7 ms·

Crime and homelessness aren’t areas that can be addressed quickly - unless the method is morally questionable

by binarymax 2y ago

Cupertino95014 2y ago
NYC reduced crime enormously in the 1990's and beyond. Were those methods all "morally questionable" for you?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- locopati 2y ago
  broken windows policing and stop and frisk were indeed morally questionable strategies as they were primarily used on minority communities
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - asdff 2y ago
    The rub of this is people conflate to race what they should conflate to economic circumstance. A poor white person is no more or less likely to commit a crime of opportunity as a poor black person, but most people don't understand nuance much less statistics or demography or history. It also doesn't help that a lot of police back then as well as today are racist.
  - Cupertino95014 2y ago
    And yet, many minority members are alive today because they were not murdered by those criminals caught by stop-and-frisk, or broken windows policing.
    - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
      We are OK with giving up civil liberties when it's the liberties of minorities?
      - Cupertino95014 2y ago
        We are OK with these minorities becoming crime victims, because we don't want to inconvenience potential criminals?
        SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        Assuming all they are is "potential criminals", they are, in fact, innocent people.
        Cupertino95014 2y ago
        So, again, you prefer leaving these people alone, despite the police having a reasonable idea that they're carrying a weapon? You know, I suppose, that people carrying a gun walk and carry themselves in a distinctive way. Or people jumping subway turnstiles often have other warrants out agains them. The fact is, the Giulani / Bratton reforms worked. But I guess you prefer more crime. Even if you're the one being mugged?
        SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        > So, again, you prefer leaving these people alone, despite the police having a reasonable idea that they're carrying a weapon? You know, I suppose, that people carrying a gun walk and carry themselves in a distinctive way. "The number of stops increased dramatically in 2008 to over half a million, 88% of which did not result in any fine or conviction, peaking in 2011 to 685,724 stops, again with 88% (603,437) resulting in no conviction. Leading to the remaining 82,287 resulting in convictions. On average, from 2002 to 2013, the percentage of individuals stopped without any convictions was 87.6%." [1] Not terribly distinctive. They got it right less than 1/8th of the time. If that is your argument, that they were only stopping people they think had guns and were going to commit a violent crime, it's a terribly poor one. The vast majority of people were detained by the police with no cause other than looking a particular way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_Cit...
    - locopati 2y ago
      a lot of minority folks are traumatized by not being able to walk down the street without being roughed up by police. innocent until proven guilty should be the bar we aspire to for everyone. if they tried the same tactic in a white neighborhood, it never would have stood.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
darth_avocado 2y ago
Crime for one, can be addressed fairly easily at the current levels it exists in a city like San Francisco. The ease with which people are able to smash car windows in SF is ridiculous. The problem exists because of the lack of enforcement at all levels. I can guarantee that 95% of the smash and grabs can be attributed to maybe 200 individuals at best. If you start rounding them up and make sure they don’t get away with a slap on the wrist, you’ll immediately see the difference. And no, heavy fines and jail sentences for repeat petty crime is not morally questionable.
- binarymax 2y ago
  The same problems exist in lots of cities. Enforcement and recidivism prevention is not easy. You need competent staff and big budgets at all levels. For instance - what if 20 of those 200 are minors. Family court might just release them back to their parents. But if they’re unsupervised then they just do it again. And for adults what level of sentencing do you recommend for a misdemeanor? You can’t put them in prison. So they go to jail then get released and perpetrate again. Seriously, if crime were easy to solve we would be close to solving it, but we’re not.
  - dmitrygr 2y ago
    Russia solved this problem long ago. Parents are criminally liable for behavior of minors. Either they control them or they answer for their actions.
    - darth_avocado 2y ago
      And societies like Japan solved it by making it unacceptable as a society and a culture.
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    I am not arguing for “solving crime”. If you read my comment, I specifically addressed the current levels of crime in SF. The current level of law and order in the city is below what is acceptable and achievable by a normally functioning city. Your car will be broken into within minutes of you leaving it, if you have anything at all visible in it. That is NOT the norm cities across the country, except a few. We don’t need to solve crime, we just need to not normalize it.

Crime and homelessness aren’t areas that can be addressed quickly - unless the method is morally questionable

Cupertino95014 2y ago

NYC reduced crime enormously in the 1990's and beyond. Were those methods all "morally questionable" for you?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
locopati 2y ago
broken windows policing and stop and frisk were indeed morally questionable strategies as they were primarily used on minority communities
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- asdff 2y ago
  The rub of this is people conflate to race what they should conflate to economic circumstance. A poor white person is no more or less likely to commit a crime of opportunity as a poor black person, but most people don't understand nuance much less statistics or demography or history. It also doesn't help that a lot of police back then as well as today are racist.
- Cupertino95014 2y ago
  And yet, many minority members are alive today because they were not murdered by those criminals caught by stop-and-frisk, or broken windows policing.
  - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    We are OK with giving up civil liberties when it's the liberties of minorities?
    - Cupertino95014 2y ago
      We are OK with these minorities becoming crime victims, because we don't want to inconvenience potential criminals?
      - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        Assuming all they are is "potential criminals", they are, in fact, innocent people.
        Cupertino95014 2y ago
        So, again, you prefer leaving these people alone, despite the police having a reasonable idea that they're carrying a weapon? You know, I suppose, that people carrying a gun walk and carry themselves in a distinctive way. Or people jumping subway turnstiles often have other warrants out agains them. The fact is, the Giulani / Bratton reforms worked. But I guess you prefer more crime. Even if you're the one being mugged?
        SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        > So, again, you prefer leaving these people alone, despite the police having a reasonable idea that they're carrying a weapon? You know, I suppose, that people carrying a gun walk and carry themselves in a distinctive way. "The number of stops increased dramatically in 2008 to over half a million, 88% of which did not result in any fine or conviction, peaking in 2011 to 685,724 stops, again with 88% (603,437) resulting in no conviction. Leading to the remaining 82,287 resulting in convictions. On average, from 2002 to 2013, the percentage of individuals stopped without any convictions was 87.6%." [1] Not terribly distinctive. They got it right less than 1/8th of the time. If that is your argument, that they were only stopping people they think had guns and were going to commit a violent crime, it's a terribly poor one. The vast majority of people were detained by the police with no cause other than looking a particular way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_Cit...
  - locopati 2y ago
    a lot of minority folks are traumatized by not being able to walk down the street without being roughed up by police. innocent until proven guilty should be the bar we aspire to for everyone. if they tried the same tactic in a white neighborhood, it never would have stood.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

darth_avocado 2y ago

Crime for one, can be addressed fairly easily at the current levels it exists in a city like San Francisco. The ease with which people are able to smash car windows in SF is ridiculous. The problem exists because of the lack of enforcement at all levels. I can guarantee that 95% of the smash and grabs can be attributed to maybe 200 individuals at best. If you start rounding them up and make sure they don’t get away with a slap on the wrist, you’ll immediately see the difference. And no, heavy fines and jail sentences for repeat petty crime is not morally questionable.

binarymax 2y ago
The same problems exist in lots of cities. Enforcement and recidivism prevention is not easy. You need competent staff and big budgets at all levels. For instance - what if 20 of those 200 are minors. Family court might just release them back to their parents. But if they’re unsupervised then they just do it again. And for adults what level of sentencing do you recommend for a misdemeanor? You can’t put them in prison. So they go to jail then get released and perpetrate again. Seriously, if crime were easy to solve we would be close to solving it, but we’re not.
- dmitrygr 2y ago
  Russia solved this problem long ago. Parents are criminally liable for behavior of minors. Either they control them or they answer for their actions.
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    And societies like Japan solved it by making it unacceptable as a society and a culture.
- darth_avocado 2y ago
  I am not arguing for “solving crime”. If you read my comment, I specifically addressed the current levels of crime in SF. The current level of law and order in the city is below what is acceptable and achievable by a normally functioning city. Your car will be broken into within minutes of you leaving it, if you have anything at all visible in it. That is NOT the norm cities across the country, except a few. We don’t need to solve crime, we just need to not normalize it.