[detuned]

There was a notable absence of opposing views in the article so I looked up "echelon security portland" and found a lot of objectionable actions they've taken. According to this article https://www.opb.org/article/2021/12/02/part-two-police-prose... they've been unaccountable to the public, they've lied about what people do (pretending they've attacked them), they've lied about their use of force, and attacked people in tents to displace them. This is all just from the first quarter of the second part of a report so there is a lot more.

[phpisthebest]

>>hey've been unaccountable to the public, they've lied about what people do (pretending they've attacked them), they've lied about their use of force, and attacked people in tents to displace them.

So a normal police force then?

This is a natural reaction when property crime goes unenforced by the government. I know this will be an unpopular take but property crime like shoplifting is not a "victimless" crime against evil "corporations" and when it allowed to occur unchecked it creates an over all unsafe condition for everyone.

There needs to be ALOT of police reforms, not punishing crime should not be in that list of reforms but that seems to be the #1 action taken by "reformers" of late

[mlindner]

> I know this will be an unpopular take but property crime like shoplifting is not a "victimless" crime against evil "corporations" and when it allowed to occur unchecked it creates an over all unsafe condition for everyone.

I have trouble taking anyone seriously who claims those are "victimless crimes". There's little common ground I can find because their fundamental facts tend to be so backward. Shoplifting ruins people's livelihoods and corrupts the social contracts of a society over time. It gradually erodes the living standards of people living in an area.

[jrochkind1]

> There needs to be ALOT of police reforms, not punishing crime should not be in that list of reforms but that seems to be the #1 action taken by "reformers" of late

I would say it's not exactly an action taken by "reformers"... it's a lack of action (for one thing) resulting from an interplay between attempted reformers, and police (individually and collectively) basically deciding "fine, if you think we need reform, we'll just stop doing our jobs, that'll show you."

I don't think there are any police reformers (or even police abolitionists) who think their agendas have been successful at all, lest you think the current situation is what anyone was going for. I would not call this... situation to be an action taken by police reformers, exactly, let alone the "#1" action taken by them.

I do think "punishing crime" is a more complicated concept than you imply, I admit (all "crime" has never been universally and consistently "punished"), but before we even get into that.

[phpisthebest]

By "reformers" I am mainly referring to activist elected DA's that go in publicly declaring entire segments of the criminal code void by saying they will not peruse any cases for violations of those acts. Shoplifting is one such law they often ignore, along with other non-violent theft (like breaking into cars)

[jrochkind1]

"entire segments of the criminal code void by saying they will not peruse any cases for violations of those acts. Shoplifting is one such law they often ignore"

Are you exagerating? I don't think anyone anywhere has completely stopped prosecuting shoplifting. Or if they have somewhere, please cite specifically, either with numbers, or with enough context so we can try to find some.

There are some places where shoplifting prosecutions declined due to decisions by prosecutors, for sure. That is not at all the same thing as "declaring entire segments of the criminal code void".

When we can't talk about what's really going on without exagerating it into the most absolute versions we can imagine while speaking in vague generalities that can't be researched... we can't easily get at what's actually going on instead of our imaginations.

[phpisthebest]

>>I don't think anyone anywhere has completely stopped prosecuting shoplifting.

San Francisco where functionally anything under $900 is not prosecuted. That is the big one

NYC has also had its fair share of this.

>>When we can't talk about what's really going on without exagerating

It is not really exaggerating, I am not talking about individual cases where an Assistant DA looks at a case in their professional review of choose not to prosecute because of some actual legal reason, or because of some deal or something else

I am talking about wide scale refusal at an entire district level to refuse entire classes of cases

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/us/alvin-bragg-manhattan-dist...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/dallas-da-wont-prosecute-crime...

https://www.hoover.org/research/why-shoplifting-now-de-facto...

[jrochkind1]

San Francisco under Chesa Boudin (who is now gone) presumably?

My first google suggests that shoplifting prosecutions in San Francisco were reduced but not eliminated, and that "organized retail theft" prosecutions (which I see people complaining about on HN a lot) were actually not diminished at all.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/archives/data-shows-chesa-boudin-...

I don't understand how you can claim it was not an exageration to say:

"[declare] entire segments of the criminal code void by saying they will not peruse any cases for violations of those acts. Shoplifting is one such law they often ignore"

Was I wrong to read that thinking it meant you were claiming there were zero prosecutions of shoplifting? That's not what those words mean? What "segment of the criminal code" did you mean specifically had been "void", what am I misunderstanding?

No criminal acts have ever been universally prosecuted and punished, ever.

But ok, correcting my reading of your statement, I now understand that your argumentis in fact that the "#1 action" of "reformers" (by which you mean elected district attorney's only, not other kinds of reformers), has been to reduce prosecutions for shoplifting (I'm not sure what a DA can "reform" except what gets prosecuted how!), and that you think that reducing prosecutions for shoplifting will necessarily lead to unaccountable private security.

That's really what you think we should have understood your original statement as? It sounds a lot less apocalyptic or sweeping of a theory this way. But ok, that's what you're saying. OK, cool, interesting theory...

[WarOnPrivacy]

Yeah. My son was detecting hints of positivity in my reaction to the story; he cautioned me that the opening blurb smelled like crafted propaganda.

[pleasantpeasant]

The author works at The Federalist Society. A conservative online magazine.

Honestly, why is this article even on HN? It's copaganda but with an even worst twist of being a pro-private military force.

The militarization of the police has been an on going issue since the 90s and now we're jumping to having corporations hiring random goons as a private police force for the wealthy and their corporations.

[DaveExeter]

So...exactly like government police!

Well, not quite the same, because they can't payoff victims with other people's money.

[pmarreck]

So let me get this straight:

A few bad police apples create a mass left-wing media outrage which results in the withdrawing of a public good (police protection), which results in people needing to hire private security, which results in even more objectionable actions taken by this less-accountable private security, than there were previously by the taxpaid police force?

You don't say.

I guess the only relative improvement here is that some of these security firms aren't armed with anything more than billy clubs.

[harimau777]

Saying that people pushing for police reform results in withdrawing police protection appears to be an unexamined logical jump in your reasoning. That's only the case because the police often choose to withhold police protection in response to police reform.

[SpelingBeeChamp]

> the police often choose to withhold police protection in response to police reform

I am not sure this is accurate, and it’s similarly unclear to me what exactly you are referring to.

I don’t know what, specifically, you mean by “withhold police protection.” Would you provide some examples? And what evidence do you have that such action happen “often” as a response to police reform?

[pmarreck]

OK, I'll accept that criticism, that doesn't necessarily follow

[rootusrootus]

The Portland city government cut the PPB budget by less than 10%. Yes that's a relatively large cut, but it is not the main driver of officers leaving the bureau. The underlying reason is politics.

[kodyo]

They also had riots for several months straight for political reasons. I wouldn’t be a cop there either.

[mikem170]

I wish the focus would have been on improving the situation with internal affairs, where the police are investigating themselves if an officer does something illegal. This doesn't seem right - the rest of our government is built on checks and balances.

To me it is bizarre that this hasn't been a bigger part of the narrative around these issues.

[lamontcg]

> A few bad police apples

A few bad apples spoils the bunch.

Rotten apples produce gases that accelerates fruit ripening and turns everything else in the container rotten more quickly.

[kodyo]

Bad cops couldn’t exist if there were good cops.

[pmarreck]

That doesn't follow. That's like saying if there were any good people at a given organization, it wouldn't be able to hold bad people.

[lamontcg]

It actually does. If there were good cops they'd police and eject the bad cops.

You might have one or two here or there that got in, but they wouldn't last long.

Instead you see that even when bad cops are fired from their jobs, they just get hired somewhere else.

[rightbyte]

Like the fate of mental institutions.