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Comment by bellyfullofbac | Hacker News Reader

Ha, coming soon: the local gang showing up at your door asking to see your logs to make sure you haven't snitched on them to the police.

And the police harassing you because they know you have a Ring equipment but they never got footage from your camera's angle...

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Honestly, in the neighbourhood I grew up in, this would basically make having Amazon Ring a no-no. Noone in their right minds would want to have anything to do with it. You would be targetted and not just by the gangs.

Non-criminals would 'target' you for helping stop the criminals? What kind of bizarro place is that?

or maybe he's talking about non gang criminals?

Places where kids sell crack to their parents because the alternative is the parents going to some unrelated crack dealer that will treat them much worse.

And this is in the US.

PS- feel free to replace "crack" with meth, heroine, etc

insulin

Illegal smuggling of low-cost insulin is becoming a big issue, yes. Hopefully there's a crack-down on the way.

No, not all the criminals are in the gangs. Nearly everyone in the neighbourhood was a criminal of some sort. Everyone else just kept their mouth shut.

"Everyone else" was probably a criminal too of some sort. They just hadn't received enough police scrutiny to make it official. It's basically impossible to follow all the laws (even ignoring the civil infraction stuff) all the time and live a reasonable life.

Especially if you live in a country with the word 'jaywalking'...

̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶j̶a̶y̶w̶a̶l̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶i̶d̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶r̶i̶m̶i̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶r̶y̶.̶

edit: This is mistaken.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/jaywalking-arrest-black-...

https://www.wxyz.com/news/local-news/investigations/stopped-...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-poli...

https://www.redmond-reporter.com/news/redmond-police-arrest-...

I'm aware you can be arrested for it in the US (which is to say I'm mistaken, it does fall under criminal law), but can it get you a criminal record?

Somewhat related: here in the UK, littering is technically a crime, but apparently [0] you'll only get a criminal record if you refuse to pay the fine.

[0] https://www.redbridge.gov.uk/roads-and-pavements/fines-and-o...

Here in California, jaywalking is an infraction, not a crime. Jaywalkers (who are caught) have to pay a fine. It can basically be considered getting sued by the city for breaking the rules.

If you can't pay the fine, it can turn into a warrant that can get you arrested. Thus jaywalking actually is a crime, but only for poor people.

> If you can't pay the fine, it can turn into a warrant that can get you arrested.

Technically, inability to pay does not have this effect, only refusal. But you have to actually show up to court (as specified in the ticket, which is a summons to appear with bail that can be forfeited in lieu of appearance) and assert hardship to get a different penalty or payment arrangement set if you are unable to pay; if you just ignore the summons and don’t pay the bail set, then you are committing a crime.

And if you are significantly poor, missing a day's work to show up to court can cost you your rent, or your job, etc.

So it's still a crime for poor people only.

That is why you put it in writing and mail it to court.

Nobody in those examples was arrested for jaywalking.

All of them were arrested for bullshit "contempt of cop" type offenses. If they could arrest people for jaywalking they would have done that because arresting someone for something they've actually done makes for a much harder charge to beat. Jaywalking is just the pretext.

Then what is it, in any country that has the word? (Here we call it 'crossing the road'.)

A civil infraction (or some other word for the same thing).

Like walking your dog in a park that has a no-dogs sign.

That would be a local bye-law, which is neither criminal nor civil but could become criminal.

Where I live we have jaywalking laws but they only apply if you are within a reasonable distance to a cross walk. I think it's possible to have reasonable laws so long as you have relatively reasonable politicians. :)

Jaywalking is typically (i.e. I know of now jurisdiction in the west where it's not) a civil infraction. Though if the cops want to be dicks they can pretend not to know and arrest you but they can do that with any law or they can get you for a nebulous contempt of cop offense but they can do that anytime. It's on-par with a parking ticket, littering or not removing your trash bin from the street after trash day.

If you don't pay the fine (and don't show up in court to tell them why you can't afford it) that's the criminal infraction and that's when they put a warrant out.

> Jaywalking is typically (i.e. I know of now jurisdiction in the west where it's not)

In the UK it doesn't even exist. We look it up after hearing the word on N American 'movies'/TV 'shows'.

> a civil infraction

IANAL, but my understanding is that the key difference between criminal & civil law is that the latter always has a (an alleged) victim, and it is he who is the claimant.

Is that wrong? Or right but there's some supposed victim of 'jaywalking' (the state on behalf of drivers?!) who goes around suing 'jaywalkers'?

A criminal is not some who allegedly breaks laws but someone who is convicted of breaking the law. Even if you were arrested by police you still aren’t a criminal.

If a person is committing crimes, they're a criminal.

Allegedly. What is a transgression of the law and whether a law is just or valid can be open to interpretation, which is why we have juries.

No. If I had said someone allegedly committed a crime, they allegedly are a criminal.

If I see them murdering someone, I'm not going to say to myself "That person is allegedly a criminal".

I am allowed to think, to have an opinion about reality.

There's also no need to call them a suspect if you just saw a person committing a crime.

When you haven't yet proved that a specific person did it, they're a suspect. The crime is alleged.

But not when you KNOW it. I'm not saying newspapers should say that or a court should say that. I'm saying I have no problem describing what I see.

> If I see them murdering someone, I'm not going to say to myself "That person is allegedly a criminal".

Maybe you saw wrong? Hmm?

Oh not him! His eyesight and memory are infallible!

When witnesses give testimony in court, they simply relate what they saw. They do not need to couch it CYA language.

I did notice that your statement is pretty confident about what I think. No "allegedly" required. No "I suspect he believes X and Y". These imaginary rules don't seem to apply to you.

If I discover that the person is actually not dead, I would certainly think my conclusion.

Have you considered that maybe you could not recognize the person correctly?

Have you considered that my statement was about the person that I saw?

well, let's suppose your Ring catches someone loitering in your neighborhood that looks like the 'wrong sort' and the police come out to check on the 'wrong sort' and they just happen to kill them - and then to explain why they had to kill the wrong sort of people they say they found some drugs on them...

What kind of bizarro place is that?

If you think not having the police around is better than having the police around, I hope you never have to raise children in a place like the parent was describing.

Spoken from a true position of privilege! There are many communities where the police and the criminals are both likely to cause you trouble somewhere between a mild hassle and a life-altering interaction. The only difference is why they might do it. Distrust of the police amount law-abiding populations is a thing for a reason.

In the places that the parent is describing, the police aren't your allies. The more dangerous the area, the more aggressive and hostile the police (at least to some degree by necessity), and the stronger the "presumed guilty" takes hold, and the more hostile the population itself is to the police.

In the worst of those areas, the gangs themselves take on the role of the police (offering services such as protection, policy enforcement, loans, etc).

Surveillance has other effects than helping to impede criminals (note also that this effect is dependent wholly on police initiative and competence, as well, two things often lacking in minor crime investigations).

Not everyone wants to be under surveillance 24/7, even if it does aid police sometimes in reducing crime, as it also aids police in doing the other things police do that are unrelated to law enforcement (harassment, theft, intimidation, extortion, et c).

There are streets in my neighborhood I don't walk down because almost everyone has a Ring camera. I don't want to be followed around by Ring when I walk the dog.

My doorbell camera isn't even a Ring, but the local teens still make a point to flip it off every time they see it come on. Makes me want to put up a sign that says "not a snitch!"

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