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Comment by TechDebtDevin | Hacker News Reader

I'm all for this, but we need a different type of person to be a cop ultimately. A lot of cops see something like this and just stop doing there job altogether. I frequently ask cops in my city wtf they're doing when parked next to 20 people doing meth and they blame the democratic mayor almost every time.

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What point is there to doing anything if the officers know that the DA won't press charges or that the system will just let them out in a few hours on no-cash bail? 1/3 of all (reported) shoplifting incidents in NYC happen because the justice system there cannot hold ~300 people that are responsible for that huge chunk of stealing. [1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/nyregion/shoplifting-arre... (https://archive.is/VCKkk)

As a counterpoint to your argument: in many places I've lived the police would refuse to do their job even for things such as property theft that was caught on camera. Or enforce basic road laws for things like speeding or driving without plates. This was especially annoying in Austin where the police would continually blame a lack of budget despite having an insanely bloated budget.

I've become more and more cynical as I've gotten older and convinced that the police are largely conditioned to never do their job and just collect a paycheck for free, because then they can leverage their refusal into even more pay. It's corruption and kickbacks all the way through, and it's been a consistent trend in multiple cities.

Again, why bother to arrest someone if the rest of the system is just going to let them out? In Austin, your leadership decided that it was fine for you to be robbed, because they pursued a policy of not prosecuting property theft. [1] In addition, the Austin city council cancelled three classes of cadets for the APD while cutting the number of approved officers. In one of the fastest growing cities in America, they decided to end the new officer pipeline, ensuring that your PD will have fewer officers to serve the growing population. [2]

[1] https://www.traviscountytx.gov/images/county_attorney/Docs/L...

[2]https://theaustinbulldog.org/did-austin-defund-the-police-he...

That's not at all what either of the links you've given me say. At this point I don't really see a need to engage with you further if you're going to supply links that you take far out of context.

From my first link: "Individuals experiencing homelessness are frequently arrested for minor crimes, like trespassing and shoplifting, that directly result from their housing and economic status. Like most governmental entities, we have limited resources and have a fiduciary duty to taxpayers to use precious resources in the most efficient way possible. With that in mind, we will concentrate our resources on violent crime and threats to public safety." The explicit effect on policy communicated by this section is, 'My office will not pursue property crime'.

From the second link: "The council appropriated funds for 1,809 sworn officer positions, compared to 1,959 sworn officer positions approved in last year’s budget—a reduction of 7.7 percent. The number of civilian positions (617) and cadet positions (117) remains largely unchanged from last year. The council also zeroed out funding for three cadet classes." This is right at the beginning of the link and follows exactly with what I said in my comment about them reducing headcount and cancelling cadet classes. You cannot have a cadet class with zero funding.

You just sped run to the justification for “defunding the police”.

You often see a cop parked next to 20 people doing meth?

20 might be hyperbola but in SF cops ignore lots of drug use on the streets. They used to care up until the end of the Brown mayorship. Once Newsom and the new wave of progressives took control over the city they began pulling back from enforcement incrementally —it peaked with Breed and is now slightly retrenching but very very slowly.

Willy might have been corrupt but at least he took care of crime meaningfully.

Policing drug use is a waste of taxpayer money as well as a waste of labour (of both the drug users when they're not doing drugs, and the cops). The results of drug use should be policed, not the use itself; safe environments for occasional drug use should also be created (the free market would do this if it wasn't illegal, and in some places if you know where to look, has already quietly done this).

I have to disclaim I don't know what meth is like, what meth users are like, or what it's like to be on meth, but if 20 people are doing meth and not bothering anyone, and the police officer is keeping watch to ensure they don't bother anyone, that is fine by me. We should treat them like drunk alcoholics, not like murderers (unless they murdered someone).

Separately, we could encourage people to try less harmful drugs than meth. That isn't really possible as long as we give out the same penalties for weed as for meth.

While I’m not and would not propose the drastic measures that Singapore or Japan take, but there is much less drug use in those two places among others and they prove that enforcement, if you’re willing to address the problem, can greatly reduce use of illegal drugs.

Meth is very addictive and debilitating. It’s worse than crack. It takes people down. They are no longer able to be productive citizens. They become a burden for families and for society.

And arresting the users solves none of that. Maybe it hides it from casual observers, but if you actually want to help people, treatment programs and assistance, not cops, are what you need.

Obviously you have to go after supply … but both Japan and Singapore successfully tackle outdoor usage. You don’t see people openly using illegal drugs in either place. Obviously if you are able to procure and do your illegal drugs at home the police can’t stop you unless your neighbors rat you out.

I don't think you can compare East and West cultures like that. I think a big reason the West has so many open drug users is because shame and rule-following are not deeply ingrained parts of the culture. I don't think enforcement is what's doing the grunt of the heavy lifting in the East.

So does alcohol, but we don't lock people up for using alcohol - only when it becomes a problem for that individual person - and even then we try to avoid locking them up.

BTW, crack cocaine is just cocaine, delivered in a different format. The effects are the same. The disparity in punishment stems from the demographics of the average user of each.

Crack was affordable --mostly preppies used coke. Your everyday Joe bought crack. It was bad. I saw what it did to people. But from what I hear about Meth it's just so much worse. People on crack would steal money and they were very flakey but they could still show up to work. Meth addicts just can't function. Alcoholics can function. Now with regard to alcohol, it's such a historically baked-in party of society -we've had it with us for myriads there is no prying it away from folks despite the devastation it brings to its addicts --but that said, it's far from being as bad as Meth.

There are plenty of high functioning meth users. Not every meth user smokes their first pipe and instantly ends up on the street covered in scabs.

Edit: not to suggest using meth recreationally is a safe, smart or good thing to do.

Yeah! Lock up the meth heads, that’ll fix crime!

It literally does and it's good for the meth heads.

Yeah, nothing improves their prospects quite like adding a criminal record onto their drug addiction

Well you'd be adding a charge and hopefully mitigating the addiction, which is a rational tradeoff. And this is assuming this person doesn't already have a record.

I personally would prefer to do 6+ more jail and not have a record. Having a record punishes unnecessarily by destroying a persons future.

> Having a record punishes unnecessarily by destroying a persons future.

As opposed to doing drugs in a public park?

You’re right, we really should throw the baby out with the bath water.

Edit: 6 *months more in jail, in above post

Except I believe the person is better off with a record than continuing to do meth. You'd turn your back as the baby drowns in the tub. You might even open the faucet before doing so.

Weird strawman but okay.

No, you just can't follow the argument, but that's ok. At least you learned that your brand of sarcasm doesn't actually make you sound smarter.

I don’t recall ever letting a baby drown as part of an argument. You strawmanned.

My bad.

Slippery slope. They can start tightening things down and make it unacceptable lawfully as well as socially.

Portugal after experimenting with permissiveness is tightening down. We can do it too and save people from perdition.

Portugal is not tightening it down based on data, but based on perceptions. A shift to populism reverting previous progressive changes proves nothing.

Also, we didn't experiment with permissiveness, we fixed a heroin crisis that was completely out of control. You have no idea how bad it got before we stopped throwing addicts in jail and started providing them with rehab.

Source: I've lived here all my life.

Portugal after having massive success with actually dealing with addictions is backing down because of the budget.

Well, meth people are pretty fragile (no joke). If they die of overdose under your watch, you are in tons of troubles. Any normal person would refuse to deal with such risk.

Maybe meth people should become cops! And we could call Antifa to fight meth cops!

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