So their resourcing wouldn't take into account wider societal benefits from lower crime - it'd be more about the direct costs and benefits to the business.
... which are tied to lowering crime.
As a technical comparison; if you have a system that is creating a bug then it seems an incorrect stopgap solution to invest in support resources to handle user complaints rather than development and QA resources to reduce the chances of users running into the bug.
But it is a nonviolent crime. It seems like finding some way to prevent the thefts is better.
It seems like it should be possible to use locks which are harder to open in a short amount of time...but I suppose the cost of that would outweigh the current costs of the theft for the railroads.
For example, just thinking out loud, what about some sort of container door hinge mechanism which takes five minutes (or an adjustable amount of time) to open the door?
>> Additionally, mail theft laws which include prison as a consequence should be extended to package thefts if they don't already cover them.
>But it is a nonviolent crime. It seems like finding some way to prevent the thefts is better.
The implied conclusion here is "We're allowing it if people don't guard it like it's ft Knox."
The whole point of a legal system, the codification of crime and law enforcement is to stop things like this. To ensure that people cannot unilaterally and directly harm other people.
Which is precisely what "punishment" does. Try being less vindictive and more understanding about the root circumstances that lead someone to perform an act of desperation.
That's exactly what is being attempted via the theft.
2. ?
3. Most criminals are just poor people scraping by using the only means available to them; veritable street kids stealing a loaf of bread
Honestly, I don't understand this logic at all. Specifically, how people arrive at #3.
If you are desperate, you steal anything and try to sell it to buy food and hygiene products.
But I think the bigger issue is just that you're talking about retrofitting an aspect of the global transport complex. Why would the entire shipping industry change it's approach to standardized containers just to stop some thieves at a specific American spot? The cost of using special containers for this specific route would be prohibitive I imagine, and hard to manage the logistics of.
The only solution is armed escort for trains through slow zones.
Weakest point of entry.
That said, steal the shots I take for an autoimmune disorder and I'll definitely consider it an assault on my health.
So if you're going to play the "assault on my health" card, the guys robbing trains are literally Robin Hood saving lives.
Yeah, it introduces some problems around chain of custody, counterfeiting...but people who can afford the $300 can continue to pay the retail price.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mylan-nl-pfizer-epipen-id...
Disruption to medicine supply is my concern here, having had supply issues affect a family member where they've had to ration out heart related medication... I'm a little tetchy about it.
Easier to just go to the ER and not pay the bill.
I'm privileged to be able to even consider spending the $3000 (I don't have severe allergies, so haven't actually made this decision). It's not at all ridiculous that someone on a tighter budget would make the same decision if it was $30 vs $300, and might make compromises on the QA. And "just go to the ER" doesn't cut it: regardless of the cost, that could take hours, while you may only have minutes to spare in the case of anaphylactic shock. You take the injection AND go straight to the ER, it's not an either-or thing.
Two shot kits range from $100-$300, depending on whether you are buying genetic or brand name, whether you use goodrx, etc.
If you want to continue the robin hood analogy, well, Robin hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. He wasn't selling life saving medicines that may or may not be fake (buyers won't know either way), and may have been improperly handled or stored.
He wasn't potentially killing people who just want to save a few bucks.
I'd much rather we arrest them so they can be rehabilitated or helped. Which is a separate discussion, but there have to be consequences. Sometimes it's too late to help them and we just need to stem the damage they do to society and other people that are innocent.
This is not what happens when people are arrested.
Do they deserve a (potentially harsh) punishment? Yes.
But is it in society's interest not to make them worse than they already are? Also, yes.
So a problem in most countries is that prison is only focused on the punishment part not on the "what happens when people are released?" part.
Now some of the offenders might have chance to integrate back to society...
It's easier for techy types to gaff at the risk of highway robbery for a good reason.
Tech seeks to alleviate human labor via automation or semi-automation.
I think people are trying to take the same shortcuts to reduce the friction of human labor. Thievery is a foundational American ideal, romanticized in some sense.
The question most US citizens have been asking is "when do I get mine?".
I think they're finding their own answers.
When people can shoplift bagloads of merchandise without even trying to be stealthy, then casually walk out past a security guard who isn't allowed to do anything, or when they can smash a window and clean out a store under the cover of protests/unrest, it's not surprising that it escalates to more organised theft - whether it's 'flash rob' looting* of stores, or now looting train cargo.
(*As for the now-seemingly-controversial term 'looting' vs stealing/theft/robbery - to me, looting is brazenly grabbing anything/everything, out in the open, often in broad daylight and on camera, while most 'normal' forms of theft are carried out more covertly and perhaps with particular targets in mind). No amount of policing will prevent all theft, but open looting is an sign of lawlessness.
Police this.
This doesn't really mean anything. Non-violent crimes range from personal drug use & speeding to ponzi schemes & drunk driving.
There is a difference between theft (a victim exists and can inflict either physical or emotional damage) and something like personal light drug use (mostly victimless).
Theft not only robs a victim of their time & resource but it can also inflict emotional damage. A broken car window means you're out whatever they stole + glass (often a week or more of wages) and the emotional stress & time to fix it. These packages had recipients - the PPE is obviously important but each of these packages could have been someones anniversary gift or important medical device.
If we're talking about the moral severity of the crime itself, theft is pretty close to assault in my book and should be punished accordingly.
We can work on preventing the desperateness that leads to theft while still having strict punishment. What we shouldn't do is not address the root cause AND let such crimes go essentially unpunished.
In this context "the United States" means the federal government. States are also within the jurisdiction of the state government, and therefore not within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States.
This is the exact same reason why the US president can only pardon federal crimes.
Whoever, in any Territory or District, OR within or upon any place within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States
(Capitalisation for emphasis by me.)
The crime depicted is a federal one under US law.
Title 18 lacks a Definitions section that I can find.
> The term “U.S. Territory” means American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_Stat...
And there's plenty of references to legal documents clearly stating or implying that territories are in fact not sovereign entities (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_v._Sanchez_Valle)
And obviously there's only one Disctrict. The District of Columbia.
So it's actually fairly complex to define "the United States", because the answer is generally "it depends on the context"
I'm trying to determine whether or not the language in Title 18 refers to "territory" in the sense of "any land that is part of the United States" (which would include the states), or "organised Territories exclusive of states". It's odd that the language is chosen but not clarified.
I'm aware that generally states have jurisdiction within their own boundaries, but that interstate commerce is an exception. Given railroads' history ... the distinction, contenxt, and intent seem needlessly vague.
Your original point remains though it's not clear to me it's the correct interpretation.
If Buffett sells his stake in UP, someone else buys it and the company continues on. They got big because they figured out how to build a profitable business. Part of that is security. None of that makes us dependent on them. We have a mutual dependence through trade. Businesses provide something we want, and we give them something they want.
It looks like Buffett owned Union Pacific shares a while back, but sold them in 2009 so that they could buy BNSF.
I thought we all rooted here to defund the police? Should we backtrack that idea?
Edit: I seem to have broken a nerve in some people here. Sorry, for being snarky. I just think that you can't reduce funding for a gov agency but also then expect it to be resourced. Just using sterile logic to make this conclusion.
And let me guess. You think these train robberies happen because they defunded the police in their area…?
Have you been to the Bay Area? Apartment complexes and condominiums are hardened like castles while their kids play in the safe courtyards and the outside is rotting to the point of unsafe for male padestrians, let alone women and kids. These are the same people voting for these policies. Completely deranged.
They don't need more money. They need to be held accountable.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-10/appeals-...
I see absolutely no reason to believe that raising police budgets would somehow magically fix this. It wouldn’t. We have deeper societal issues at hand.
Digging around a bit, SF (and generally the rest of the bay area follows) has a substantially higher crime rate than say Austin or the US average: https://www.bestplaces.net/compare-cities/austin_tx/san_fran...
There are probably better sources than what I linked. It is really bad here in my experience and I want to move out.
There are plenty of reasons to want to move out of the Bay Area. Christ, traffic on the 101 often makes me want to jump off the golden gate bridge - but I don’t see how snarky remarks about “defund the police” help one way or another without dramatically misunderstanding and oversimplifying the real causes of this city’s problems.
I can deal with traffic, weather is wonderful.
The Tenderloin is practically like a South African slum. Sunnydale, Bayview/Hunter's Point and the south side of Potrero are dangerous. You have to watch yourself in the Mission, downtown, SoMa, and a few other neighborhoods.
But in Forest Hill you might as well be in Menlo Park. Pac Heights is generally safe. So is the Presidio. Even Noe Valley, right next to the Mission, is much safer. Crime doesn't like to climb.
I don't think this is a fair description of the vast majority of the SF Bay Area. Perhaps it describes well some bits of Hayward and Oakland.
Large amounts of the SF Bay Area have crime rates well below the national median.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-11/covid-19...
https://laist.com/news/politics/mayor-garcetti-signs-11-2-bi...
https://www.lataco.com/lapd-office-closed-defunding-false/
These statements are facts, yours are... what, exactly?
> The city council voted last summer to redirect money proposed for Oakland's Police Department to social services. But this week, defund the police became refund to the police. The same city council approved two new police academies and voted to hire a professional recruiter to attract officers to its department after a wave of resignations.
What about Scandinavian or Western European countries, then? Maybe closer to home, what about NYC – the year the NYPD went on strike, crime went _down_ (not just a drop in arrests, but actual murders, theft, etc). and NYPD realized they'd have to voluntarily restart policing (without the desired increase in labor terms), or NYC City Council might realize they're not as necessary as they originally set out to prove.
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...
https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-unio...
When you fund a prison-industrial complex, you're creating a system that incentivizes incarceration, not rehabilitation. These systems don't want to solve crime – they want to set out to look for (or, some would say, create) crime. Other countries realized this, and seem to have much less actual crime as a result, while protecting things that actually matter (i.e. their major trade routes/people's lives/the general wellbeing of society). The US seems to have this idea that... if you don't have a home, or you're addicted to drugs, or you need a wellness check, you're more dangerous than a murderer or a thief (given that the former group makes up the vast majority of those incarcerated)
2019-2021 was 635 million allotted, 20mil less than the 665 mil project, due to the pandemic. The 2021-2023 budget is 674 million, with an additional 18 million spent on the community based programs.
The budget is ever increasing, contrary to what a lot of people like to tout.
> What has not been reported as much is that the number of authorized sworn officers has remained unchanged. What we voted on last Tuesday is a more aggressive push to fill 60 budgeted vacant police officer positions that we had already approved in June that are not yet filled because our academy system is failing.
The rest of the paragraph explains how certain groups are using this concept of defunding the police to stoke fear in people like you. Incredibly ironic.