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How is that not connected to police enforcement, though? In Europe and now the US the new generations are anti-police, anti-enforcement and generally consider

How is that not connected to police enforcement, though? In Europe and now the US the new generations are anti-police, anti-enforcement and generally consider authority and rules to be proof of an unjust society (X group is N percent more likely to receive a criminal summons when ..). In the US in slow motion we could see a world in which you could go to a big chain pharmacy and retrieve your own toothpaste and shampoo. Now it's considered entirely normal to put these behind plexiglass, and to hire a security guard to stand by the door, but the guard isn't legally allowed to stop anyone or engage in any physical altercation. Because homelessness, because mental illness, because drug addiction, etc are not to be 'criminalized.' In NYC a decree stopped the police from issuing summonses for not paying the subway fare. Because it was said to be racist. Today, tons of people, especially normal professionals - happily do not pay the fare, while the system is said to be in financial deficit. Yet here we're discussing comparisons with Asian cultures and how they are more respectful of public space. So, my friends, is it a cultural difference, a legal enforcement difference, or an inevitable consequence of injustice? I'm dying to understand because it's at the crux of the political divide, and I'm seeing cities getting worse in front of my eyes.

tomrod 23d ago
Enforcement is an external impetus. Internal impetus are better to cultivate. I can't answer how cultures tend to differ here from my limited vantage point, so what I'm really saying is respect doesn't come by itself typically.
- x-complexity 22d ago
  > Enforcement is an external impetus. Internal impetus are better to cultivate. Internal impetus cannot be cultivated if the youth do not want or desire to be taught cultivation.
  - tomrod 22d ago
    Ish. Spare the rod, spoil the child type approaches haven't seemed to hold true in my experience.
enaaem 23d ago
I cannot speak for the US, but having been in Europe and Asian countries like Japan and Korea, the simplest explanation is the difference in tolerance for petty crime, vandalism and litter. Is related to the broken window theory. The thing is that European cities have always been kinda dirty and crime infested, and it has little to do with American culture war. I do not have an explanation for this, because you will need dig deep into history for that, but the good news is that things are overall improving. Overall crime is overall trending down. For example, the inner city of Amsterdam used to be full of junkies and now that has been almost completely cleaned up. And football Hooligans used to be a much bigger problem than they are now.
- ricardobayes 23d ago
  That's right. We seem to have "allowed" or tolerated petty crime in most Europe. When I tell my foreign friends what kind of stuff happens in my area they always extrapolate and tell me I live in "8 mile". But it's not the case, almost everywhere in Europe has property crime (pickpocketing and burglaries), bigger stuff however is very rare.
  - nobodywillobsrv 23d ago
    It's funny to read HN comments where people can sort of describe the problems but can't really describe the problems
    - dcrazy 22d ago
      Then please, do everyone a favor and describe the problem.
      - leansensei 22d ago
        Unchecked immigration, lax policing.
        Gander5739 22d ago
jquery 23d ago
>the guard isn't legally allowed to stop anyone or engage in any physical altercation This is false. In California the guard can use non-deadly force to detain a suspected shoplifter. Retailers may have a company policy telling guards and employees not to physically confront shoplifters, because that introduces escalation risk, litigation risk, and risk of injury. It’s simply cheaper to let the item go, in many cases. I’ve read that Target will strategically do this until a person steals enough that it becomes a felony, and then release the hounds. > In NYC a decree stopped the police from issuing summonses for not paying the subway fare. Because it was said to be racist. Today, tons of people, especially normal professionals - happily do not pay the fare, while the system is said to be in financial deficit. I’m not sure where you get your information from, but I suggest you reconsider your sources, because this is also false (not the deficit, but a decree stopping police from issuing summons): https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/excel/analysis_and_planning/fare-evasion/2026/fare-evasion-arrests-q1-2026.xlsx https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/excel/analysis_and... I assume you are referring to a 2018 policy reform. Your concerns are debunked here: https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Fare-Beating-Fact-Sheet-v3.pdf https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Fare-...
lux-lux-lux 23d ago
NYC ended up spending $1,440 per dollar in fares recovered on stopping fare jumpers, which is probably why the decree came about in the first place. Is there a particular reason why you think setting gargantuan amounts of money on fire over trivial offenses makes sense?
- hansvm 23d ago
  Per dollar recovered or per future fare-jumped dollar prevented? Edit: This plays into something I observe in most "data-driven" organizations. Having a statistic available about recovery costs makes it easy to shift the conversation toward that statistic, when you actually ought to be asking questions about (in this case) the causal impact of that intervention on the subway's overall profitability, the need for easily available public transit and whether there ought to be a fare in the first place, the public good (or maybe harm -- the point is that we ought to be discussing it one way or the other) done by using fare-jumping collections as a mechanism for training people to be less antisocial in other aspects of their lives, or whether that obscene cost of fare collection is actually a reasonable baseline and should be improved. Your statistic, while interesting, is almost useless when trying to figure out what we should do next, at least by itself, and when paired with human psychology it can be actively harmful.
  - lux-lux-lux 23d ago
    Per dollar recovered. Paying law enforcement officers overtime and directing police attention away from more significant criminal behavior (as opposed to redesigning turnstiles or pursuing alternative strategies like no-fare systems) is extremely expensive and time-limited in terms of impact. It does shovel a lot of dollars at law enforcement and let the Adams administration pretend to be tough on crime despite engaging in a lot of it, which was the actual intent.
    - JuniperMesos 23d ago
      The sorts of people who turnstile jump are likely to commit further crimes on the public transit system that more directly affect the ordinary people trying to use it legitimately. For this reason I specifically want the police to prioritize arresting and prosecuting turnstile jumpers - it concretely improves the experience of public transit for everyone. This is the same reason that getting rid of fare-checking is bad - the sorts of people who are kept off the transit system by enforcing a fare, are not people you want to be in an enclosed space with.
tremon 22d ago
You cannot have police enforcement for petty misdemeanors like those, that's way too expensive. The only means-appropriate correction is social enforcement (i.e. norms and values), but too many people think that society is other peoples' problem. That's one of the downsides of a hyper-individualist society.

tomrod 23d ago

Enforcement is an external impetus. Internal impetus are better to cultivate. I can't answer how cultures tend to differ here from my limited vantage point, so what I'm really saying is respect doesn't come by itself typically.

x-complexity 22d ago
> Enforcement is an external impetus. Internal impetus are better to cultivate. Internal impetus cannot be cultivated if the youth do not want or desire to be taught cultivation.
- tomrod 22d ago
  Ish. Spare the rod, spoil the child type approaches haven't seemed to hold true in my experience.

enaaem 23d ago

I cannot speak for the US, but having been in Europe and Asian countries like Japan and Korea, the simplest explanation is the difference in tolerance for petty crime, vandalism and litter. Is related to the broken window theory. The thing is that European cities have always been kinda dirty and crime infested, and it has little to do with American culture war. I do not have an explanation for this, because you will need dig deep into history for that, but the good news is that things are overall improving. Overall crime is overall trending down. For example, the inner city of Amsterdam used to be full of junkies and now that has been almost completely cleaned up. And football Hooligans used to be a much bigger problem than they are now.

ricardobayes 23d ago
That's right. We seem to have "allowed" or tolerated petty crime in most Europe. When I tell my foreign friends what kind of stuff happens in my area they always extrapolate and tell me I live in "8 mile". But it's not the case, almost everywhere in Europe has property crime (pickpocketing and burglaries), bigger stuff however is very rare.
- nobodywillobsrv 23d ago
  It's funny to read HN comments where people can sort of describe the problems but can't really describe the problems
  - dcrazy 22d ago
    Then please, do everyone a favor and describe the problem.
    - leansensei 22d ago
      Unchecked immigration, lax policing.
      - Gander5739 22d ago

jquery 23d ago

>the guard isn't legally allowed to stop anyone or engage in any physical altercation This is false. In California the guard can use non-deadly force to detain a suspected shoplifter. Retailers may have a company policy telling guards and employees not to physically confront shoplifters, because that introduces escalation risk, litigation risk, and risk of injury. It’s simply cheaper to let the item go, in many cases. I’ve read that Target will strategically do this until a person steals enough that it becomes a felony, and then release the hounds. > In NYC a decree stopped the police from issuing summonses for not paying the subway fare. Because it was said to be racist. Today, tons of people, especially normal professionals - happily do not pay the fare, while the system is said to be in financial deficit. I’m not sure where you get your information from, but I suggest you reconsider your sources, because this is also false (not the deficit, but a decree stopping police from issuing summons): https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/excel/analysis_and_planning/fare-evasion/2026/fare-evasion-arrests-q1-2026.xlsx https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/excel/analysis_and... I assume you are referring to a 2018 policy reform. Your concerns are debunked here: https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Fare-Beating-Fact-Sheet-v3.pdf https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Fare-...

lux-lux-lux 23d ago

NYC ended up spending $1,440 per dollar in fares recovered on stopping fare jumpers, which is probably why the decree came about in the first place. Is there a particular reason why you think setting gargantuan amounts of money on fire over trivial offenses makes sense?

hansvm 23d ago
Per dollar recovered or per future fare-jumped dollar prevented? Edit: This plays into something I observe in most "data-driven" organizations. Having a statistic available about recovery costs makes it easy to shift the conversation toward that statistic, when you actually ought to be asking questions about (in this case) the causal impact of that intervention on the subway's overall profitability, the need for easily available public transit and whether there ought to be a fare in the first place, the public good (or maybe harm -- the point is that we ought to be discussing it one way or the other) done by using fare-jumping collections as a mechanism for training people to be less antisocial in other aspects of their lives, or whether that obscene cost of fare collection is actually a reasonable baseline and should be improved. Your statistic, while interesting, is almost useless when trying to figure out what we should do next, at least by itself, and when paired with human psychology it can be actively harmful.
- lux-lux-lux 23d ago
  Per dollar recovered. Paying law enforcement officers overtime and directing police attention away from more significant criminal behavior (as opposed to redesigning turnstiles or pursuing alternative strategies like no-fare systems) is extremely expensive and time-limited in terms of impact. It does shovel a lot of dollars at law enforcement and let the Adams administration pretend to be tough on crime despite engaging in a lot of it, which was the actual intent.
  - JuniperMesos 23d ago
    The sorts of people who turnstile jump are likely to commit further crimes on the public transit system that more directly affect the ordinary people trying to use it legitimately. For this reason I specifically want the police to prioritize arresting and prosecuting turnstile jumpers - it concretely improves the experience of public transit for everyone. This is the same reason that getting rid of fare-checking is bad - the sorts of people who are kept off the transit system by enforcing a fare, are not people you want to be in an enclosed space with.

tremon 22d ago

You cannot have police enforcement for petty misdemeanors like those, that's way too expensive. The only means-appropriate correction is social enforcement (i.e. norms and values), but too many people think that society is other peoples' problem. That's one of the downsides of a hyper-individualist society.