Are Amazon's 'Ring' Cameras Exacerbating Societal Inequality? (theatlantic.com) 437
In one of America's top cities for property crime, the Atlantic examines the "porch pirate" of San Francisco's Potrero Hill. It's an 8,000-word long read about how one of the neighborhood's troubled long-time residents "entered a vortex of smart cameras, Nextdoor rants, and cellphone surveillance," in a town where the public hospital she was born in is now named after Mark Zuckerberg.
Her story begins when a 30-something product marketing manager at Google received a notification on his iPhone from his home surveillance camera, sharing a recording of a woman stealing a package from his porch. He cruises the neighborhood, spots her boarding a city bus, and calls 911, having her arrested. The article notes that 17% of America's homeowners now own a smart video surveillance device. But it also seems to be trying to bring another perspective to "the citizen surveillance facilitated by porch cams and Nextdoor to the benefit of corporations and venture capitalists."
From the article: Under the reasoning that more surveillance improves public safety, over 500 police departments -- including in Houston and a stretch of Los Angeles suburbs -- have partnered with Ring. Many departments advertise rebates for Ring devices on government social-media channels, sometimes offering up to $125. Ring matches the rebate up to $50. Dave Maass, a senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital civil liberties, said it's unseemly to use taxpayer money to subsidize the build-out of citizen surveillance. Amazon and other moneyed tech companies competing for market share are "enlisting law enforcement to be their sales force, to have the cops give it their imprimatur of credibility," said Maass, a claim echoed in an open letter to government agencies from more than 30 civil-rights organizations this fall and a petition asking Congress to investigate the Ring partnerships. (Ring disputes this characterization....)
In some cities, the relationship between the police and companies has gone beyond marketing. Amazon is helping police departments run "bait box" operations, in which police place decoy boxes on porches -- often with GPS trackers inside -- to capture anyone who tries to steal them... Amazon sent police free branded boxes, and even heat maps of areas where the company's customers suffer the most thefts...
Stings and porch-pirate footage attract media attention -- but what comes next for the thieves rarely gets the same limelight. Often, perpetrators face punishments whose scale might surprise the amateur smart-cam detectives and Nextdoor sleuths who help nail them... In December, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas announced an enforcement campaign called Operation Porch Pirate. Two suspects were arrested and charged with federal mail theft. One pleaded guilty to stealing $170.42 worth of goods, including camouflage crew socks and a Call of Duty video game from Amazon, and was sentenced to 14 months of probation. Another pleaded guilty to possession of stolen mail -- four packages, two from Amazon -- and awaits sentencing of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine...
While porch cams have been used to investigate cases as serious as homicides, the surveillance and neighborhood social networking typically make a particular type of crime especially visible: those lower-level ones happening out in public, committed by the poorest. Despite the much higher cost of white-collar crime, it seems to cause less societal hand-wringing than what might be caught on a Ring camera, said W. David Ball, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. "Did people really feel that crime was 'out of control' after Theranos?" he said. "People lost hundreds of millions of dollars. You would have to break into every single car in San Francisco for the next ten years to amount to the amount stolen under Theranos."
In the article the EFF's investigative researcher also asks if police end up providing more protection to affluent communities than the ones that can't afford Amazon's Ring cameras. But W. David Ball, the law professor, also asks whether locking up low-level criminals is just ignoring the larger issue of poverty in increasingly expensive cities.
"Everyone assumes that jail works to deter people. But I don't know if I were hungry, and had no other way of eating, that that would deter me from stealing."
Her story begins when a 30-something product marketing manager at Google received a notification on his iPhone from his home surveillance camera, sharing a recording of a woman stealing a package from his porch. He cruises the neighborhood, spots her boarding a city bus, and calls 911, having her arrested. The article notes that 17% of America's homeowners now own a smart video surveillance device. But it also seems to be trying to bring another perspective to "the citizen surveillance facilitated by porch cams and Nextdoor to the benefit of corporations and venture capitalists."
From the article: Under the reasoning that more surveillance improves public safety, over 500 police departments -- including in Houston and a stretch of Los Angeles suburbs -- have partnered with Ring. Many departments advertise rebates for Ring devices on government social-media channels, sometimes offering up to $125. Ring matches the rebate up to $50. Dave Maass, a senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital civil liberties, said it's unseemly to use taxpayer money to subsidize the build-out of citizen surveillance. Amazon and other moneyed tech companies competing for market share are "enlisting law enforcement to be their sales force, to have the cops give it their imprimatur of credibility," said Maass, a claim echoed in an open letter to government agencies from more than 30 civil-rights organizations this fall and a petition asking Congress to investigate the Ring partnerships. (Ring disputes this characterization....)
In some cities, the relationship between the police and companies has gone beyond marketing. Amazon is helping police departments run "bait box" operations, in which police place decoy boxes on porches -- often with GPS trackers inside -- to capture anyone who tries to steal them... Amazon sent police free branded boxes, and even heat maps of areas where the company's customers suffer the most thefts...
Stings and porch-pirate footage attract media attention -- but what comes next for the thieves rarely gets the same limelight. Often, perpetrators face punishments whose scale might surprise the amateur smart-cam detectives and Nextdoor sleuths who help nail them... In December, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas announced an enforcement campaign called Operation Porch Pirate. Two suspects were arrested and charged with federal mail theft. One pleaded guilty to stealing $170.42 worth of goods, including camouflage crew socks and a Call of Duty video game from Amazon, and was sentenced to 14 months of probation. Another pleaded guilty to possession of stolen mail -- four packages, two from Amazon -- and awaits sentencing of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine...
While porch cams have been used to investigate cases as serious as homicides, the surveillance and neighborhood social networking typically make a particular type of crime especially visible: those lower-level ones happening out in public, committed by the poorest. Despite the much higher cost of white-collar crime, it seems to cause less societal hand-wringing than what might be caught on a Ring camera, said W. David Ball, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. "Did people really feel that crime was 'out of control' after Theranos?" he said. "People lost hundreds of millions of dollars. You would have to break into every single car in San Francisco for the next ten years to amount to the amount stolen under Theranos."
In the article the EFF's investigative researcher also asks if police end up providing more protection to affluent communities than the ones that can't afford Amazon's Ring cameras. But W. David Ball, the law professor, also asks whether locking up low-level criminals is just ignoring the larger issue of poverty in increasingly expensive cities.
"Everyone assumes that jail works to deter people. But I don't know if I were hungry, and had no other way of eating, that that would deter me from stealing."
Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
Equally BS only poor people steal. A lot of these videos of Tesla cams catching people breaking windows or Ring cams catching porch thieves film people in nice cars committing these crimes.
These people aren't by and large starving. They're middle class greedy assholes hopping into reasonably new, nice cars.
Re: Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
But W. David Ball, the law professor, also asks whether locking up low-level criminals is just ignoring the larger issue of poverty in increasingly expensive cities.
Stealing mail is a federal offense - one of the thieves mentioned in the article got 14 months probation, that's a pretty low-level penalty for the crime they were convicted of.
"Everyone assumes that jail works to deter people. But I don't know if I were hungry, and had no other way of eating, that that would deter me from stealing."
That everyone that sees a package on a front doorstep doesn't steal them proves that jail does deter people.
I question the logic that someone, "hungry, with no other way of eating" is somehow entitled to, or should be somehow excused, for stealing my Xbox One, camo socks, or latest bestseller off my porch. Truly hungry people steal food, they don't steal random things to try and sell them to raise money to buy food - their need is more immediate than that.
And why is the assumption that people stealing packages are poor? When someone from one part of town drives their car to another part of town and steals packages they cease to be "poor" and become "calculating thieves".
Re: Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, it's the victim's fault.
In a civilised society we should be able to leave valuable packages on our doorstep without fear of them being stolen.
Re: (Score:3)
In a civilised society we should be able to leave valuable packages on our doorstep without fear of them being stolen.
That is part of the reason why mail theft is punished as harshly as it is. Mail boxes around the country are generally unlocked, and always have been. The penalties for mail theft are severe.
Over the years as the value of money has changed, the statute has relatively less bite. Even so, a quarter million dollars is a massive penalty if caught.
Re: (Score:3)
with doesn't involve turning the country into some kind of surveillance hell-hole where citizens are constantly spying on each other.
You live in the UK, right?
How's that surveillance state going? Any useful fruit from the Orwellian surveillance machine over there?
Re: Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The criminal onus, sure. But this is a pretty dumb argument in either case. It's like saying if you walk around in the woods soaked in bear jizz and strapped front to back with raw roast beef and saying "well, that bear shouldn't eat me!".
Bad humans exist, they are a constant in reality. Your poor choices don't exonerate them in any way, but it doesn't mean you made wise choices.
People seem to have come up with a new definition of 'victim blaming'. Victim blaming is when a perpetrator, their lawyer, or some
Re: Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
Blame the victim. In my area, I can leave my door unlocked and nothing bad will happen. I have packages that I leave out even though I know they're there, hell, I leave my garage door open and a bunch of furniture on my front patio.
The problem is not Ring or enforcement, that's the solution. Even the poorest people in America make about 10x as much as the poorest people on earth, yet you don't see them trying to steal from their neighbors. Who's to say, whoever you're stealing from doesn't have a hard time themselves.
Re: Only rich people have cameras... (Score:3)
Nobody in America is starving
"Thank god for the dumpsters??"
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
Healthy food is cheap in the US too, unless your definition of "healthy" is organic kale watered with avocado-infused LaCroix. Actual healthy foods like rice, potatoes, beans, chicken, frozen vegetables, and even a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables are dirt cheap. Fast food or pre-packaged highly processed prepared foods are much more expensive, both per pound and per calorie (even something as cheap as packaged ramen isn't going to be cheaper than buying raw noodles). I could eat healthily for a weak on what fast food would cost me to eat for a day.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, police have always paid more attention to protecting rich neighborhoods. The richest neighborhoods tend to be tiny incorporated cities, just so that can have their own out-sized police force who do nothing else.
Doesn't particularly bother me to the extent policing is proportional to property taxes. That's life: you get what you pay for.
Re:Only rich people have cameras... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's even more than always. The police exist in a town because the town leaders got together and formed a government and hired the police force. The town leaders are the business and property owners. Without the goal of protecting rich people's property, the police mostly wouldn't exist at all.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
In other news: Somebody named a hospital after Mark Zuckerberg?
Your country is fucked.
Re:Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news: Somebody named a hospital after Mark Zuckerberg?
I'm sure they only did it because Zuckerberg gave them the money to build it. That's typically how buildings get named after people.
Your country is fucked.
Well, yes, but not because Mark Zuckerberg donated a big pile of money to a hospital.
the real story is just americas prison sentences (Score:5, Interesting)
the real story is just americas prison sentences, not that they're getting caught stealing and facing x years in prison for petty theft upgraded somehow into a federal felony.
same crime, same statistical perp and prison sentence has variation from 0 weeks in jail up to 5 years in prison. making stealing something worth 100 bucks potentially a federal felony(what a joke) and carrying higher sentence than what people get for vehicular manslaughter while drunk.
now which one is worse? mind you that dui killing of someone can also be pretty much anything from zero years to infinity years.
this makes it a mockery of why you would have had put a federal felony system in to place in the first place.
the reason why this is a societal problem is that it causes people to lose faith in the system and makes people feel inequal. they can perform whatever crime because it's not really worth it thinking what the sentence might be because it's seemingly entirely random what sentence they get - simply holding someone from fleeing and moving them 6 feet can carry same sentence as beating them to pulp - everything is upgradeable.
the dui'er might just as well flee from the scene, there's no extra repercussions(the sentence is already random) and only possible upsides too(getting away from doing a blood alcohol test).
american prosecutors are pushed to upgrade everything to whatever they can and that's a problem too. the reason they're pushed to do that is simply to avoid congestion in the court system by persuading people to plead to a lesser crime to not risk the sentence from the upgraded crime. how does the statistics even work? when did it become a prosecutors job to decide if beating up someone into a pulp was either battery or tresspassing? how can the statistics can even be slightly correct when it's not the circumstances the crime was done in which dictate what laws were broken but the whims of the prosecuting team. prisoners dilemma isn't even a thing in most other countries - where the crime is what it is and based on evidence and witnesses stories(including the perps), not just a label the prosecutor uses to extort a confession.
and come on, richest country in the world and somehow fuller of home grown criminals and more dangerous than any other country in the world? like nobody buys the explanation that it would be too expensive to do it right starting from police training(why are nordic policemen longer trained than american prosecutors? because nords are richer? but they aren't, average american cop makes more than enough dough compared to national average to justify a far longer training period.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:the real story is just americas prison sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
Right and another thing the grandparent does not seem to understand is that while its easy to point out specific situations like one guy swipes a box and another guy swipes a box, next they receive different punishments and go "gee the system is fucked up" its really shallow and ignorant. Its easy to omit certain details if you have a political agenda and make people angry.
The is good reason punishments are harsher for messing with USPS deliveries. A long time ago very smart people thought it would be a good idea for our society have system by which you could send a message to almost anyone and have a high degree of confidence it will reach them and do so unmolested. Realizing they could not secure 100s of millions of post boxes adequately they turned to a legalistic solution.
So yes when you steal a UPS box its "theft" when you steal a USPS box its "Tampering with the mail" and the latter is more serious because you are not just stealing a package you are undermining the faith in the official United States Postal System!
Its like burglary vs simple B&E the issue is not just that you are damaging property and taking things but by doing it at residence at night, you are dramatically increasing the odds you will encounter the resident leading to a conflict where someone will be injured or killed.
I am not going to say the past like the present isnt full of cruel people making bad and unjust policy. However not everyone in the past and not every policy in the past was born of cruelty, injustice, and ignorance. Much of it was born of very careful thinking, observation, science, and philosophy. When the law seems unfair; it might be; or it might exist for complex reasons. One should take the time to understand before leaping to the conclusion it needs to be changed.
Re:the real story is just americas prison sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
Starving? Ask and I'll feed you. I'll even give you half of my last sandwich. But steal from me and you've made a very serious mistake.
People use the "hunger" argument to justify petty (and not so petty crimes) because they refuse to acknowledge that we have:
- Food Banks
- Soup Kitchens
- State and Federal Food Assistance programs (SNAP)
- Free Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner programs at public K-12 schools
They ignore all that, and excuse theft because "poor people don't know any better" - they do, and the evidence is that they tend (I assume) to target wealthy neighborhoods, not their own.
Why would a truly hungry person choose to steal a random item off the porch of a house that likely has a pantry full of food, next to a fridge full of food? If they want/need food, they'll steal food - they won't take the latest bestseller off my porch and hope to sell it for enough to hopefully buy a sandwich...
Re:the real story is just americas prison sentence (Score:4, Funny)
Re:the real story is just americas prison sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think you bothered even skimming the original article, let alone reading it. The woman was offered help, even ordered into programs that would help her. Instead, she kept going back to drugs and stealing to support the habit, pulling the same old, tired "You're just a racist" card whenever someone caught her stealing. She'd skip out on court dates with the useless excuse of "having a lot going on" (hint: If you have a court date, you have nothing else going on that takes higher priority, so get your
Re:Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
But they were sentenced to probation - cruel and (Score:4, Insightful)
From the breathless summary:
--
Often, perpetrators face punishments whose scale might surprise the amateur smart-cam detectives and Nextdoor sleuths who help nail them...
One pleaded guilty to stealing $170.42 worth of goods, including camouflage crew socks and a Call of Duty video game from Amazon, and was sentenced to 14 months of probation.
--
Omg an admitted thief got PROBATION?! That's certainly cruel and unusual punishment!
Who wrote this crap, AOC?
Re:But they were sentenced to probation - cruel an (Score:5, Informative)
I see you used the terms "probation" and "parole" interchangeably, including in the same sentence. Fyi they are different things.
People on probation do indeed pay part of the cost of the probation, $25-$100 month, depending on income and jurisdiction. I've worked with dozens of people who have been on probation and most were glad for it. Some continued their criminal habits and weren't glad to get caught again.
> When you get out of jail you get a bill for the cost of your stay.
I think someone might have been pulling your leg. Or maybe there was some confusion with parole, which I when a person gets out of prison early, provided they meet certain conditions while they are out. Parolees pay $10 / month here where I live in Texas. Of course they also get medical assistance and other things that are worth a lot more than $10.
Re:Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
They seriously opine that catching criminals exasperates their lot in life?
I think the word you want is "exacerbates", not "exasperates". Two very different things.
Stealing from someone else is not an answer to your problems. Its a fast path to jail.
Well, if you're hungry, jail may be an answer to your problem, since prisoners do get fed. I'm not saying it's the best solution to your problem, but it is a solution.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Only rich people have cameras... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Only rich people have cameras... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes of course it's more difficult to make decisions when you're hungry, or when you have something weighing on your mind like household finances. That should be obvious.
Re:Only rich people have cameras... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Only rich people have cameras... (Score:5, Informative)
Poor decision making does cause poverty, but poverty also causes poor decision making.
Both of those feedback effects are small compared to the common causes that contribute to both poverty and "poor decision making".
e.g. low IQ and lack of ability for delayed gratification on the nature side, and lack of education and family support on the nurture side.
Not so much a circle as a rut, but some people manage to break out.
Takeaway (Score:5, Funny)
Starving thieves are stealing camo crew socks to eat.
Re: (Score:2)
The same way you work to make money you can eat.
Re:Takeaway (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, we agree on that completely.
My point was that the thief steals the socks to eat them in the same way a law-abiding citizen makes money to eat it. There are additional steps required for both to obtain food.
Re: (Score:3)
... including camouflage crew socks and a Call of Duty video game...
Maybe the starving thief saw CoD on the box and thought it was full of fish?
This makes me want to buy Ring! (Score:5, Insightful)
Potrero’s conflict with Fairley herself is not over. Sometime in late summer, Fairley left her Salvation Army program early. She skipped a probation status hearing, and the judge issued new warrants for her arrest.
...
Starting in mid-September, posts started popping up on the Neighbors app showing Ring videos of someone—Fairley, it was clear to me—hitting Potrero stoops.
Hello? Police? How about arresting a criminal? Oh sorry, I forgot that it's SF.
Re: (Score:2)
If the thief steals less than $1000, often the police won't arrest them at all.
It is worse than you think (Score:5, Interesting)
"Everyone assumes that jail works to deter people. But I don't know if I were hungry, and had no other way of eating, that that would deter me from stealing."
Worse than being hungry for food is the unquenchable thirst a junkie has for his next high. A person focused on their own chemical addiction is unable to plan ahead or weigh consequences. Incarceration is an ineffective deterrent to a person that doesn't understand or care what tomorrow brings. The real scary thing is that every economic class is susceptible to addiction. And for a drug company the ideal customer is one who can afford to hide their addiction for a long time.
Every time someone has more property than another person, we go into some kind of moral quandary about if theft is justified. We obviously can't let people go around taking whatever they want, I mean if we wish to have a functioning society. On the other side of the coin we can examine our own society and ask why are people committing crimes, and if this is a symptom of a greater problem. It's not a new idea that social inequality is in itself a social problem. Dickens wrote about this crap like 150 years ago.
How is it not a deterrent (Score:2)
Incarceration is an ineffective deterrent
How can they steal while locked up?
Seems like it's pretty effective to me.
Sure not to stop them in the first place, but at least to stop them for a while.
I would say, let every single non-violent drug offender in prison go free... then right away fill the prisons back up with these asshole porch thieves.
I'll bet you'd find it's not even the very poor being arrested for this, after all you have to be a certain level of well off wandering neighborhoods in cars that see
Re:How is it not a deterrent (Score:5, Insightful)
Because some prison systems, varying greatly by country, don't put a lot of focus on rehabilitation and post-release support. The prisoner is released with no source of income, and likely no training or qualifications - and as very, very few businesses are willing to hire people with a recent criminal record, these people are essentially unemployable. All they have to their advantage are the new criminal connections they made on the inside, and exposure to a culture which is very good at justifying crime.
Re: (Score:3)
Who cares? If they re-offend you put them in for longer. Rinse, lather, repeat. Why am I supposed to care if they waste their life re-offending?
It's interesting how much money people are prepared to spend "pretending not to care".
Re:How is it not a deterrent (Score:4, Insightful)
We do care, we offer:
- Food Banks
- Soup Kitchens
- State and Federal Food Assistance programs (SNAP)
- Free Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner programs at public K-12 schools
- Housing assistance
- Welfare payments
- and so on...
That prefers to steal than avail themselves of our charity/support doesn't entitle them to anything I get delivered to my house.
Why do you insist the criminal is also the victim in order to excuse their offenses?
Re: (Score:3)
It costs a lot of money to keep people locked up forever. American society currently doesn't provide enough housing for that many prisoners.
Re: (Score:3)
Getting away with stealing isn't what addicts need.
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the prison industrial complex has removed almost all vestiges of rehabilitation in the prison system and replaced it with a system that optimises re-offending and the resulting re-admission.
Re:It is worse than you think (Score:5, Informative)
I'm currently a morphine addict, and have been for five years. Oh don't worry, my morphine is prescribed by a doctor, and I always take no more than the necessary dose, so I'm a "good addict".
(For anyone who doesn't realise, there's a heavy dose of sarcasm in the previous sentence).
I've recently worked to reduce my daily intake, but once it was about the same opiate equivalent as a medium-heavy Heroin user.
Once, when my intake wasn't even half that at its peak, I ran out of tablets and spent 24 hours in withdrawal. I went to the darkest place (mentally) that I have ever been. I didn't just feel depressed, I felt like the world was bleak and that I could never be happy again. That's the best I can do to describe it, but the feeling of absolute nihilism can't be communicated through words. I couldn't even imagine what it was like to feel "normal", despite the fact that I've done so for every day of my life except that one.
And that was just 24 hours.
Before suggesting that *anything* is an effective deterrent to DRUG addiction - specifically opiates - speak to someone who has experienced even minor withdrawal symptoms, like mine were compared to a full-on heroin addict. I can *completely* understand why the only decision a drug addict can make is "how to stop this feeling", and I'd have been exactly the same had I not known that the minute the doctors opened on the Monday morning, I'd have a prescription in my hand. I'd have done pretty much anything to stop feeling like that because nothing else mattered.
Sure, there's gambling and other addictions that have a psychological element. But they don't *chemically* change your perception of reality into one of utter bleakness. Opiate addiction - or at least opiate withdrawal - is the same as withdrawal from anything else... plus a whole extra world of shit that unless you've experienced it, you can't even begin to imagine.
hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you tried not commiting crimes?
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
How about just getting a job!
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
She should learn to code!
Different issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Stealing is wrong no matter who's doing it or how it's done. The issue they're actually talking about in the article is that the punishments are on different scales for "white collar" theft as opposed to stealing a package off someone's doorstep.
That's the real issue here that's worth discussing-- not whether some scary 1984-esque device is exacerbating societal inequality. (It's not. It's a huge erosion of privacy, though.)
Re: Different issues (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
What about the people who lost houses due to the robo-signing and other outright fraud that was committed during the recession and resulting mortgage crisis? Are you saying that the people who lost houses are not real victims?
Re: (Score:3)
No, we're still screaming that those scum should be in jail.
But... they're buddies of the people running the country and the only people trying to get something done about it are being put down (eg. "Pocahontas")
Re: (Score:2)
A victim is still a victim, even if they are two or three levels removed from the crime.
Re:Different issues (Score:4, Informative)
You know how it is that my country has pretty much zero package thefts? Simple - any package delivered to the address has to be signed for. Nobody ever leaves it just outside where anyone can grab it.
Regular letters go into a mailbox and are relatively difficult to pull out (but then, regular letters are not worth anything to a common thief as nobody ever sends cash in a letter or the post office workers will steal the cash).
If you get a notice and have to pick up the package at the post office, you have to show photo ID for it.
And guess what, no need for cameras on every house etc. Packages just don't get stolen.
Re: (Score:3)
And guess what, no need for cameras on every house, etc.
The cameras seem like a much better solution than taking a day off work every time a package is expected or driving to the post office every day to pick up mail. Your country sounds dysfunctional.
Re: (Score:3)
There are other options to taking a day off work.
1. Most parcel delivery companies have "packet ATM" or however you choose to call it. Basically a completely automated box where the courier puts your packet. Then you go there, enter your password (that you got in an SMS) and take your package. The device is normally locked and is placed near a big store or something (so it is watched by cameras etc).
2. I sometimes just set my delivery address to the place I work.
A relatively high theft rate, at least in the
Re:Different issues (Score:5, Insightful)
It used to work here (still does in most places) because MOST people are fundamentally honest. It's extremely convenient, but it requires basic general honesty and trust.
A few bad apples, as they say.
If we never punish the bad apples (ie San Francisco) then breaking the social contract of trust becomes a valid life-strategy. And then your whole city turns into a place where they need a full time team of people scraping HUMAN SHIT from the sidewalks.
Re:Different issues (Score:4, Insightful)
It's interesting that no one argues people are being wrongly accused of stealing, it is that they are properly being accused of stealing and the evidence exists to convict.
Porch theft used to go unpunished for lack of evidence, now having a camera to collect the needed evidence is considered bad, unfair, dare I say racist?
Re:Different issues (Score:5, Insightful)
The other sentence is probationary, and it is also reasonable.
If this were a situation where there was some injustice in sentences, like given a women of color who accidentally voted a long prison sentence, or a white boy who murdered a family after getting drunk of beer he stole from Walmart, then there would be a significant discussion. What I see, though, is criminals who are no longer free to commit crimes. This is a natural progression, as we find more effective ways to enforce the rule of law and insure that we are not victimized. Everyone records cops so it is now harder for cops to murder black people. We set up cameras on our porches so we can now more reliable have packages delivered without being stolen.
This is not a situation where Google buys a ton of health data and them mines it to sell to employers so they can fire employees to minimize health care costs. It is not a situation where Amazon uses FUD to get people to allow strangers into their house under the guise fo delivering packages. This is a case where people are entering private property in the commission of a crime and getting caught.
Re: (Score:2)
Stealing is wrong no matter who's doing it or how it's done
Stealing is right when CEOs do it.
Re: (Score:3)
Stealing is wrong no matter who's doing it or how it's done. The issue they're actually talking about in the article is that the punishments are on different scales for "white collar" theft as opposed to stealing a package off someone's doorstep.
The people stealing packages off doorsteps usually drive there in cars thet look like they belong in the neighborhood. They're not doing it out of hunger, they're hoping to score some free luxury goods.
They deserve all they get and more.
What is this horse shit? (Score:5, Interesting)
The cameras aren’t expensive. I live in an area that is considered “low-income”, and I’ve had a Ring doorbell for a few years now. Most of the neighbors have some sort of security cameras, too. The people who live here aren’t criminals and don’t steal - we just work the kind of jobs that society needs, but aren’t glamorous or particularly well-paid.
So yeah, the cameras aren’t because we don’t trust our neighbors - it’s because when you work hard for the little you do earn, it hurts a lot more when some low-life thinks he’s entitled to steal from you. Nobody has sympathy for thieves, nor do they deserve it. Being poor is not an acceptable justification for being a thieving piece of shit.
Re:What is this horse shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is even more amazing to me is that in the USA couriers just leave packages outside. No signatures no nothing. Just leave a valuable-looking thing outside where anyone can just grab it. Not even throw it over the fence so it is not visible from the street and you need to climb the fence to steal it (well, that's probably due to the fact that Americans do not have fences).
Re:What is this horse shit? (Score:5, Informative)
For the vast, vast majority of America, it's truly that safe and honest that this is ok day to day.
See if that squares with the "picture" of American society you get in your news.
I live in a small town in MN. When we bought our house built in 1907, the only keys they handed us to the house were skeleton keys (ie https://images-na.ssl-images-a... [ssl-images-amazon.com]) because those were the ONLY LOCKS ON THE HOUSE. The people before us, who'd lived there from 1970 or so, had never locked their doors,ever.
Honestly, the front main door of our house is still a fairly unique skeleton key because it's a 100+ yr old door and a fairly unique key so we figure it's still good enough as a deadbolt lock.
Most of the US is still like this, which is why people are so very angry about this sort of behavior...it's wrecking everything.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:What is this horse shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
The cameras aren’t expensive. I live in an area that is considered “low-income”, and I’ve had a Ring doorbell for a few years now. Most of the neighbors have some sort of security cameras, too. The people who live here aren’t criminals and don’t steal - we just work the kind of jobs that society needs, but aren’t glamorous or particularly well-paid.
So yeah, the cameras aren’t because we don’t trust our neighbors - it’s because when you work hard for the little you do earn, it hurts a lot more when some low-life thinks he’s entitled to steal from you. Nobody has sympathy for thieves, nor do they deserve it. Being poor is not an acceptable justification for being a thieving piece of shit.
It's really just a technological upgrade to the Neighborhood Watch concept. Imagine that, neighbors keeping an eye on their neighborhood and reporting unusual actions or theft to the police.
If "income equality" is what it takes. (Score:5, Informative)
Those poor little common criminals! (Score:3, Insightful)
Life is so hard for them, we should just make their crimes legal. It's not fair that so many people have cameras that thwart their attempts to vandalize and rob the horrible rich people who can afford the cameras. Those awful rich people should just try getting along without a job for a while and see how it feels! Better yet, we should just have the government start handing out free money to everyone, so no one will be tempted to steal any more. Then we can get rid of all those awful security cameras!
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Those poor little common criminals! (Score:5, Informative)
Good thing the Left doesn't give a shit about the poor any more. The working class have been completely abandoned. It's all about identity politics now. Whole categories of inquiry about race, gender, sexuality, religion, ability, and identity can only go so far before the enquirer exercises prudent self-censorship or is shut down as racist, sexist, or x-phobic.
These lines of inquiry are judged so out of bounds that they don't require a response based on evidence or argument. Rather it is sufficient to identify them as falling into a particular category (sexist/homophobic/Islamophobic/racist or socialist/collectivist/globalist/secularist depending on context and one's politics) to discredit them. Once the appropriate category is identified, one is freed from the need to counter the argument or debate the point. It might be called refutation by categorization.
The reason that we do have howling mobs trying to stop the Incorrect from speaking is that identity politics is very easily demolished, thus the Incorrect are a real threat.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The government funding security for the wealthy while doing jack shit for the poor.
That's an unusual position for liberals to take since they generally argue that minority neighborhoods are targeted by police. It can't simultaneously be true that police are ignoring the plight of the poor while also disproportionately targeting their neighborhoods for patrol.
The prosecutors giving sentences upto 5 years and huge fines for package theft by poor people while giving parole for crimes committed by the wealthy,
Prosecutors do not set sentences, and often judges are unable to set them as well. That would be up to a jury of the defendant's peers or, in the case of mandatory minimum sentences, the legislature of the state in which the crimes ta
It's a false choice (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA: "Everyone assumes that jail works to deter people. But I don't know if I were hungry, and had no other way of eating, that that would deter me from stealing."
I see fat beggars (the joke is the US is one of the few societies where the rich are thin and the poor are fat). There is a trillion dollars annually in transfer payments [cato.org]. This "stealing to eat" excuse has been obviated in the US. If someone knows how to fence a stolen item, I'm confident they know how to receive public food assistance. The point is - these people are almost certainly not stealing for life and death reasons. If they are, then that should be a mitigating factor at sentencing.
Theft is predatory behavior. It goes on at a low level with package thieves, to the top of the economic food chain. But that doesn't mean we should excuse corruption and fraud anywhere. We should always be striving to create a better society, a "more perfect union" as the Founders put it.
Re: (Score:2)
Guys, never go hungry, there is a foodbank near you. It really is that simple.
https://www.feedingamerica.org... [feedingamerica.org]
https://www.foodbanks.net/ [foodbanks.net]
Re: (Score:3)
Guys, never go hungry, there is a foodbank near you. It really is that simple.
/p>
The problem is that food banks don't stock black tar heroin.
perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
This may be the first article I've read about petty crime that tries to make us feel empathy for the billionaires that are taken in by con artist students. It's hard to feel sorry for someone who has an opportunity to hire lawyers and scientists to validate claims, but chooses not to do that and finds out too late that they've been lied to. There's a large federal department that will hand down consequences for those lies.
It's also insane that the implied solution here is that we allow more petty crime. That's not helping anyone. There are drug court programs in California that have been extremely effective. This woman was put into a system that was supposed to help her, but failed miserably. I have no idea whether that system is overworked, inefficient, or just plain broken in San Francisco. Closing our eyes to people's problems, or setting court dates and simply hoping an addict shows up are the wrong things to do.
Re:perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also insane that the implied solution here is that we allow more petty crime. That's not helping anyone.
That's how liberals "fix" problems, they define them away. You can't be a shitty criminal thug if stealing isn't a crime, after all. They've already downgraded felony theft to misdemeanors in California, and with the expected result that petty crime is skyrocketing. They want to make illegal invaders good people by changing the laws that prohibit entering the country without proper authorization, or that prohibit stealing honest citizen's Social Security information to gain employment under false pretenses. I'm surprised California hasn't tried banning wildfires in an attempt to control their current situation. The mindset is clearly a mental disorder and has no place in rational discussion.
Re: (Score:3)
You are exactly right. They fixed the problem of theft by reclassifying a lot of felony larceny as a misdemeanor.
Now they are shocked that small dollar property crime has skyrocketed.
It also helps that the would-be felons can still vote now. Everyones got a different motive. The politicians want voters. The shallow liberal rank and file want an easy feel good about themselves.
Meanwhile, California burns. The plague is back. People openly shit in the streets. Druggies shoot heroi
Inequality (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is inequality wrong? If someone improves their own situation .. why should they be brought back down? That's a hell of a thing. If you and your friend are down in a well and someone throws a rope down to rescue you. Are neither of you going to climb out of the well since one person has to go first? I mean that's ridiculous. Instead of crying about the fake injustice known as inequality why not come up with ways to help people? Focusing on "inequality" is stupid. Inequality is not a problem. Poverty is a problem. Unemployment is a problem. Uneducated fools is a problem. If everyone is broke, unemployed and uneducated .. what good is "equality"? All the "solutions" to the made-up problem of inequality result in people being brought down if not punished, for making a product or service that people want. Maybe we should focus on educating people instead? Subsidizing people only helps the companies selling them stuff. It won't lower rents in the long term. In won't reduce the cost of food in the long term. The only thing that would help in lowering costs is increasing production and most socialist fools know nothing about producing a product or service that people want. And guess what there will always be inequality. If not financially in other things. Even if you made it so every person gets a house .. one person will get the house on top of the hill with the view. There can only be one tallest hill. Are you going to take it away? Also, who decides what person is "living it up"? I mean what about people with better looking spouses, how is that fair? If I am equal to you, don't you owe me?
Re:Inequality (Score:4, Insightful)
What bothers me is inequality before the law. That goes hand in hand with stratification: the more money you have, the more "equal" you are, the more fair your trial, the more likely that you are able to defend yourself against swindlers. We persist in holding ideals which aren't true to life. but when it's proven false, and especially when it's proven that the poor are getting poorer, when it's proven that the demand for public defense has outstripped supply (rendering it moot), when it's demonstrated that the government doesn't even pursue white-collar criminals until they do something that inconveniences someone else's racket... we just shrug, change the subject, or actively try to defend it.
It sucks, but nobody in power (or capable of reaching it) really wants to solve this, so I don't think you have anything to worry about. If you're rich, just stay out of the way of your peers and they will leave you alone.
The opposite (Score:4, Insightful)
The thought processes associated with petty crime are the same thought processes associated with underachievement.
What makes people successful? Planning ahead. Delayed gratification. Working within rules. Building. Saving. Conscientiousness. Helping others.
What makes people poor? Getting pregnant when you're 12 or 14. Spending money you don't have to spare. Addiction and associated behaviors. Sloth. Engaging in crime.
One of the best things we could do to help people avoid being poor is to make it clear to them early that there's no opportunity to profit from crime. So they'll have to get a job and keep it instead, because there's no other way. Getting a job and keeping it is their only reason chance to someday not be poor.
Rubbish (Score:4, Insightful)
This article is such incredible rubbish.
>"Often, perpetrators face punishments whose scale might surprise the amateur smart-cam detectives and Nextdoor sleuths who help nail them..."
Because being caught stealing a package and getting 14 months of probation is excessive? And you REALLY think that is the ONLY package that perp ever stole? I agree the other case (which is more than one theft) with a 5-year sentence and $250,000 fine is overkill.
>"Despite the much higher cost of white-collar crime, it seems to cause less societal hand-wringing than what might be caught on a Ring camera"
Uh, could be that one is theft from a company (they usually work for). The other is theft from an individual, right at their own home. When it comes to dollar value, I am not sure that matters as much as the principle. And I certainly do NOT excuse "white-collar crime."
>"There is quite a difference, despite the dollar value.
also asks if police end up providing more protection to affluent communities than the ones that can't afford Amazon's Ring cameras."
They are practically giving them away. I bet these people who can't afford one probably have a cell phone costing many times as much. This is NOT to say I like these spy machines that are under central control of other companies. I am just putting it into perspective. I am sure what is up next is "free" cameras, paid for by our tax money...
>" the law professor, also asks whether locking up low-level criminals is just ignoring the larger issue of poverty in increasingly expensive cities."
No, we should just ignore small crime before criminals learn to keep stepping it up? I don't think "locking up" people for petty crime is a great idea, however. But this implies they are all "locked up", which I think is untrue, and that it is all about "poverty" and not at all about "values."
>"Everyone assumes that jail works to deter people."
Yeah, because ignoring it will deter so much better.
>"But I don't know if I were hungry, and had no other way of eating, that that would deter me from stealing."
And there are those who assume that most of this stealing is due to being hungry. Not for, I don't know, to buy drugs, or cool shoes, or a better phone. Being careful of assumptions works across the board.
Key overlooked point (Score:5, Interesting)
White-collar crime might be more expensive in total dollar amount than petty theft of Amazon deliveries from people's front porches, but the ultimate direct victims of white-collar crime and fraud tend to overwhelmingly be... a relatively small number of wealthy people, and faceless institutional investors.
Most people, both rich AND poor, end up as the victims of petty theft or burglary at some point in their lives -- a home break-in, a smashed car window, or a package stolen from a front porch. In contrast, very few people can look back on their lives and say, "this was the day when I was a direct victim of some specific white-collar crime or fraud".
You can talk about consumers paying higher prices for merchandise or higher interest rates, and the social cost of fraud & white collar crime... but at the end of the day, it just doesn't have the direct, personal impact that burglary and break-ins do. I still seethe thinking about the time in college some asshole smashed in my car's window and stole most of my CDs. I still have nightmares about the time I came home from work, found the living room's sliding glass door smashed, and spent several terrified minutes searching for my cats. I can honestly say I've never had a bad night's sleep due to somebody's act of fraud or tax evasion.
At the end of the day, if someone defrauds an investment fund, the fund's managers pass it off to their lawyers & send a memo to the accounting department to note it as a loss. If someone smashes your car window or breaks into your house, you feel personally violated & want the criminal to suffer as horribly as possible. When you're the direct victim, force-feeding the burglar ghost peppers (at both ends of his digestive tract) while zapping him with a shock collar and tearing off his fingernails and toenails one by one [followed by a sanitizing bath of alcohol & mercurochrome] would be an act of pure benevolent kindness and mercy compared to what they REALLY deserve to have done to them.
Hungry for food? (Score:2)
Porch pirates are morons (Score:3)
Porch pirates are morons, especially in CA. In CA you can shoplift up to $950 with basically no consequences due to prop 47. Being a porch pirate means going federal, which is bad.
Just go to the apple store and walk out with some beats. Or grab a bunch of merch like jeans and leave. No muss, no fuss.
And (Score:2)
"Everyone assumes that jail works to deter people. But I don't know if I were hungry, and had no other way of eating, that that would deter me from stealing."
What fraction are true poor? What are druggies or other regular criminals? What are non-poor people with low morals who simply have no compunction about taking advantage of an opportunity?
Anyone notice? (Score:3)
Not seeing it. (Score:3)
If the argument is that white collar crimes should be pursued with rqyal or even greater viror due to their scale, I agree but I don't see how cameras prevent that.
If they're arguing that preventing porch pirates is somehow unfair to the porch pirates, I suggest the author should try giving until it hurts, just pile everything in their house up in the driveway with a sign saying take what you want, everything must go.
If they're arguing that the punishment exceeds the crime, that needs to be fixed in the criminal justice system. The cameras aren't causing that. But they should consider that by stealing an unknown item delivered, they could very well be stealing medication the person needs to live that will cost well more than they have to replace fast enough.
Lower income people who are even less able to absorb the loss from porch pirates have cameras too these days. They need to be able to reliably receive inexpensive web order goods. They need the shitty people who crap all over the neighborhood taken away even more than the well off do.
The left tolerates property crime (Score:4, Insightful)
The left mostly seems to tolerate property crime.
Some of it I think is the notion that it's just ad-hoc redistribution of wealth. The loss of minor consumer items isn't really burdensome on even middle class people and is even less of an issue for more affluent people. There's probably some philosophical angle that says it serves as a disincentive for consumerism.
It gets worse when there's a large racial disparity involved, usually non-white thieves and white victims. Increased policing is just more racist police enforcement. The hostility of theft victims towards thieves gets a forced reinterpretation as just racism.
The unintended consequence seems to be the middle class becoming more sympathetic to politicians and policing strategies which are even more authoritarian than "ordinary" policing.
And over time, you probably see an increase in residential strategies which harden the targets -- gated neighborhoods, locked down apartment complexes with intensive screening, and a shift in community amenities (parks, pools, etc) to private areas. Residents end up paying a housing premium and shun tax spending on public amenities -- why pay for a public pool when my apartment/gated community has one already?
So working poor people (Score:3)
Misfocused (Score:3)
This is not a problem with the camera system (the system has severe problems on it's own) it is a problem with the criminal justice system and social support system.
It is not the penalty size which deters crime, it is the certainty of being caught. This has been known since the mid-20th century. The US likes punishing and in particular it likes punishing non-whites -- It has a PROBLEM and needs therapy, but for now, some adult needs to step in an overhaul the criminal justice system from the police to the sentencing to the punishment types to the prisons to the parole systems. Doing so would greatly diminish crime, reduce taxes, increase productivity, and make us ALL feel safer and happier.
The argument that "I need to steal to eat" is an indictment of both the social safety net and the education system. You should never have to steal to eat.
The cameras is utterly tangential to the real problems.
(Who owns the data and how it's used is a separate question which deserves (and gets) it's own discussion.)
Re:"pleaded guilty" (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem there is that the plea bargain system coerces people into confessing. The plea bargain sentences are so much lower than the sentences if someone goes to trial that even an innocent person might plead guilty.
evidence - look up the percentage of people in US prisons to are there as a result of plea bargains....
Re: "pleaded guilty" (Score:2)
Yup. Something like 95% of souls interred in the federal gulag are there on coerced confession. Yay American Stalinism!
Re: "pleaded guilty" (Score:4, Informative)
Something like 95% of souls interred in the federal gulag are there on coerced confession.
The actual figure is 98%. Only 2% of federal cases go to trial. The punishment for asserting your right to a jury trial is so severe that even most innocent people don't risk it.
Plead guilty to a crime you didn't do and get two years, or go to trial and face an informant who cut a deal to blame you, and go to prison for 20 years.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Its an absolutely horror show when the death penalty comes in.
If a cop comes to you and says "Heres the deal. Were accusing you of murdering this dude. You can either take a deal and do 20 years for manslaughter, or we charge you with capital murder and you die in a gurnsey. And we've got a prison snitch who will testify to anything we ask in exchange for 10 years off his prison sentence".
If you have any sense of self preservation, you'd take the plea bargain, even if you where completely innocent, because
Re: (Score:3)
...we charge you with capital murder and you die in a gurnsey.
You die on one of the Channel Islands? Yeah, that's harsh.
Re: "pleaded guilty" (Score:3)
...and you die in a gurnsey
I just pictured a cow shitting out a dead guy...
Re:Isn't a "bait box" entrapment? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, putting a box on a porch is not "entrapment". Entrapment is more when you're being coerced into committing a crime. Nobody is making them steal that box.
If they'll steal it when given the opportunity that's not entrapment.
Re: (Score:2)
No. Merely providing an opportunity for someone to do what they are inclined to do isn't entrapment. Actually trying to talk them into something they are hesitant to do is entrapment as is somehow convincing them it wouldn't be a crime.