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Comment by ozim | Hacker News Reader

Have you ever been a victim of a non-violent crime?

Loads of those just fall through the cracks of the system.

"solving the case" is mostly keeping all documented until they stumble on to something obvious, like already known perp having your stuff hidden in his stashing place while they go grab him for something unrelated.

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In my city's subreddit, last week there was both a post complaining about the police not doing anything about a car break in, and a post complaining about flock on the front page.

People hate all kinds of things police do until they need the police to do something.

If you don't have video evidence the vast majority of non violent crimes go unsolved. How many manhours is a car break in worth, or a break in? Especially when the end result more than likely is still not enough to convict someone on.

Rings surveillance network and the huge network of private CCTVs has shown even with video evidence cops refuse to do their job if nobody is dead. If you get a package stolen in apartment complex, the PMs won't let anyone but police see the footage and the police will not come out to view the footage. Cameras stopped being a deterrent when criminals realized there are no consequences when they are caught on camera.

The police will however stalk and harass their partners, people they personally dislike, etc because they can view the footage at their leisure.

The lack of cameras is absolutely not what's stopping police from doing their job, its the complete lack of accountability or responsibility.

Someone breaks into a car. There is no camera, no witnesses immediately came forward.

Please do tell me what you want the police department to do here.

Someone breaks into a car. There is a camera. The cops don't care and the owner doesn't know the guy.

Please tell me what you think the police would do here?

You sound like someone who never had the police tell you they won't bother looking into it after you present them with surveillance footage clearly showing the crime happening.

A few yes, though wage & PTO theft and wage fixing were the financially most impactful.

> Loads of those just fall through the cracks of the system.

Annoyances aside, I'm still not sure it's worth trading civil liberties when wage theft dwarfs the entire category of property crime.

Have you lived in a truly, totalitarian system? Have we really all forgotten from 1984? I get no one reads but come on.

I don't see anyone moving to Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, etc from the United States of America.

Just like I don't see libertarians flocking to Somalia.

Of course, white Americans don't think the cameras will be used against them. It's just for all those other people.

State surveillance builds infrastructure easily abused by bad actors, is a valid privacy argument.

I see extreme comparisons, false binaries, and emotional framing, that is not really convincing me.

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