The problem is metrics, as usual. Police efficiency is usually measured by % of cases solved (=perpetrator(s) identified and, ideally, enough evidence to convict). Now, when people file all sorts of small crimes with no clear way of identifying the perp (e.g. stolen bicycles without trackers, shoplifting with grainy NTSC camera video, online fraud), the PD's efficiency rate goes down and each case means at least an hour or two of paper work that won't lead anywhere, so the first level cops often enough actively discourage people from filing a case - no matter if the leadership is blasting out campaigns that people should report crimes.
I think it’s partly a communication and organization issue. The local police funnel most immediate public requests through the same two intakes (emergency and non-emergency numbers) which don’t appear to be staffed by people eager to shop your small loss around until they find the individual or department who wants to use it to build a case.
Larger agencies like the FBI have more intake points, but don’t seem to reliably route to local police.
That’s what I would have thought… Not to mention that with the in-person data we have from our drivers that other online merchants don’t, they would be able to sus out entire networks.
This sounds like the kind of thing someone says which sounds true and compelling in an exciting way, but is actually totally bogus :) Do you have any evidence of this being true?
Here’s a recent example: They investigated guys who robbed Verizon stores, which led them to guys who bought phones from those guys, and wholesalers who then bought phones from those middlemen and exported the stolen phones to Hong Kong and Dubai. The value of the fraudulently obtained or stolen phones in the above case is about 100 million dollars and has resulted in various leads ranging from rogue carrier employees unlocking phones to drug cartels using cash to buy phones as part of a trade based money laundering scheme (see also https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.85...)
You can find lots of examples of this work-your-way-up approach in the history of organized crime; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonanno_crime_family#Downfall_... serves as a decent example, leading to the family's boss himself turning into an FBI informant.
Well I fund them through taxes I have no obligation to pay--contribuciones voluntarias is the term in Spanish, the stupid thing to do nobody does and nobody sees the merit in. Everybody pays the absolute minimum at the risk of breaking the law, like no. Fucking no. I don't need to be twisted to pay, I can pay out of gratitude. I have the tax document, you want to see it? I paid 45% taxes in absolute terms with less than $10,000 income. It's taxes, not charity, which is the other benefit: I can talk about it, tell people exactly how much I contribute.
And like come on, cops are the only thing that allow me to wake up in the morning, stedda getting gutted in my sleep. Specific reason I had to dodge getting whacked after handing a racketeer to police ten years ago, my life depended on police retaliating for my murder. We had a hostage deep in the joint hopeless legal case, got caught on the scene of the crime because of my defiance. He would have paid for my getting whacked, human shield.[1] Counterproductive whack, when California gets pissed which is never but this was never so when they're pissed, they're perfect. Arrested the racketeer perfectly, like the wheel of the police car wheel rubbed against the sole of his shoe crossing the street, four guys--cavalry arrived--pinning him against the wall with no possibility of accusing them of police brutality. He angled his back into it so they'd hurt him--bitchvictim racketeer--they knew the counter move. He was stealing from the police, rackets mean Starbucks would have to cook the books for that location, that meant no profits, no profits no taxes. Protection money, well there can only be one protector. Taxes, the protection money that doesn't cost twice as much every time you pay.
And they protected me, again, human shield. Tragic fucking story twitching up his allies. Not even perpetual solitary confinement, or just as simple as competition in maximum security, which I'm not sure he got, even medium security, murderers bigger than him in competing gangs, and like no respect for anybody ever, treating him like shit (I've been top dog when falsely incarcerated, I know the cage)...plus prison in California is segregated, so it's not like he can carry on the race war he declared on Daniel Cussen very effectively, can't gang up on whites so much anymore. And like how many allies does he need?
Well so I need an ally in some sense, the police. But taxes mean they're not truly allies, they're protectors. Detectives on the case. It's not that confusing why I paid taxes, it was not unmotivated. Made sure not to pay the minimum, that sucks, pay what you can, don't pay when you can't but pay when you can. Dude State of California is the best, the political culture in California is disgusting the rent the private university deans--but--the State of California has pulled out the impossible with minimal budget. I can make that budget less minimal. So it wasn't much money--$20 a work week at minimum wage--but now I can talk shit about billionaires like Bezos, especially of their charity, which they should shut the fuck up about. You cannot brag about charity.
Taxes are not charity, so you can talk about that, I've talked to Marxists who were very surprised but agreed taxes aren't charity, taxes can be public. Fuck tax deductible charity. Then, you can leave charity totally to the imagination, or revealed long after death. It only cost me $80--half federal, half state, and twenty bucks per week each just off the top of my head--to make Californian billionaires look niggardly. 100% marginal tax rate. And it counts extra because I had so little, Book of Matthew says so. Not like I miss those $80, I dream of all the ways the State could have spent them, on an orphan for instance, an extra budget to treat him with better food on his birthday. Pay less interest on municipal debt. On gas for the squad car so it can get to Kearney and Bush in the time I bought them, a gas guzzler with crazy horsepower comfy seats and a watertight cage in the back. In a top district attorney that can shut police brutality accusations the fuck up. On a judge or especially a juror's diet (like wage), pay those jurors double minimum wage at least, so they don't think of money while they think about guilt. Just about no problem no matter what they spent it on in practice. Some expenditures hurt--fluorine in water especially--but rather than tell them what to spend on, I trust them above myself to come up with ideas.
And I can declare it with no shame--Christ paid 100% taxes, after all, he never gave charity, he alone healed schizophrenics outright but never gave them money. Caesar he did, in the attitude of sossegation (coining the term, based on sosegado in Spanish, beyond serenity, Christianity). And it's as easy as pulling a fish out of the water with a gold coin in his mouth. Dude algorithms are easy, I'm going to set to work to doubling a speedup after posting this. Doubling is easy, but doubling has a cost and if you double nothing you can never pay that cost. And charities just don't work, I can give a beggar money directly instead.
Sierra says not to do this, Sierra says give to Sierra, yeah why would that be, no, these days I cut out the middleman. Give those beggars money for whatever the fuck they want, even crack if that's what they want, the State does that, yeah it's terrible but I'm not the one sitting on the sidewalk doing the work of begging, they are they choose. Tell them about better drugs, upgrade the crack to a stimulant.
I saw one of my friends with all this food and he offered me some and I accepted, it made me so happy to see him eating food, he didn't have to but he did, and then he showed me how much of the gift I gave him he had left over for the following days. Responsibility is partly about the amount of the gift, big payouts are sobering. And just like people helped me out when I was fucked. Doctor Derek Dunham. Doctor Anne Green. 911, 5150, beautiful numbers, my salvation from Mortal Kombat on May 12, 2012.
I couldn't have tanked the whole gangsters infinitely. Racketeer was 5'8", hitman was 5'11", then assassins both 6'4" for sure, then they get taller and taller and heavier and heavier and more and more and no longer weaponless, sumo gangster then I'm plain fucked, double my weight can't do it. I asked that when I trained, what's the weight limit, double my weight? "No." Triple? "No." Sumo? "Sumos are dangerous."
[1] Paid any way he could hey tooth fairy might leave a quarter under his pillow, that's money. He'll pay for all of it. Got genetic sequence done too, he didn't talk but he sucked. Threatened to murder me, and made a team effort, RICO act field day. Pointing at me for seven minutes? Yeah whack incoming, 911 into 5150: "I think I'm being followed" "oh you're feeling paranoid" "yeah" "we'll send police to come get you to a place you'll be safe, 5150, you just stay there".