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Comment by xbmcuser | Hacker News Reader

homeless are generally not thieves as if they could steal they wouldn't be homeless in the first place

Stealing (physically at least) is a stupid way to make money. A $200 game console will hardly net a thief $50. There are a lot of issues in my city with the less fortunate stealing items to make some small money - bikes are a common target. It neither really helps the thief, and it's very unfortunate for the person stolen from.

In California, thefts of under $950 are not felony crimes. And there's no more "three strikes". So you can steal packages for a living and, at worst, have to spend a week or two in jail over the course of a year. Not a bad living.

And occasionally, the packages contain runny used cat litter.

If I paid you $200, would you spend two weeks in jail?

If getting that $200 meant risk to you (someone confronting you, someone else taking your money, risk of an officer giving you a beat down), would you still take it?

It doesn't take a lot of risk to offset the "value" of stealing $950 labeled-worth goods (which will net you <$250 in cash).

Don't worry about the petty thief, they are smart enough about minimizing their own risk.

The parent poster said that you’d spend maybe two weeks in jail over the course of the year. It’s not a balance of $200 vs. 2wks jail, it’s a balance of ($200 per package x many packages per day * 365 days per year) vs. 2wks jail.

If I was poor and did not see a light at the end of the tunnel, I would go to jail for free. Your tax dollars would pay for my lodging, food, exercise and hanging out with my friends. Jail is also a great place to network and improve your knowledge of the system and criminal techniques.

I was in jail for awhile but, regrettably, learned no new criminal techniques. In fact, most people seemed pretty reticent to talk about crimes or why they were in there. I did learn how to make a nutritious paste from commissary food, how to hide sugar packets in a mattress, and how to make a chess set out of toilet paper and toothpaste. I also found out that drugs are extremely cheap in jail--costing just one or two candy bars--since many people in jail have child support judgements against them and are effectively barred from using the commissary. Having access to the commissary can have a profound effect on your comfort in jail, so if you're a homeless person with some small passive income (and no child support!) it might be all right. I could see doing it through a harsh winter, but personally I'd probably choose the streets most of the time. The food you get might not be as regular, but it'll be more varied and probably more nutritious than what you'll find in a cell.

You also have to discount that by the probability of actually getting caught because the police barely care about property crime cases and even with video of the person stealing the package the work nontrivial work of tracking the person down isn't worth the hassle. So is 50-100 bucks with a small chance of actually suffering any consequences at all.

It doesn't take a lot of risk to offset the "value" of stealing $950 labeled-worth goods (which will net you <$250 in cash).

If you're trying to say the risk isn't worth it, sure, you're right. And the average person wouldn't do it. But plenty of criminals don't live their lives by such risk/reward calculations. Roughly 5% [0] of people in prison in the US have decided to disregard the risk/reward ratio and go ahead with relatively small scale thefts.

[0] https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

The question though is would that 5% react to increased punishment. The studies done on raising felony theft thresholds indicate that they don't.

agreed, they'd probably need to be substantially higher to really enter criminal's conscious consideration to put a dent in things, and even then it might only be a small dent, if any. Especially when the motivation is something like drug addiction.

Thus the reasoning behind the "three strikes and you're out" laws which call for mandatory prison sentencing for habitual criminals.

Some will not be dissuaded from crime. The rest of us deserve to live apart from them.

That is indeed the reasoning, but there is no good evidence that 3 strike laws reduce crime.

In fact multiple studies suggest that 3 strike laws have unintended consequences like increased fatal attacks on police, and twice sentenced criminals committing more serious crimes (because they will recieve a life sentence regardless of the seriousness of the offense).

You're asking on HN, so the answer is probably a "no".

Relative value of time and money might be different outside of this bubble.

When I was a young kid, my mom once told me that she never wanted to hear of me committing a crime I couldn't retire on. She doesn't remember saying it, this was an offhand statement when we saw a news item about someone stealing $20 from a gas station and doesn't really reflect how she looks at things AFAIK.

Oddly, it really stuck in my mind and was present when I decided not to be peer pressured into a few incidents. It changed the equation - it wasn't about fear of getting caught, which everyone was saying wouldn't happen, it became about BEING STUPID, which would be true regardless. What's more, it wasn't an outright "don't do this", but instead "do this only if" which also changed the evaluation (It wasn't "I must be good, always"). Of course, I never HAD the chance to do a crime I would retire on when I was a kid, so the end result was that I lived generally crime-free.

Later I developed my own sense of morals and criteria on why to do/not do things, but I really feel like that advice helped me avoid potential problems in life before I reached that point. I recommend the advice to all new parents, though I don't think anyone has taken me up on the advice yet :)

I have a vague memory of getting the same advice at some point. It really is useful, and for more than simply returning a "do not do this" for effectively everything; in my experience it's also a forcing function for deeper risk-reward analysis. In my case that analytical mindset expanded to cover to more than just "should I commit this crime or crime-ish thing". Should I grab an extra cookie from the jar? Should I rush across this street instead of walking down to the sidewalk to reach a crosswalk? Should I commit this bad code to get the patch out faster? Etc.

The hilarious thing, of course, is looking at the news and seeing so many people commit crimes that they actually could retire off of... and then fail to retire, keep committing crimes, and get caught. Also a useful life lesson!

I'm pretty sure that would be a terrible living...

I'm actually surprised the youtube-guy doesn't go back to the police at this point, because what they have stolen is a prototype-product, which is worth whatever the inventor says it is worth; Anyone taking this package is committing a felony at this point - which might be worth these lazy-ass cops' time.

> I'm actually surprised the youtube-guy doesn't go back to the police at this point, because what they have stolen is a prototype-product, which is worth whatever the inventor says it is worth

No, it's worth whatever a court determines the fair market value is.

IMNAL, but I'm thinking of existing cases of software theft/etc. where seemingly arbitrary values are accepted by the courts.

Maybe you do have to argue the point in court, but 6 months of R&D is easily worth way more than $1000.

Stealing mail is a federal offense, so it doesn't matter what the state laws are. Now that applies specifically to deliveries by USPS ( Theft or receipt of stolen mail matter generally [1]). Stealing shipments by UPS or FedEx can also be considered a federal offense if the package crossed state lines during shipment (Theft from Interstate Shipment[2]).

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1708 [2] https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1333-gen...

What are they gonna do, steal a house?

You seem to be getting downvoted because you made a joke, but honestly. The more I look at that sentence:

>homeless are generally not thieves as if they could steal they wouldn't be homeless in the first place

The less sense it makes. I 100% do not understand what the OP was trying to say with that. It's nonsense if you really evaluate what it's saying.

maybe steal -> get caught -> go to prison -> no longer homeless?

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-loui...

Wasn't a homeless person, but in St. Louis Missouri a house isn't out of the question.

FWIW arranging to have a trailer/motorhome "stolen" is a not unheard of way of performing a (less than legal) eviction in some places.

In some states, once you get a renter, it is very hard to evict them. Many abuse this.

Once. After you get an eviction on your record few landlords will rent to you again.

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