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I cannot speak for the US, but having been in Europe and Asian countries like Japan and Korea, the simplest explanation is the difference in tolerance for petty crime, vandalism and litter. Is related to the broken window theory.

The thing is that European cities have always been kinda dirty and crime infested, and it has little to do with American culture war. I do not have an explanation for this, because you will need dig deep into history for that, but the good news is that things are overall improving. Overall crime is overall trending down. For example, the inner city of Amsterdam used to be full of junkies and now that has been almost completely cleaned up. And football Hooligans used to be a much bigger problem than they are now.

That's right. We seem to have "allowed" or tolerated petty crime in most Europe. When I tell my foreign friends what kind of stuff happens in my area they always extrapolate and tell me I live in "8 mile". But it's not the case, almost everywhere in Europe has property crime (pickpocketing and burglaries), bigger stuff however is very rare.

It's funny to read HN comments where people can sort of describe the problems but can't really describe the problems

Then please, do everyone a favor and describe the problem.

Unchecked immigration, lax policing.

Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them.

Enforcement is an external impetus. Internal impetus are better to cultivate. I can't answer how cultures tend to differ here from my limited vantage point, so what I'm really saying is respect doesn't come by itself typically.

> Enforcement is an external impetus. Internal impetus are better to cultivate.

Internal impetus cannot be cultivated if the youth do not want or desire to be taught cultivation.

Ish. Spare the rod, spoil the child type approaches haven't seemed to hold true in my experience.

You cannot have police enforcement for petty misdemeanors like those, that's way too expensive. The only means-appropriate correction is social enforcement (i.e. norms and values), but too many people think that society is other peoples' problem. That's one of the downsides of a hyper-individualist society.

NYC ended up spending $1,440 per dollar in fares recovered on stopping fare jumpers, which is probably why the decree came about in the first place. Is there a particular reason why you think setting gargantuan amounts of money on fire over trivial offenses makes sense?

Per dollar recovered or per future fare-jumped dollar prevented?

Edit: This plays into something I observe in most "data-driven" organizations. Having a statistic available about recovery costs makes it easy to shift the conversation toward that statistic, when you actually ought to be asking questions about (in this case) the causal impact of that intervention on the subway's overall profitability, the need for easily available public transit and whether there ought to be a fare in the first place, the public good (or maybe harm -- the point is that we ought to be discussing it one way or the other) done by using fare-jumping collections as a mechanism for training people to be less antisocial in other aspects of their lives, or whether that obscene cost of fare collection is actually a reasonable baseline and should be improved. Your statistic, while interesting, is almost useless when trying to figure out what we should do next, at least by itself, and when paired with human psychology it can be actively harmful.

Per dollar recovered. Paying law enforcement officers overtime and directing police attention away from more significant criminal behavior (as opposed to redesigning turnstiles or pursuing alternative strategies like no-fare systems) is extremely expensive and time-limited in terms of impact.

It does shovel a lot of dollars at law enforcement and let the Adams administration pretend to be tough on crime despite engaging in a lot of it, which was the actual intent.

The sorts of people who turnstile jump are likely to commit further crimes on the public transit system that more directly affect the ordinary people trying to use it legitimately. For this reason I specifically want the police to prioritize arresting and prosecuting turnstile jumpers - it concretely improves the experience of public transit for everyone.

This is the same reason that getting rid of fare-checking is bad - the sorts of people who are kept off the transit system by enforcing a fare, are not people you want to be in an enclosed space with.

Corroboration: crime on BART dropped when the new harder-to-jump fare gates went in.

Because those trivial offences are a nuisance. BART spent millions implementing fare gates which so far, is at a huge loss, but it's dramatically lowered maintenance cost and crime on the transit.

Similarly stores with loss prevention guards are probably losing money, but I'd much rather that than having to click a button to unlock items, etc.

Loss prevention in retail is absolutely tailored to the store, in the US. Essentially, the corporate dept has a bucket of funding and chooses where / how to deploy it. So when you see {insert LP device}, there's metrics to back it up. And specifically, worse metrics than the same chain stores that don't have that device.

The fare gate redesign was cost-neutral; that’s the kind of solutions that should have been on the table, not setting money on fire with cop salaries.

Capitulating to the antisocial persons by just giving up just sends a message to others that this behavior is acceptable. It moves the Overton window. Someone who used to think turnstile hopping was the kind of thing only crooks and low-lifes do sees people doing it more and more, witnesses and hears about how there are no consequences, and can't help but reframe it as more like driving 70 in a 65mph zone -- a harmless thing that "everybody does" and is totally fine. The city has enough money, and after all, Mamdani said he'll make those rich guys pay more! That'll cover my share! Meanwhile transit deteriorates severely.

I much prefer targeting more pressing antisocial behaviors while not excessively wasting public funds, something the Mamdani administration has been doing quite efficiently e.g. with the pied-à-terre tax. You seem angry about that, for some reason.

Not sure how you can justify the pied-a-terre tax by claiming it fights against antisocial behaviors. It just is another funding stream.

Nah, I'm not really angry because I don't live in New York so it's not my problem. But no, I don't respect a politician who is demonstrably economically illiterate.

Great. So MTA raises fares and complains about not being able to meet revenue, causing the state to have to funnel more to it.

Nevermind that the economics of your argument are completely blind to the fact that the funding sources of the MTA and the NYPD are completely different.

More crazy is the downstream effects of putting up your hands and letting crimes go.

All this for what ? Social justice? Here's my counter to that - the subway is a public good, For the People a socialist would say.

So you encourage stealing from The People.

>the guard isn't legally allowed to stop anyone or engage in any physical altercation

This is false. In California the guard can use non-deadly force to detain a suspected shoplifter. Retailers may have a company policy telling guards and employees not to physically confront shoplifters, because that introduces escalation risk, litigation risk, and risk of injury. It’s simply cheaper to let the item go, in many cases. I’ve read that Target will strategically do this until a person steals enough that it becomes a felony, and then release the hounds.

> In NYC a decree stopped the police from issuing summonses for not paying the subway fare. Because it was said to be racist. Today, tons of people, especially normal professionals - happily do not pay the fare, while the system is said to be in financial deficit.

I’m not sure where you get your information from, but I suggest you reconsider your sources, because this is also false (not the deficit, but a decree stopping police from issuing summons): https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/excel/analysis_and...

I assume you are referring to a 2018 policy reform. Your concerns are debunked here: https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Fare-...