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Comment by arrakis2021 | Hacker News Reader

arrakis2021

Imagine 10 years ago if someone posted videos like the ones we see today of flash mobs shoplifting major retailers, or of stores literally BOARDING UP their windows in major urban centers. there would be no discussion, no debate, no “deconstruction of modern crime” - none of this handwringing pseudo-intellectual nonsense.

In 2010 This would have been handled. Not sure what changed but these cities and their bureaucrats really don’t seem to care. People, however, do care about themselves, their families and their businesses. if this continues you can expect a major outflow of people, capital and talent.

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The difference is that 10 years ago "someone posted a video" was in its infancy as a driver of policy. Today it's quite a mature, potent force (and worthy of deconstruction).

I'm having trouble figuring out what to believe, whether this is a handful of brazen thefts amid normal theft rates, a small increase, a true theft epidemic, or maybe theft has decreased even.

I honestly don't know and don't know how I could gain that knowledge. Watching a few videos isn't going to do much for me though, evidence wise.

Maybe this will help:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#/me...

Which is probably pulling data from the same source as

https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/docu...

Violent crime is another matter, with differing statistics for 2020 and 2021. on the other hand, it has quite a bit to go before it gets from 2019's 379.4/100,000 to 1990's 731.8/ 100,000.

https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

Here's California, if you want to lay an eyeball on that:

https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/cacrime.htm

Here is a good discussion of the sources of the numbers and so on:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about...

Comments like these are indicative of nothing more than the fact that many people have been able to live very sheltered, vacuum sealed lives in gentrified areas of cities for a while now. It is psychologically understandable, your shock, I would just urge you to realize that economic austerity and the crime that follows from it is not new, and is in fact more normal than otherwise.

I grew up in affordable housing in Queens, went to school in Brooklyn and remain in the heart of NY S*tty. As of reading your asinine ridiculous comment I write to you from Pomonok Houses. I invite you to come experience some “sheltered vacuum sealed lives” of the fine people here. Explain to them that they should rejoice in the wonders of economic austerity and defer their angst towards the gentrification demons of corporate America.

I think, perhaps, we are not sharing the same definition of economic austerity, and that is causing confusion here? Regardless, I will clear myself up: people should be able to steal and shoplift as much as they want, there is no doubt in my mind that any shoplifter is the victim of far more injustice than anything they could ever accomplish themselves. Most people have it hard, and it's not their fault. It's a hard a world. People who are shocked and feel like it's a "problem" that people shoplift, seem to not really have this idea, and think society "just ten years ago" is better, which I guess we can respectfully disagree about. What can I really say? Are you really just that angry at every individual shoplifter, and nothing more?

"I will clear myself up: people should be able to steal and shoplift as much as they want, there is no doubt in my mind that any shoplifter is the victim of far more injustice than anything they could ever accomplish themselves."

This has to be a troll, right? I like how you assumed the person was privileged, got corrected and then doubled down like this.

Clearly the folks doing the shop lifting are on the lower end of the economic spectrum. This does not give them the right to steal. Every society in history has had rules against theft. We want to live in a society where we don't have to bolt everything down to the ground and cover it in chains/fences.

Not every store is a faceless evil mega corp. The small timers are getting hurt by these flash mob robberies as well. Small stores in Oakland are getting hit multiple times.

I know somebody that sold shoes at a flea market. A very humble business. Somebody followed him home one night and stole his truck filled with $20k of shoes. This was a massive financial setback for him. Do you think the people that stole his truck has the right to take his livelihood away from him? Actually don't even bother answering....

When discussing these things, who are you angry at? Other than me now lol. Like even if the numbers that this article is calling into question were true, tell me what the precise crisis is? Is it simply, as you all seem to be implying, a moral crisis? Or is it a crisis or proper determents, of punishment?

I'll grant you I'm crazy for this, but I simply dont understand this implicit worldview that the primary problem in these matters is so many different bad actors; the moral conceit that some people are just "bad" and will steal, they were born and/or raised that way, and the most we can hope for is to keep them at bay.

I simply do not subscribe to that belief about people, I am not saying these things are free from injustices large and small. I just dont think its fruitful to think about it how you seem to be. We should try and put it all in the context it is happening in, not within trans-historical "society".

I dont expect you to agree, or to make many friends, but at least I don't live in a world full of evil people without explanation, and the only thing to do is find them and punish them.

Its a trade off.

“People should be able to steal and shoplift as much as they want.”

If this is a troll account, 10/10

Ok, sorry to waste your time then.

How about people should be able to murder as much as they want? Just because someone was a victim in the past or currently does not give them the right to victimize other people. There are social and economical injustices in America but destroying the physical businesses will not solve that, it will make it worse. Do you really think that the only way to resolve all these issues is to burn the whole place to the ground just so everyone can be equally worse off? Because that will not work either, there will still be people who will use that to their advantage so instead of having some middle class the country will end up with the de-facto feudal system of few rich lords with private armies and peasants fighting over leftover crumbs.

I just feel like once we begin talking about these things at the scale of trends or patterns, or as a crisis in the social order, what have you, we kinda naturally tend to treat them as symptoms. Its not this crime or that crime, its just social phenomenon. Like, an aberration in statistics or data for a doctor isn't the disease itself, because its just data, but a clue or symbol into a larger thing going on. (I'm not a physician).

Now if you want to grant that view for a second, I think its rational, what are we left with to say? Is it a symptom of the forces of evil that exist, and must be kept at bay? I dont like that view! At some level, I just don't understand precisely where this anger is directed at, its always like people have someone in mind..

I think I'm radical only in the idea that if society is going to manifest symptoms, so be it. We are all doing what we can. I maybe know some ideas of how to fix some things, but that doesn't even need to be the point!

I get that like everyone is angry at people who steal, I have been a victim of great theft in my life.. But I don't think its ultimately the evil of that person I am angry at, its the world where he is compelled to or not. And if he was just some low life scoundrel in an otherwise utopian society? Well I'd probably be angry for a bit, but it would be fine.

You are making the assumption that deprived areas lead to crime, but maybe it is crime that ruins areas because nobody wants to open a business there, and those who can (generally those who would provide a positive, stable influence) leave?

I just dont believe that "crime" is something in itself that's like floating around, looking for communities to invade.

Do you really think “economic austerity” is an accurate description of the financial response to the pandemic?

I see it as an accurate description of the state-of-affairs of the US generally, whether in pandemic times or not.

"their bureaucrats" - I don't remember a single election in CA/Bay Area where the GoP was in danger of winning in 10+ years. So the majority has been clearly happy with the state of affairs for a long time. They just decided not to use a unique opportunity to fire their governor. SF mayor/DA were elected recently, they never tried to hide their agenda, and they still won.

What is more puzzling is that the real estate prices show no correlation with any of this 3d-world stuff. The FAANGs don't show any sign of concern for losing engineers either. So apparently they don't expect much impact.

Or perhaps it isn't really a problem, just a media-fed hysteria.

I'm not so sure. Almost 10 years ago where I was living back then, there was a large homeless tent city put up right on a courthouse lawn, to circumvent anti-camping bans in municipal parks. The courthouse land was provincial land so it didn't count.

It still made crime rates skyrocket in the area, people were advised not to walk in the area alone, etc. It didn't get "handled", it festered a long while before it was finally dismantled.

there's nothing different about 2010. How do you think it would have been handled? People are just realizing what they can get a way with. I worked reatil in 2010, if there was a shoplifter we were told to let it go, same as now. Police don't patrol retail stores

I remember Fry's used to have cops visiting daily to pick up the shoplifters they had detained. I think policies tended to be more along the lines of try to detain them, but if they become dangerous to let them go.

Just watching a thief pocket something and walk out the door without saying a word to them seems nuts. I still have difficulty believing this happens in most of the country, apart from urban areas. Certainly where I live there's lots of employes working in stores and no homeless around. meanwhile downtown the stores all seem to have minimal staff and incidents seem to be pretty common.

Why should any retail worker stick their neck out for a company that's probably paying them close to minimum wage?

>In 2010 This would have been handled.

it wasnt handled in 1992 leading to public taking matters into their own hands

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/roof-koreans

"Broader crime statistics paint a picture of a decreasing problem, not one on the rise. National crime statistics from the FBI show shoplifting decreasing steadily every year from 2015 through 2020, the most recent data available. Larceny — the taking of property without using force or breaking in — declined 16% between 2010 and 2019, then dipped even lower in 2020, the data indicate.

"At a local level, more up-to-date statistics sharpen the image of a waning problem. Property crime in Los Angeles is up 2.6% from last year, according to LAPD numbers published Nov. 27, but down 6.6% from 2019. The category that includes shoplifting — “personal/other theft” per LAPD — is down 32% from 2019. A San Francisco Chronicle analysis of that city’s shoplifting crime data showed that the number of monthly reports had changed little in the last three years, though it also raised some major questions about the accuracy of shoplifting reporting to law enforcement. Smash-and-grab thefts are classified differently because they involve violence, trespassing and high-value hauls, and suspects have been charged with robbery, burglary or grand theft after recent incidents in L.A. and San Francisco."

Anecdotes weren't data in 2010, either. Not that any body cares then or now. But that's pseudo-intellectual nonsense. How long do you expect it to be before SFPD has an officer in riot gear with military weapons in every Walgreens, convenience store, and bodega?

What's changed in 10 years? My personal feeling is from watching the remaking of the executive and judicial branches over the last decade is that the law is meaningless and merely a tool of political whims. Sadly I think people on the opposite end of the political spectrum from me would say much the same. It seems that nihilism, unlike money, does indeed trickle down.

Property crime rates in the US since 1960:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#/me...

Or, if you'd rather, here's California's statistics:

https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/cacrime.htm

Could you imagine if “law and order” folks cared about wage theft remotely as much as they care about this?

I decided not to move to the states because of how disorderly you generally (also taxes being as high as Europe for comparatively little benefits, the mental health epidemic and school shootings).

"According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), total U.S. tax revenue amounted to 26 percent of GDP in 2014, with about one-third of that coming from state and local government taxes. In contrast, the OECD average was 34.4 percent of GDP and the highest rate was 50.9 percent in Denmark.

"If Trump was talking about the federal income tax rate that individuals pay, Americans still do not face the highest tax rate in the world. Again according to the OECD, the country with the highest national income tax rate is the Netherlands at 52 percent, more than 12 percentage points higher than the U.S. top federal individual income rate of 39.6 percent." ("Is the U.S. the Highest Taxed Nation in the World?": https://www.crfb.org/blogs/us-highest-taxed-nation-world)

Note: "top federal individual income rate" is the tax bracket and your actual tax rate would only approach that as your income approaches infinity.

I can't speak to mental health epidemics (twitch, twitch), and while we seem to lead the world in school shootings, they are in practice rather rare. But we are pretty disorderly.

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