Have We Surrendered to Thieves, Mobs & Shoplifters?

[Hockeycowboy]

I agree with this type of punishment to the extent that it does not result in the person being covered in blood, unrecognizable, half-dead, that sort of thing.

Maybe… just a little? Lol.
Yeah, I understand that. But I also think the punishment has to make an impression, pardon the pun.

And I’ll tell you something else… if the authorities impose a penalty, they better follow through with it.
Potential perpetrators have to know it will be carried out.

I think that’s the main purpose to impose stiff punishments for breaking laws; it’s more to act as a preventative measure. I mean, that is the purpose behind Martial Law, in times of unrest.

 

[mangalavara]

if the authorities impose a penalty, they better follow through with it.
Potential perpetrators have to know it will be carried out.

One learns to do this as a teacher with a classroom of disobedient students.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I agree with this type of punishment to the extent that it does not result in the person being covered in blood, unrecognizable, half-dead, that sort of thing.



He got what he deserved.



Hopefully he learned two valuable lessons: (1) respect the property of other people, and (2) you don’t have immunity from another country’s legal system while you are in that country.

All in all, I suspect that caning works best in cultures where people have ‘face.’ In those types of cultures, people treat others with respect and want to have a good status. Caning as a punishment is not just about pain but also humiliation. Being publicly humiliated means losing face in the society. Unfortunately, far too many people, it seems, in American society are shameless and have an ‘I don’t care’ attitude.

Early America used to do that. The most popular method was the classic tar and feathers.

 

[Stevicus]

One would expect business interests to fight back. Why are they hanging back? Don't they depend upon the rule of law for their existence? There was no resistance to "bail reform." There has been no insistence that prosecutors and judges do their jobs. Or have we just given up as a society?

They may not really care all that much about a few stores here and there. It's also a public relations issue, as businesses have to maintain a certain image and reputation. If they're seen as too punitive or harsh, they may lose even more money.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

There was no resistance to "bail reform."

Attacks on "bail reform" is little more than predictable right-wing garbage.

Note, for example:

• Injustice Watch: Why Cash Bail Needs to End
• Forbes: Money Bail Is Unjust And Should End
• Profit Over People: Primer on U.S. Cash Bail Systems
• ACLU: Bail Reform

And, of course ...

• Trump out on bail -- a criminal justice expert explains the system of cash bail

That you are incensed by mobs would be far more respectable had you expressed the slightest indignation in the wake of a neofascist pro-Trump mob storming the US Capitol. (I apologize in advance if I've inadvertently overlooked such an unexpected post.)

 

[jbg]

Attacks on "bail reform" is little more than predictable right-wing garbage.

Note, for example:

• Injustice Watch: Why Cash Bail Needs to End
• Forbes: Money Bail Is Unjust And Should End
• Profit Over People: Primer on U.S. Cash Bail Systems
• ACLU: Bail Reform

And, of course ...

• Trump out on bail -- a criminal justice expert explains the system of cash bail

That you are incensed by mobs would be far more respectable had you expressed the slightest indignation in the wake of a neofascist pro-Trump mob storming the US Capitol. (I apologize in advance if I've inadvertently overlooked such an unexpected post.)

The problem is that these charges, as a practical matter, are never tried.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Nordstrom LA Under attack! (link)
Target Store in NYC to close (link)
Nordstrom in Seattle and two in SFO to close (link)

One would expect business interests to fight back. Why are they hanging back? Don't they depend upon the rule of law for their existence? There was no resistance to "bail reform." There has been no insistence that prosecutors and judges do their jobs. Or have we just given up as a society?

I work at Kroger and we're not allowed to pursue shoplifters. (They also don't pay me enough to care and Kroger makes over $140 billion a year in revenue, anyway.) Some do catch them, but that's their choice. People have gotten assaulted over it. They walk out of here with carts full of stuff that they then go to resale it.

I am tied of people blaming it on poverty. That's rather offensive to the poor. No, it's because they know they're going to get away with it. These aren't starving people stealing food for their children. They have SUVs, nice clothes and so on. If you are legitimately poor in this city, there is help. There's no shortage of jobs, either. But that's not what's going on here, like I said.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I am not really sure that America wants to research the causes. These are crimes occurring in the most openly religious country in the first world. Sadly, along with the fact that this most openly religious country's biggest cause of child death is firearms -- outpacing all other nations by a factor of 10 times!

America's economy is going brilliantly -- but far, far too much of the wealth created is skimmed off the top by a tiny minorty, leaving whatever's left over to be shared by everybody else. Religious fervour -- far too often -- seems to lead to violence rather than love. The nation itself is getting closer and closer to jettisoning its democracy in favour of an autocracy. The hatreds between left and right, rich and poor, whites and (pretty much) everybody else, seem to be making everybody crankier and crankier.

What has happened to the nation? That's what I'd like to understand.

What are you talking about? This has zip to do with religion. NYC, LA and Seattle are hardly hotbeds of religion!

 

[PureX]

Our society is unraveling. More and more people no longer trust the police, or the government, or the corporations, or each other, and all for very good reasons. When that happens, the institutional systems begin to fail, because they depend on people abiding by their mandates.

More and more people are realizing that these institutions don't care about them, or serve them, at all. They only want to exploit them for their own profit and pleasure, or just ignore them completely and let them die. And sadly, they are quite right about that.

Once upon a time in this country people in government, and in business, and in general felt they were all working together, each in their own ways, to make a better society for everyone to live in. And that as they did so, their children would grow up into a better world in general. But we let our fear and greed and selfishness get the better of us, and it's poison has now infected every aspect of our cultural mechanisms and institutions. And millions of people are being exploited and abused and left to die of neglect because of it. So they become criminals by default, because they won't just go away and die quietly or willingly. Or allow themselves to be exploited and abused indefinitely. And we're beginning to see the consequences of this.

And it's only going to get worse unless and until we finally address this obsession we have with fear and greed. But we won't address it, will we. Instead, we'll call for more violence. We'll clamor for more police brutality and even applaud the murder of these "criminals". Because the sacred money pump must keep pumping! Our own very lives depend on it! Even as it is destroying us.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Once upon a time in this country people in government, and in business, and in general felt they were all working together, each in their own ways, to make a better society for everyone to live in.

Was that before or after

• 1921 - when the Tulsa race massacre occurred, or
• 1939 - when Lady Day recorded Strange Fruit, or
• 1964 - when Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were tortured and killed, or
• 1965 - when we witnesses Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, or
• 2020 - when we recorded the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, or

is this mythical country you proclaim little more than white chauvinist myopia?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

One learns to do this as a teacher with a classroom of disobedient students.

Unfortunately, it seems many parents (who have the responsibility to guide their children), are either afraid to, or are too tired (lazy?) to follow through.

Have a good day, my cousin.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

What are you talking about? This has zip to do with religion. NYC, LA and Seattle are hardly hotbeds of religion!

I was attempting to point out something that seems increasingly obvious to many around the world -- that the United States of America is a very serious outlier in several ways from the rest of the western world. Much of the USA self-identifies as Christian and religious -- certainly much more so than most of the rest of the West. And yet statistically, the USA fares much worse in many important areas -- areas which one would suppose that a religious religious bent would mitigate against. These include the crimes in this thread, along with -- as I pointed out -- the sad statistic that the biggest killer of Americans under the age of 19 is guns, guns wielded by fellow Americans, often enough in schools and places of worship.

Now, I don't know what this suggests to you, but it suggests to me that America needs a little navel-gazing. Even now, as we speak, Republicans (the more religious party) in the House are desperately seeking some reason to impeach President Biden, while ignoring the likely shutdown of the government, resulting in many people not getting paid (or getting paid later for having done no work). And this at the order of one man already under 4 indictments on 91 different charges -- who wouldn't know a religious impulse if it bit him.

 

[Revoltingest]

If someone gets an entry level job they make maybe $15 an hour. A one-minute shoplift can net $300 easy. That's 20 hours of honest work. The penalty used to be jail or a criminal record. Now it's a 20 minute booking and release.

After payroll tax deductions, it's about 30 hours work.

 

[Revoltingest]

Attacks on "bail reform" is little more than predictable right-wing garbage.

Note, for example:

• Injustice Watch: Why Cash Bail Needs to End
• Forbes: Money Bail Is Unjust And Should End
• Profit Over People: Primer on U.S. Cash Bail Systems
• ACLU: Bail Reform

And, of course ...

• Trump out on bail -- a criminal justice expert explains the system of cash bail

That you are incensed by mobs would be far more respectable had you expressed the slightest indignation in the wake of a neofascist pro-Trump mob storming the US Capitol. (I apologize in advance if I've inadvertently overlooked such an unexpected post.)

Someone accused of insurrection
should not be released on bail.

 

[PureX]

Was that before or after

• 1921 - when the Tulsa race massacre occurred, or
• 1939 - when Lady Day recorded Strange Fruit, or
• 1964 - when Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were tortured and killed, or
• 1965 - when we witnesses Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, or
• 2020 - when we recorded the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, or

is this mythical country you proclaim little more than white chauvinist myopia?

You really don’t understand that thing about how an exception doesn’t disprove a rule, do you.

 

[anna.]

Our society is unraveling. More and more people no longer trust the police, or the government, or the corporations, or each other, and all for very good reasons. When that happens, the institutional systems begin to fail, because they depend on people abiding by their mandates.

More and more people are realizing that these institutions don't care about them, or serve them, at all. They only want to exploit them for their own profit and pleasure, or just ignore them completely and let them die. And sadly, they are quite right about that.

Once upon a time in this country people in government, and in business, and in general felt they were all working together, each in their own ways, to make a better society for everyone to live in. And that as they did so, their children would grow up into a better world in general. But we let our fear and greed and selfishness get the better of us, and it's poison has now infected every aspect of our cultural mechanisms and institutions. And millions of people are being exploited and abused and left to die of neglect because of it. So they become criminals by default, because they won't just go away and die quietly or willingly. Or allow themselves to be exploited and abused indefinitely. And we're beginning to see the consequences of this.

And it's only going to get worse unless and until we finally address this obsession we have with fear and greed. But we won't address it, will we. Instead, we'll call for more violence. We'll clamor for more police brutality and even applaud the murder of these "criminals". Because the sacred money pump must keep pumping! Our own very lives depend on it! Even as it is destroying us.

I'm reminded of this from an essay by Arthur C. Brooks about Betrand Russell in the Atlantic today:

Russell believed that people who considered themselves enlightened tended to be negative and pessimistic, and were actually proud of it. They were very focused on all that was wrong in the world, and believed “that there is nothing left to live for.” This wasn’t a new sentiment—indeed, as Clark Lawlor, a scholar of 18th-century literature writes, “Melancholy was frothily fashionable” in that period for “anyone who desired to seem in the slightest bit sensitive or clever.”​

​

Eight Ways to Banish Misery

The philosopher Bertrand Russell knew something about unhappiness. He also knew how to overcome it.

www.theatlantic.com

I'm not saying you're considering yourself any of those things, it's just that your comment prompted me to recall what I read this morning. I do think there's an element of "the world has never been this bad" out there, when yes... yes it has indeed been that bad and will likely always be that bad.

 

[Revoltingest]

Was that before or after

• 2020 - when we recorded the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, or

or Daniel Shaver, Eddie Irizarry, Brooks Roberts, Gregory Cross, Justine Damond, etc, etc.

is this mythical country you proclaim little more than white chauvinist myopia?

Just fixing a little myopia here.

 

[Colt]

Nordstrom LA Under attack! (link)
Target Store in NYC to close (link)
Nordstrom in Seattle and two in SFO to close (link)

One would expect business interests to fight back. Why are they hanging back? Don't they depend upon the rule of law for their existence? There was no resistance to "bail reform." There has been no insistence that prosecutors and judges do their jobs. Or have we just given up as a society?

Nordstrom LA Under attack! (link)
Target Store in NYC to close (link)
Nordstrom in Seattle and two in SFO to close (link)

One would expect business interests to fight back. Why are they hanging back? Don't they depend upon the rule of law for their existence? There was no resistance to "bail reform." There has been no insistence that prosecutors and judges do their jobs. Or have we just given up as a society?

With so much crime and incarceration some geniuses thought that if we just stop arresting people for stealing then there wouldn’t be so many people in jail!?!?

What if we decriminalize beating the shoplifters with baseball bats?

 

[Revoltingest]

It’s because (D)’s are soft on crime, that’s their constituency. With so much crime and incarceration some geniuses thought that, if we just stop arresting people for stealing then there wouldn’t be so many people in jail.

And don't forget....

BLM organizer who called looting ‘reparations’ dismisses peaceful protesting

The Chicago Black Lives Matter organizer who justified looting as “reparation” has doubled down — insisting this week that even calling someone a criminal is “based on racism.&#82…

nypost.com

 

[Revoltingest]

And don't forget....

BLM organizer who called looting ‘reparations’ dismisses peaceful protesting

The Chicago Black Lives Matter organizer who justified looting as “reparation” has doubled down — insisting this week that even calling someone a criminal is “based on racism.&#82…

nypost.com

Perhaps that's why looting
videos show racial disparity?