Move to New York. I was smoking on my fire escape, and saw a dude break a car window and steal a shopping bag out of the back seat. I called the police, they got the description from me over the phone, and the cops showed up in a car in around 90 seconds. They then asked me to get in the car and we drove around looking for the guy, found him, and they arrested him, and returned the car owners stuff. The whole process took less than 10 minutes.
Great job. Citizens like you will get involved when the cops pay attention.
New York used to be very, very bad. People thought that was just life in the big city. Then they decided to maintain order, even painting over graffiti as soon as they found it, and enforced even minor laws. The criminal element perceived that bad behavior would not be tolerated. Malcolm Gladwell describes it in Tipping Point.
Yes it is very expensive. There are about 40,000 policemen in NYC. Then again, there were lots of cops in old days too -- but they weren't managed very well.
Back in the 80's, it was crazy. I grew up in a good neighborhood in Queens. The NYPD hid the drunks and incompetents in precients that served safer neighborhoods in those days. One day, a car almost hit my friends playing stickball in the street, then proceeded to go down the block and empty an Uzi into a guy at a bus stop. (Life Lesson: Don't piss off Columbian drug dealers.)
So my dad calls the cops. He dials 911, and the cop asks "Are they still shooting?" and hangs up when my dad says "Uh, no". He ended up pulling the fire department call box out on the street, and the firemen called for cops over the radio.
They did it without a budget increase. The book "The Blue Ocean" describes the strategy. IIRC, they shifted resources from other kinds of crime-fighting to combat visible crime.
I believe that with the increased efficiency in identifying and prosecuting small offenses, punishment should be modulated down accordingly.
Crime happens when the risk of getting caught times the cost of punishment is lower than the benefit of the crime. If you increase the risk of getting caught, you may safely (in fact, you should) decrease the cost of being punished.
How immediate and certain the response to crime appears to be affects the perception of risk.
And even when there's no cop around, other things influence this perception. If there are a lot of people around and things are orderly and many visual cues contribute to the perception of order, the perception of risk is greater.
I'd rather take action against the people causing problems than force everyone else to the costs of the problems they cause.
For example, people throwing plastic bags everywhere. Now were trying to restrict the freedom of people who don't litter rather than holding responsible those causing the problem.
You're aware that the author is trying to point out the inhumanity of the American justicial system, more than actually defending flogging? (From your link: "Certainly In Defense of Flogging is more about the horrors of our prison-industrial complex than an ode to flogging".)
Gibson is a great writer, but what's "wrong" with Singapore is not what he describes. If you wonder what Singapore would be as a democracy, look at Switzerland.
And there's nothing "wrong" with law and order like in Switzerland. Chaos like in Hong Kong only seems romantic until you become a victim of violent crime. Then all of a sudden its not cute anymore.
Could not agree more. Having lived and worked in Singapore (and Zurich) I can honestly say that for the vast majority of people it is a great place to live. Singaporeans and expats all acknowledge that yes, it is more strict than the US or Australia, but unless you enjoy things like vandalizing cars, selling drugs, or stealing street signs you can live exactly how you like, with the added peace of mind of knowing that you have a near zero chance of being the victim of violent crime.
I am guessing (perhaps incorrectly) that most of the people who talk about what is "wrong" with Singapore have either only been there once for a few days or have never been and only base their opinion of the place on the story about the American kid who got caned.
Broken windows theory has its share of criticism. In Tipping Point (or maybe it was one of his others, or freakonomics), they are able to connect the drop in crime rates with both the legalization of abortion and/or the banishment of leaded gasoline. Point being, it's nearly impossible to separate causality in sociological phenomenon.
It was Freakonomics that theorized that abortion was the cause of the drop in crime (which occurred nationwide as it was happening in NYC, though not to the same degree). Gladwell has debated with the authors of Freakonomics (primarily the economist Steven Levitt) about this.
Oakland sounds like a more permissive place that attracts scum. In NYC, they kick you out of the projects when you misbehave and scumbags end up migrating to smaller cities.
I think that zero-tolerance policing does absolutely nothing to tackle crime, it only drives it deeper underground, or to other places. In order to stop a weed from growing, you do not cut it whenever it grows past an arbitrary point, you take away it's food, light and water instead. Effectively and permanently tackling crime involves a similar approach - address the root issues and you no longer have crime.
So what causes people to steal? They are poor, they want more than they currently have because what they have is not enough. If you want them to stop stealing, then society must become fairer. As it stands, resources are allocated through a sort of popularity contest. Those at the top of the social popularity ranking get the most.
Why do people kill and fight? For respect. Society looks down on the poor, it avoids them, laughs at them and criticizes them for being where they are without having walked in their shoes. Want people to stop being so violent? Show them some love and put the batons away.
Not to mention the double standard of having a bunch of hired thugs (the police) keeping us safe from a bunch of hired thugs (gangsters). I don't want any thugs in my neighborhood.
Yeah, I had a very similar experience when a friend of mine got mugged in Chicago (next to wicker park). We were able to call the police within a couple of minutes, and within the next 5 minutes a special response unit got to us, took a description, and then drove around my friend to look for the mugger.
We didn't catch him (right then at least), but I was still impressed with the quick response.
I bought a stolen laptop on ebay, and got in contact with the true owner. The Chicago police wouldn't do anything given an address, a po box, a name, paypal and ebay account details, and photos of the laptop inside their apartment. So it varies.
Second this. I lived in frisco for a year and while it's never as bad as they make it sound, it was pretty bad looking back. There were shootings at the intersection our office was located at. Car breakins were not a big deal and just accepted. I'd see fresh pieces of glass window on my walk to work each morning. And I wasn't even living in the worst part of town aka the tenderlon.
I've only moved to NYC few months ago and never felt remotely as threatened as some of my late night walks in SF. Still I keep hearing NYC has its own share of bad hoods but my guess is in proportion to its overall size, they comprise a significantly small % of area than sf.
I remember leaving it very late to book a hotel for JavaOne once and being put in a hotel in what turned out to be a rather "interesting" location. My first hint that something might be up was when the taxi driver at the airport took one look at me and asked "Do you really want to go there?".
The second hint that things were going to be interesting was when the guy on the front desk told me how to get to Union Square - the hotel was on Geary St. and I thought I knew SF reasonably well. He proceeded to tell me not to walk directly along the street, but to walk up the hill a bit then walk across in the direction of Union Square.
It turned out that during the day this advice wasn't really required but at night it definitely was! I only walked back once and took taxis back after that.
This was about 10 years ago - don't know if the area is more civilised now but it was pretty scary then.
Proper names for SF include: San Francisco, SF, the City, and occasionally San Fran. 'frisco will make you lose all credibility around here.
Two areas of SF are pretty bad: Hunter's Point / Bayview, and the Tenderloin. Personally I never really go there on foot, and I'm fine. If I must go there, I'll drive of catch a cab.
Not US but Exeter, England. Long, rambling, poorly structured story ahead. TL/DR, bike gets thieved a couple times and police were useless. Vigilantism sometimes works.
My motorbike was stolen the 12hrs before I went sitting in a hedge in a field where I found some tyre tracks in some mud (nobody sensible would have a trials tire on a chicken chaser) of my bike earlier that day ( skipped classes at my EE uni course). After ~4hrs sitting in the cold and dark I hear the bike near to the field and set after it and try to pull the thief off as he goes around a roundabout (he just wobbled into the curb and goes off and I get flung to the ground). I phone the police telling them where my bike is ( I had reported the theft hours ago). I chase after the guy and he drops it somewhere (it went quiet) so I phone for my housemates only for 1 to drive home because he "doesn't like this one bit". I spent 20minutes waiting for the police only for me and a friend to fail at tackling the guy off the bike when he comes back and rides off.
I go looking for the bike with a friend (I hear it stop a long way off somewhere in a council estate) and interrogate one of the thief's friend who tried to follow the thief. Waste of time, it turned out the friend had put fake plates on his scooter. My friend miraculously spots my bike in a dark alley and we push it home. Then 3 fucking police cars turn up almost an hour after I tell them and I convince them I phoned them but I have nothing on me (I was certain I was at least going to get beaten up that night) so I get put in the cop car and taken home to get ID. Then they are happy that I wasn't the thief.
That was the 2nd time my bike got stolen.
1st time it was in a locked garage blocked by a locked car (smashed the window of the car to release handbrake and crowbarred the garage door and cut the lock. A few years later they torched the both and my bike along with my stuff stored in it [i was at uni]). Usual stuff first, police come down, take info and tell me they wont be able to find it. I bunk off school and go riding around on my mountainbike checking out all the council estates and woods near my home (Plymouth, England). Sure enough I hear it come down a path and see 2 people on it. I throw my mountainbike in front of them and they came crashing down and I banzai charge at them screaming. One of them runs for his life and the other just hung around claiming he didn't nick it (was offered a "go") and wanted compensation for damaging his "trackies". I believe him though as I had an inkling as to who knicked it. I ride out of the woods away from home with the mangled bicycle on my lap and I get my dad to come by to pick it up(http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnobleuk/5783020123/), clear the woods between me and home and then I ride back.
Police's response when I tell them I retrieved my bike back "oh, good for you."
For some unknown reason this heap of a bike got stolen 3 times. The 3rd time I gave up only for the police find it dragged 50meters away from my home where someone tried to use bolt-cutters on it. The police then tried to charge me £250 for retrieval fees. I slipped off from work to avoid that scam.
I'm from Exeter and that sounds full on. Luckily never had my bike nicked, but I was assaulted when I was working in a supermarket there one summer and the police turned up, basically told me it was pointless going after the guy and didn't seem to give one shit about the fact I'd just been attacked (to be fair - he pushed me into a display rather than hit me, but still).
Had a couple friends get mugged, luckily not me, in neither incident were the police even involved I don't think. People just don't think to go to them for such things such is their stellar reputation.
Also had my (push)bike nicked when I was a kid growing up which means I never actually learnt to ride a bike (my family were too poor to buy a replacement), but I guess that's a bit out of date now!
I really think things are worse for this kind of crime in a smaller town because there are more idiots who think they're king of the castle, the kind of guys who would come a cropper very quickly in a bigger city like London. Let's put it this way - I've nearly been in a fight like 2-3 times + actually got assaulted once in Exeter, never had any problems in London other than once getting my phone nicked.
I lost all respect for the police after an inadvisable night when I went to a concert in Milton Keynes and ended up sleeping rough outside the train station waiting for the first train (I was 16 at the time). The police turned up with blankets, etc. and just sat there in their vans laughing at us. Not to mention the way the MET handles protests (google Ian Tomlinson).
I would like to think most coppers are ok, but I can't help but wonder whether the police is just a destination for school bullies who want a bigger scope in which to ply their trade.
Ah cool. I sat in the field next to the Pinhoe bridge station. I got invited to the Heavitree copshop after the 3rd theft to try to figure out why it was getting stolen. I've no fucking idea.
Apart from that I never really had an issue with Exeter apart from maybe the god awful traffic and a few minor cases of racism from some kids. A friend got randomly punched in the Cavern ( I love that smelly, dingy nightclub)and had a face like a bruised elephant man for about a month. I quite like the town to be honest, the chavs are a lot less chavvy than swillies.
About stolen mountainbikes, I've had 3 stolen (all in Plymouth); one from under the kitchen window whilst my mum was doing the dishes; 1 locked in the previously mentioned garage; 1 locked up next to the Plymouth Charles Cross station. I confronted the thief on Royal Parade (2 minute walk from the police station) for about 5minutes and had the police on the phone whilst talking to him. He was fucking enormous and I was a weedy 19yr old so there was little I could really do. The police couldn't see him on any cctv.
My dad had 2 stolen and we saw 1 of the bikes being ridden in the aforementioned woods. My dad went after him with a tyre iron and I followed, we got it back (only for it to go up in the fire as it was aluminium).
It's not like we were rich to buy all these bikes. I worked up ~£600 from a paper round (a lot of papers at 3p each) for the 1st bike (the best 1) that got stolen and we really had to cut corners on most things to afford bikes to go racing. Not that they were ever really any good, they were always bitsas and there was always a really crappy part on it (saddles and pedals usually).
WARNING: rant.
I really do have a deep-seated hatred for police, at least the Devon+Cornwall. My family had to put up with almost 10years of racial abuse, violence, robbery, arson, gbh, false arrests, graffiti, property damage and theft. Smashing all the windows or pouring paint or battery acid or breaking off all the wipers or slashing the tires on our rotation of crap cars seemed to be a sport to them. That stopped after 4 of the usual culprits left home.
Let me tell you, ~30 people of all ages outside your door shouting racial slurs, even if they don't match your ethnicity, is intimidating when you are 12 and equally depressing when your non-participating neighbours walk on by or go inside their homes.
The police never did a thing except for 1 time when the guy ( who I thought stole the motorbike) was letching after my sister, came to our door banging on it, and started hitting my dad (he was a pensioner by this time) on our doorstep. We went fucking mental on him. He went to prison ( he later did the arson the day after he got out and came round to check his handy work) not for attacking and trespass but for attacking the police when they turned up an hour later (I phoned 999). Police couldn't give a shit.
My brother got ripped of his clothes and caned by two 14yr olds when he was 6. Police said "it's just boys playing".
One boy 5yrs older than I grabbed my arm and shoved it into a load of grease, I broke free and climbed a tree in our garden. That boys dad came down with a claw hammer and asked my dad where I was so he could kill me. I stayed very quiet in that tree.
Unlit boxes of matches got pushed through our letterbox on several occasions.
The police have always been fucking useless to me and have proven to us on a couple of times in court that they are liars (they can't get there stories straight and are always changing their statements). I always think they might redeem themselves. Not yet.
Ouch. Sounds like you've had a particularly bad time - was that in Plymouth specifically or Exeter? I can imagine racial issues being far more serious in the SW given the absolute lack of racial minorities. Luckily I never witnessed it/plus my friends and I were brought up to despise racism. It is more the chav families I think.
And yes, the cavern is nice :)
Anyway I fear we are digressing from the discussion rather here :) email if you fancy, address on profile.
Never really had any trouble in Exeter - couple of pushy situations, but that's about it. One of my mates at Exeter Uni (99-02) was Asian and was subjected to some dreadful abuse. It seems to have got better in the last 10 years though.
I'm not surprised that it mostly happened in Plymouth really, it certainly seems to have a great deal more poverty and thus criminal/anti-social issues than Exeter, largely relating I suspect to the reliance on the military docks down there at which work has very significantly reduced.
I went to uni in Exeter; my brother in Plymouth. Never got into any trouble in Exeter apart from phoning the police on what could have been an attempted kidnap, could have been a couple having a barney. There always seemed to be some shit going down in Plymouth though.
yeah, Exeter's a great town despite focusing on the deficiencies of the police (more a comment on the police in general), and is a way nicer place to live than Plymouth.
As I say in another comment I think Plymouth has more issues because of poverty resulting from the vast reduction in docks employment. Poverty begets crime and anti-social behaviour, same old story really.
I knew that both times. my brothers and sisters and i have been brought up unorthodoxly and have all had our asses handed back and noses broken for standing up for each other and ourselves.
rightly or wrongly I'd do it again and both times in the past I expected to be stabbed as I know chavs have a thing for flick and butterfly knives. I had recurring dreams when growing up of being stabbed in the neck, always defending someone. I always wake up in a pile of cold sweat with my heart going a million bpm. thankfully I rarely get them now.
People die in car accidents. People die in plane crashes. People die in Space Shuttle crashes. People die from heart disease. People slip and fall in the shower and then die. People die for no reason at all.
Some day, you will die. If you try to prevent yourself from dying, you will fail.
Really, it's about risk management. Unfortunately, I don't know the probability that chasing after thieves will result in death, however, I am going to guess that the chance of harm to yourself is significantly higher than driving 100km. Just like there are some slopes a novice should not ski down, and there are some battles one should not pick, there may be some thieves one should not chase.
I had my bike stolen in Scotland, the police spent an hour in my house trying to convince me I had just done something 'stupid' and tried to blame in on a theft. It took the bike being radio'd in doing 70 in a 20 zone for them to believe me.
I had my bike stolen and nearly didn't report it because usually nothing ever comes of it but I thought what the hell, and sure enough got the usual line about how unlikely it would be that they'd ever recover it.
Two days later I got a call to say that it hadn't actually been stolen after all, but rather some officers on the night shift had picked it up themselves as felt it was "at risk of theft". It had been sitting in one of their interview rooms the whole time.
Oh, I meant bicycle. And it was still attached to the large clump of bricks I had used as a "theft deterrence" when the perplexed officer on duty took me to it. He actually had the cheek to grumble about not being able to interview criminals in the interview room while it was full of my crap.
There have been documented cases of NYPD not wanting to take reports. Without crime being reported, they can manipulate the figures to make themselves and the city look better. [typo edits]
That would be why it went that well. Try the Bronx where they never came to help me after 4 hours of waiting. Oakland is more similar to the Bronx in policing than it is the rest of the bay area.
When I had stuff (including a laptop and $800 cash) stolen out of a vehicle in NYC a year and a half ago, it took two hours to even get the police to show up. They made a decent attempt at investigating once they did, but the initial response time was appalling.
When someone put a hammer through my car window in an attempt to steal it at 3am, the cops took about half an hour to respond - they know that the one place the criminal isn't is at the site of the crime. Do a drive-around first looking for suspicious activity, then move in.
If there is no 'hot pursuit' or current danger, then it doesn't matter much whether they arrive there in half an hour or in four hours. The stuff is gone/damaged/whatever and the police won't gain much by interrupting their current task.
There is hope in some cities. Or more likely there is hope with cops that actually care and believe in what they do. These cops are scattered in various cities but hard to find because they are probably helping someone else out and there are not enough of them.
