"A tiny number of drug-dealers commit thousands of NYC drug deals"
"A tiny number of vandals commit thousands of acts of NYC graffiti"
What is this article supposed to be telling us?
That shopkeeper in the Bronx is not exactly Jamie Dimon. Society should try to protect him, and we _choose not to_.
Agreed though. A choice is being made to not go after the small stuff. The shopkeeper should have the full force of protection, even over a bag of chips.
You could effectively argue drug dealers and bookies are running an illegal business, and I would not disagree. They sell (illegal) goods and services to willing participants. The fences (eBay and other co-conspirators) are running a business too.
But shoplifting isn’t a business any more than muggings and “protection rackets” (give me a cut or I break your kneecap) are a business. It’s just violence.
Put a few people in jail and you can have nice things again?
Crack down on Amazon for distribution of stolen goods and a lot of these convenience store thefts will stop.
More like there will be a continuous flux of people entering and leaving the habitual shoplifter role and to keep numbers low you have to keep enforcing.
As I understand it, the shoplifting operations in big cities are actually pretty organized and have a constant flux of low-tier thieves, but a few ringleaders who set things up and really do shoplift for a living. It's not inconceivable that if one of these guys is a ringleader and gets arrested that someone will come "fill that position." If they are affiliated with organized crime, they may even have job interviews.
Shoplifting under $1k in NYC is punishable by a jail term of up to 1 year. The NYPD has a 5.5 billion dollar budget, and shoplifting is an absurdly easy crime to solve given that it almost always happens on camera. Prosecutors and judges aren’t going to catch heat for going after people with hundreds of offenses.
The interesting story to me is, what is going on with the mountains of money being shoveled at police and courts?
Here is an article that does: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/manhattan-da-alvin-brag...
Can you imagine any other profession refusing to work for three years and getting a raise for it? The police are a gang, running a city-wide protection racket. NYC voters even decided it’d be a great idea to put a made man in the mafia in the mayor’s office. That’ll fix crime alright! /s
The pigs are eating all that slop in the trough, getting fatter and lazier. Why would anything change? They keep it up and they’ll get even richer! What kind of idiot rocks the boat when they have a $200k a year job where you can just play on your phone all day? Cops are scum.
This data suggests they are working and the legal system is letting people go. Are you sure your mental model and generalizations of the police are based on accurate data overall
The individual you’re replying to has some pretty strong opinions about police and their “fee-fees (?)” and that anger is showing their comment.
Because they are paid to bother. Also if they’re in disagreement with DA, re-arresting the culprits will eventually lead to a downfall of type of DA policy and will lead to a change. Sure, there’s another way to get there and that is to let crime fester and pester the general population but again police are paid to intervene not say why bother.
What other profession is allowed to behave like a nihilistic teenager? They're paid to do a job. There's always more work to be done in every job. Otherwise, it typically ceases to be a job rather quickly.
This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.