[stochastastic]

Does there need to be a line drawn here? I don’t think there is a contradiction between empathy and enforcement. For example, I would really like an end to the bike and package theft and I think it is reasonable to enforce laws against it. Do you disagree?

[ndarwincorn]

In a perfect world, no.

In the world we live in, yes I disagree. Our criminal justice system further entrenches these problems. Before you claim that these petty crimes don't apply, the majority of folks in jail and prison are there on probation/parole violations, and these petty crimes are all jailable/revokable offenses for folks on paper.

In America, we put the already marginalized in jail and prison which only further entrenches their marginalization. Empathy means breaking that cycle.

Fear-based rhetoric around crime is not empathy. In fact, it's the exact opposite. And it's rampant in this thread.

[homonculus1]

>the majority of folks in jail and prison are there on probation/parole violations

This is a funny way of saying they're back in prison for more serious original crimes after failing to rehabilitate during the second chance they were already given in the form of probation/parole.

Repeatedly letting criminals free to walk the streets and commit more crimes is not empathy, it is folly. Empathy is protecting the neighborhoods which aren't rich enough to be insulated from these bad actors.

[ndarwincorn]

> Repeatedly letting criminals free to walk the streets

That's a funny way of implying that everyone that the justice system imprisons are criminals in a world where we imprison 22% of the global incarcerated population despite accounting for 4% of the global total population[1].

Fear-based rhetoric around crime and the people who commit crimes* is not empathy.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...

[homonculus1]

My empathy is reserved for victims. I don't see how siding with antisocial actors and taking a permissive stance on crime is supposed to improve society. I literally can't understand the mindset of such a belief other by applying hipster contrarianism to morality.

[ndarwincorn]

My empathy is reserved for victims of the prison industrial complex (that includes your concept of victims, btw). I do see how your sort of hardline dehumanization of undesirables...sorry, 'tough on crime'...approach in the latter half of the 20th century has resulted in many of the problems being discussed in this thread.

I'm a felon that committed a crime and violated my probation a year after my original sentencing (I've since discharged my sentence). My crime was almost killing my passengers and myself in a drunken single-vehicle collision when I was 19. My violation was being a drunk passenger on my 21st birthday, after the designated driver was pulled over for simple lane violations (right/left turns into far lanes). They were let go with a warning, and I was taken to jail. If I didn't come from the privileged background I do, I could very well still be in prison today.

I'm a contrarian hipster, don't get me wrong, but I come by this empathy honestly. I empathize with your fear too, but I'm telling you to get over it because it only makes the problems you fear worse.