Can I get a source on any of these claims?
Tbf, I am generally anti-police in the sense that they’re pretty institutionally bad at preventing or deterring crime in the current model, but I don’t really understand the argument you’re making here
Tbf, I am generally anti-police in the sense that they’re pretty institutionally bad at preventing or deterring crime in the current model, but I don’t really understand the argument you’re making here
Just google property crime + [any largeish US city] + reddit and youll find dozens of anecdotal stories from citizens.
Property crime seems to have essentially become a problem dealt with exclusively by citizens. Hell, SPD wouldnt even do anything to help when my car was stolen a few years ago. I got a call from the bar where it was abandoned and had to have it towed myself.
I think the argument GP was making was that of incentives. Police department have essentially zero incentive to devote time+manpower to petty theft or property crime, so the easiest solution is to simply encourage citizens to not 'resist' so to speak. If you get mugged, its a lot easier to deal with as a police officer if you simply hand them your wallet, vs starting a fist/knife/gun fight in the streets.
But I do know if you're a homeless drug addict and you commit a crime that makes the cops throw you in jail - that's three meals a day, somewhere warm to sleep, and no lost income because you didn't have any income.
Whereas if you're a member of the middle class and you commit the same crime and get thrown in the same jail? Mucho lost income, you can't pay your mortgage, you get fired for not showing up at work, and as a convict your employment prospects become much, much worse.
So a "rational" member of the middle class might opt not to fight a homeless drug addict over $500 simply because they've got a lot more to lose.
I don't know why people always parrot this like a fact. Plenty of prisons serve only two woefully inadequate meals a day (like, Fyre festival sandwich levels of inadequate) and prisons generally have atrocious climate control. In the southern states, they don't have air conditioning and it gets genuinely dangerous for the prisoners.
Some jurisdictions give the Warden a budget for feeding the prisoners, and any dollar they don't spend, they get to KEEP. This predictably results in malnourished prisoners, but Americans do not have the empathy to care most of the time.
I'd love a source on that.
Their 2024 revenue was $2B.