[Janeman544]

Property crimes are not punished in California and the problem is acute when Gun ownership is also discouraged. While techies in bay area might only see an occasional car break-ins or theft the problem in Central and northern California is of theft of copper wires, fence wires, illegal dumping etc.

I worked with lot of self help groups in California and learned that the cops and prosecutors would rather go after soft targets than real criminals. For example catching those kids stealing $1000 worth of stuff from store requires a cop to run after them fight with those kids (which sometimes might turn fatal). The cop would rather catch a normal kid in wrong place at wrong time because that kid will not fight back.

While compassionate criminal justice reform is needed I think we should also pay attention to the fact that law obedience does not wither away.

[ergothus]

> The cop would rather catch a normal kid in wrong place at wrong time because that kid will not fight back.

That sounds like a real problem to fix - incentivizing our law enforcement to go after "easy" targets does not create the sort of society I want to be in. I don't see how increasing sentences helps change this (if the sentences are being selectively applied anyway), and gun ownership is likewise orthogonal (shooting "easy" targets doesn't sound better, nor does encouraging vigilantism, which you did NOT suggest, but is a logical conclusion if law enforcement isn't doing their job).

Any ideas on how to improve the equal application of law enforcement?