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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThieves in LA are looting freight trains filled with packages
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/01/14/economy/la-freight-railroad-theft/index.htmlLocally I've seen containers on trains broken into and refrigerators, microwaves, TVs, tossed off. All broken, complete wanton vandalism.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)Because that is bullshit
PTWB
(4,131 posts)The real solution is to end the staggering wealth disparity between rich and poor, institute a mandatory living wage tied to inflation and other economic metrics, and tax the fuck out of the 1%.
Loki Liesmith
(4,602 posts)PTWB
(4,131 posts)JI7
(89,287 posts)workers .
brooklynite
(94,950 posts)If only we'd had those policies when the mafia was a major source of crime.
PTWB
(4,131 posts)cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)The see e people are not motivated by wealth disparity. They are emboldened by a lazzie faire attitude towards crime and criminals.
PTWB
(4,131 posts)We know better now.
Celerity
(43,734 posts)Crime is associated with increases in poverty, which has increased during the pandemic. The county's directive was intended to combat social ills that come from misdemeanor convictions, such as difficulties with employment, housing, education, government benefits and immigration.
"Studies show that prosecution of the offenses driving the bulk of misdemeanor cases have minimal, or even negative, long-term impacts on public safety," Gascón said when the directive was issued.
"Our office is committed to working with law enforcement to ensure collective safety across Los Angeles County's sprawling infrastructure, whether it's at our ports or on railroad tracks," Alex Bastian, Special Advisor to District Attorney Gascón said when reached for comment.
cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)Areas of the country where crime is prosecuted simply don't have these issues.
Celerity
(43,734 posts)madville
(7,413 posts)Not recognize those acts as crimes anymore, that makes sense
Demsrule86
(68,788 posts)can't be tolerated. As a party, we will lose multiple elections if we support such behavior.
PTWB
(4,131 posts)Of course there will always be some crime. I never suggested we could completely eliminate it. But we can eliminate the vast majority of crime by eliminating the root causes of crime, and those root causes are socioeconomic.
If you disagree, how do you account for the difference in crime rates between residents of affluent neighborhoods and residents of impoverished inner city neighborhoods?
I guarantee the crime rate would plummet if we fixed the socioeconomic issues that are the root cause of crime to begin with.
cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)Hard working people who are not criminals tend to, over time, move up the socioeconomic ladder. Why people who are criminally inclined tend to move down the same ladder.
Crime in reality really doesn't pay that well. And people with poor impulse control are not good with money or other life decisions.
But your painting of the poor as a criminal class still is distasteful. The majority of poor people are not criminals despite the assertions made in these posts.
PTWB
(4,131 posts)Find me one post where I disparaged the poor and claimed that the "majority of poor people" are criminals. That's absolutely ridiculous and I've never said anything of the sort. Let me be pellucidly (thanks Malaise!) clear: the majority of poor people are not criminals and their poverty is not the result of their "criminal inclinations tending to move them down the socioeconomic ladder" as you wrote.
You need to be more careful with the accusations you level. You've completely misunderstood my post and then made nefarious accusations against me based on that misunderstanding.
Your suggestion that that poor people simply have "poor impulse control" and are criminals because they're "not good with money or other life decisions" is incredibly offensive.
In one breath you're trying to suggest that I'm painting the poor as a criminal class (I'm not, and that couldn't be further from the truth). In the very next breath you're doing exactly that--painting the poor as a criminal class--by saying that poor people are poor because they're "criminally inclined" and moving down the socioeconomic ladder. You're saying they're poor because they have "poor impulse control" and are "not good with money or other life decisions."
Your statement that poor people would move up the socioeconomic ladder if only they "worked harder" sounds suspiciously like the things that right wing extremists say. That type of talk has no place on a progressive, Democratic forum.
I cannot believe I'm reading that here.
cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)No-one is saying the majority of poor people are criminals. In fact, criminals are a very small minority of poor people.
I am saying is the majority of criminals are poor. Due primarily to thier criminal nature and the other behaviors associated with that criminality.
But the idea that someone would turn to crime due to wealth disparity is bizarre. How would what someone else owns or make possibly cause anyone to turn into a criminal. That is like saying other people having girlfriends is what causes rapists.
If someone steals because they are envious of strangers that own things they don't they are horribly broken either mentally or morally and need to be incarcerated and possibly rehabilitated. They do not need to be released back into polite society to continue their antisocial behavior any more than a rapist does.
PTWB
(4,131 posts)In this post you've written that you're "not trying to attack me" and "no-one is saying the majority of poor people are criminals." In the post I was replying to, you wrote, and I'm quoting again, "The majority of poor people are not criminals despite the assertions made in these posts."
I do not claim that the majority of poor people are criminals. I never have said anything of the sort, despite what you wrote in that post when you attacked me with that false claim.
Now you're saying that the majority of criminals are poor, but you're attributing that as "being due primarily to their criminal nature and other behaviors associated with that criminality." That's incredibly offensive.
We disproportionately incarcerate Black Americans because they're more likely to be born into extreme poverty due to generation after generation of economic and social oppression. They are NOT any more likely to have a "criminal nature and other behaviors associated with that criminality" than white Americans, yet Black Americans are five times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. Tell me again how that's just due to their "criminal nature."
You claim in this post that the relationship between poverty and crime is because of "their criminal nature." You claimed in your previous post that these poor folks have "criminal inclinations tending to move them down the socioeconomic ladder" and that all they have to do to climb out of poverty is to "work harder." Can you not see how that smacks of racism, classism, and rightwing extremism? That's something you'd expect to hear if you'd accidentally tuned into Rush Limbaugh in the early 90s. That isn't something you'd expect to read on a progressive, Democratic forum in 2022!
I'm really not sure what to say to you. We've known for decades that as wealth disparity and income inequality get worse, so do crime rates.
A new survey by Gallup, a polling organization, appears to go some way to verifying Beckers theory. It asked 148,000 people in 142 countries about their perceptions of crime and how safe they feel across four measures: whether they trust the local police; whether they feel safe walking home alone; if they have had property or money stolen; and whether they have been assaulted over the past year. Testing the correlation between these questions and the amount of income inequality (as measured by the Gini coefficient) in any given country shows a strong and positive relationship (see chart above).
Whether people feel safe walking home alone or not shows the strongest relationship with inequality. In Venezuela, for example, four-fifths of respondents said they do not feel safe walking home alonekidnappings and extortion are a common occurrence in the country. Its income distribution is the 19th-most unequal in the study. In contrast, fully 95% of people in Norway said they feel safe walking home alone. Sure enough, it is 12th most equal country of the 142.
FACTORS THAT PREDICT VIOLENT CRIME
Firearm ownership is a statistically significant predictor of homicide rate (t=4.43), but the effect of each firearm is vanishingly small (and that of each homicide disproportionately large) at the margin. For example, the model suggests that a population of 1.2 million must reduce its firearm ownership rate by 1 per 100 (i.e. destroy up to 12,000 firearms) to avoid one homicide per year. Alternatively, each additional homicide per year would prompt the purchase of up to 12,000 additional firearms.
Racial diversity. This analysis was colorblind. I used publicly available data from the Kaiser Family Foundation for the racial composition of each state (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native, and of two or more races). The diversity index represents the probability of a random pairing of individuals being of different racial groups. The analysis found that more-diverse populations have higher rates of homicide (t=4.75) and robbery (t=3.41). This statistical finding might seem disturbing, but the magnitude of the effect is rather small: If we were to make our hypothetical population of 1.2 million of any single race, the model predicts that we would avoid only three homicides per year.
GDP per capita. The analysis found an inverse relationship between GDP and both homicide (t=-5.86) and robbery (t=-5.29). In other words, as a population gets wealthier, homicides and robberies both decrease. The model implies that our hypothetical population of 1.2 million could avoid one homicide per year by increasing GDP by $1,700 per person.
Income inequality. The analysis found an interaction between the Gini coefficient and the GDP per capita that was a strong predictor of both homicide (t=6.80) and robbery (t=7.06). In other words, the wealthier the population and the bigger the gap between the highest and lowest income earners, the more homicides and robberies. The model suggests that our hypothetical population of 1.2 million, assuming the current US GDP per capita of $57,466 and Gini coefficient of 0.41, would avoid 60 homicides per year if it had Canadas Gini coefficient of 0.34 while holding all other variables constant.
Overall, our results support the theory that as income inequality increases, so does property crime, and that the spatial context plays important role in the relationship. Policies aimed at reducing localized income inequality may help to reduce the incentive for property crime. If households have similar income, then there should be no reason for people to steal from their neighbors. However, we must caution readers on the robustness of these results to other cities. Block groups can vary dramatically in size across large and small cities which may impact the results.
Demsrule86
(68,788 posts)against the residents that are more vulnerable to such attacks. I think it is way more complicated than that...and the socioeconomic issues will never be fixed IMHO...not completely. Hope we can do a better job but I don't think it will happen in a way that will affect crime.
Mosby
(16,416 posts)A new Bureau of Justice report released yesterday reveals that 21% of sentenced people in state prisons and local jails are incarcerated for crimes committed to obtain drugs or money for drugs. Almost 40% of people locked up for property crimes and 14% of those incarcerated for violent crimes reported that they had committed their most serious offense for drug-related reasons. If these figures hold for the entire prison and jail population, that means over 473,000 people are behind bars for seeking drugs.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/06/28/drugs/
oldsoftie
(12,665 posts)I would bet these thieves are of working age and physically able if they're robbing trains.
Maybe they can try real jobs for a change
I'm tired of blaming others for the acts of criminals
JI7
(89,287 posts)tend to be poor minorities who ARE working these low paying jobs and trying to get by each day and improve their lives.
I-Scream
(34 posts)There are certainly societal economic disparities. I don't see anything that indicates the current rash of organized multi-million $$ larcenous crimes have anything to do with the subsistence for desperate folks in need.
This appears like straight up crime to me. The news tonight claimed the railroad is losing >$5,000,000 a day to this type of theft.
Thieves harm rich and poor alike. The big difference is an individual's ability to cope with the costs.
whathehell
(29,103 posts)There's no pass to steal because the world's not perfect.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)Most people choose not steal because they have a moral compass.
People who steal do so because they have the opportunity to do so and they do not care about anyone else.
oldsoftie
(12,665 posts)harumph
(1,920 posts)and that drives them to break into freight cars and dump merchandise.
OMG - that's hilarious.
Nixie
(17,011 posts)distractions, actually.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)As if they have lower moral standards than the rest of us.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)And the obvious armed guards would be a deterrent.
A thief will kill you, by the way.
A thief will steal when they are rich and well fed.
Your assertion that poor people are immoral thieves is rather repulsive.
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)all these thieves and smash n grabbers need to get sent to prison. Stop blaming society for the moral failings of individuals.
LuvLoogie
(7,069 posts)Drive prices up for the middle class.
oldsoftie
(12,665 posts)"agents".
tenderfoot
(8,438 posts)whathehell
(29,103 posts)Do tell..
tenderfoot
(8,438 posts)Beaverhausen
(24,475 posts)tenderfoot
(8,438 posts)or simply couldn't be bothered.
Regardless, something is off about this.
ecstatic
(32,782 posts)tenderfoot
(8,438 posts)Why unbox onsite? Opening shit takes time. So they had their way of the place despite the railroad having their own security.
Then the accusations about the LA DA's office, as if one has anything to do with the other.
Raine
(30,541 posts)to rot and attract rodents etc.
shanti
(21,675 posts)they are something else! Why aren't they cleaning up the mess, let alone stopping it?
BlueTsunami2018
(3,507 posts)Thats how it works here. Many a good deal has been had by things that fall off the truck. Or in this case, the train. This is pointless, wanton destruction.
DanieRains
(4,619 posts)As a business owner who is a constant crime victim, the people who choose a life of crime need to go to jail. Not that complicated. Give them a chance to choose a different life if they want, but jail if they want to do crime.
Amishman
(5,559 posts)I remember reading about this years ago with one of the Midwestern rail hubs.
Throck
(2,520 posts)madville
(7,413 posts)If its mostly property damage and not theft.
Throck
(2,520 posts)I wouldn't give them any classification.
leftstreet
(36,119 posts)One of the photos traveling around shows an Amazon box that's been taped up with blue painter's tape. What thief would do that?
Odds are this story eventually gets debunked
Calculating
(2,957 posts)The losers doing this shit need to be arrested and spend some good time behind bars. This is NOT a victimless crime, imagine if it was YOUR packages getting stolen and trashed? The people doing this aren't doing it for food money, they're just scumbag losers who ruin society.
radius777
(3,635 posts)and even Lori Lightfoot (Chi) and London Breed (SF) are sounding a much tougher tone on crime.
Being against crime does not mean one is for the racist police... Adams has always been against both. And if you think about it being for communities of color and the disadvantaged means you have to be against both.
The key is to give young people the proper schooling and a safe environment so they don't drift to gangs - alot of crime is gang related.
There are too many homeless mentally ill on the streets who need to be institutionalized to receive the treatment they need and to protect the public at large.
oldsoftie
(12,665 posts)I loved it
Response to Throck (Original post)
Post removed
ecstatic
(32,782 posts)Seems like that would be a very slow way to ship items.