Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zz865 1705 days ago
NYC is similar https://nypost.com/2021/10/02/nyc-man-leads-record-shatterin...

> Rodriguez is finally in jail, but he rode the city’s revolving door of justice to allegedly rip off Walgreens 37 times this year. He was particularly partial to the drug store at 91-08 Roosevelt Ave. in Jackson Heights, which he hit 23 times, police said.
1 comments
woodruffw 1705 days ago
The NY Post has an editorial incentive to hype up cases like this. Having lived in the city my entire life: I've never heard anything remotely similar to this. It's a bit like the guy who keeps trying to steal subway trains[1]: you can write a great breathless article about him, but there's still only one of him.

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

link
gruez 1705 days ago
>you can write a great breathless article about him, but there's still only one of him.

Right, but even if 46 arrests in a year isn't representative of the median shoplifter, it's still an appalling example. Why is the justice system so ineffective that a shoplifter is allowed to be arrested 46 times in a year? You'd think by the 4th or 5th one he'd be denied bail.

link
nostromo 1705 days ago
> You'd think by the 4th or 5th one he'd be denied bail.

Last year NYC passed a bail reform law which removed bail as an option for a whole list of crimes.

You can shoplift all day everyday now, and you will be back on the street without bail.

link
woodruffw 1705 days ago
> You can shoplift all day everyday now, and you will be back on the street in a few hours without bail.

Again, silence from the civil libertarians on using bail as a form of infinite detention. But more to the point: the bail reform doesn't apply here, since he's a previous offender. There's nothing (other than court capacity) stopping a judge from issuing a bail for him.

link
woodruffw 1705 days ago
> You'd think by the 4th or 5th one he'd be denied bail.

I don't think the article says, but I suspect that he probably hasn't had a bail hearing related to these arrests this year. The court system is badly backlogged, and the alternative would be indefinite detention (here is where I'd expect the civil libertarians to come marching in, but there's always curious silence when it's someone like this).

link
Redoubts 1705 days ago
> here is where I'd expect the civil libertarians to come marching in, but there's always curious silence when it's someone like this

Have you considered mentioning age of consent?

link
speedybird 1705 days ago
Maybe this Rodriguez is the single guy in the city who decided to make crime a career. Or maybe he's the single guy the city permitted to get away with it for so long. No systemic problems, just one particular guy who is singled out for exceptionally tolerant treatment by the system.. for some reason.

Probably not though. I bet there are dozens if not hundreds more like him.

link
woodruffw 1705 days ago
> I bet there are dozens if not hundreds more like him.

To be clear: betting like this is baseless speculation. I'm telling you from lived experience that it just isn't that common here, especially when you factor in how dense and populous NYC is compared to SF.

And it's probably not the case that he's "singled out" in any way (other than for reporting by the NYP). He's the "spiders Georg"[1] of shoplifting. There's always one!

[1]: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/spiders-georg

link
speedybird 1705 days ago
> To be clear: betting like this is baseless speculation.

It is speculation, but it is not baseless. I base my speculation on a foundation of N=1, which may not be very firm but is not baseless.

Just now though, I clicked through to that nypost article and found this:

> There are 77 other thieves right now walking the streets of New York with rap sheets of 20 or more shoplifting charges, NYPD sources say.

77 is a bit more than 6 dozen, so I feel vindicated. My speculation was accurate.

link
woodruffw 1705 days ago
I think I'd feel comfortably vindicated with a number about an order of magnitude higher :-)

Seriously: NYC is big. 77 kleptomaniacs in a city of 8.4 million people? Not bad! Per capita, we're one of the safest (and lowest-crime) cities in the country[1].

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

link
speedybird 1704 days ago
It's not the number of kleptos that is the matter of concern. What concerns me is the police/prosecutors/courts allowing these kleptos to run free. That it has happened 77 times shows that it wasn't just one guy somehow slipping through the system as a fluke. The kleptos are mere bellwethers for the systemic sickness in law enforcement.
link