So if you non-USans want to give us some advice, great - make sure it's reasonable advice that actually considers that we are MASSIVELY bigger and more diverse than any of your countries are. Start with that, and maybe we can actually get somewhere useful.
 
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