[Terr_]

The symptoms you're describing don't seem to match the proposed treatment.

Police: "You've caught them red-handed on camera, but we're very busy and we don't care. Or perhaps this is a place where we're deliberately doing-nothing as a revenge or pressure-tactic against local politicians."

Shopkeeper: "Ah, but this time I have the camera-footage and fancy biometrics of everyone in the store!"

Police: "Oh, well why didn't you say so? That completely changes things, we're always willing to help out a fellow biometrics fan."

[mlrtime]

You forgot the local DA that run on a political stance to NOT be tough on crime. Police will not arrest if the DA won't prosecute.

[mcphage]

> Police will not arrest if the DA won't prosecute.

Why not? If the police are frustrated that the DAs aren’t doing their job, I don’t think it helps the police any to choose to also not do their job. Especially since DAs are often elected, which means it’s easier to replace them if the police can show that they (the DA) are the bottleneck. But if the police don’t do their job first, then the police are the bottleneck.

[mlrtime]

That is great and I agree with you, but not how things work on the streets, at least in NYC.

[mcphage]

> but not how things work on the streets, at least in NYC

Then how do things work on the streets in NYC?

[mlrtime]

Criminals walk into a store, steal things and leave.

Or you have criminals walking around with 80+ arrests that are let go same day over and over again.

[rurban]

Depends on the judges. If police cannot prove the crime in front of the judge, they wasted their time. With proper evidence it's not a waste of time anymore.

[Eisenstein]

So the reason is that they are afraid of bringing case with witnesses and video footage to a judge because it might be too flimsy?

[monero-xmr]

Progressive prosecutors don’t care. Judges let repeat offenders out with a wrist slap. Demoralizes police - what’s the point of all the effort if they are back out on the street tomorrow?

[Eisenstein]

Sounds like you have a narrative that you are going to believe no matter what.

[monero-xmr]

My narrative is living here forever and seeing everything go to shit

[Eisenstein]

No, that's your experience. The narrative is that everything went to shit because the left is trying to create a society where the values you hold are despised and where the good people are blamed for everything while lazy people and criminals get to do whatever they want because of a misplaced sense of justice.

What is actually happening is more mundane.

It's political systems breaking because closed primaries and Gerrymandering mean that a significant population in a lot of places effectively get no political voice because the elections are held in the primaries, and the people can't vote in the opposing party's primary. Ossification results, or the candidate who appeals to the party's more ardent voters get elected, and we essentially lose the center as a political position.

We also have a homeless situation that isn't being addressed, because no one wants to do anything effective. So what happens is that the only thing that can be done is to arrest them, and house them in jail temporarily. This is expensive and doesn't actually fix anything.

So you have a bunch of frustrated citizens who feel like they have no control over their local policy and are sick of the petty crime, along with police who are handling it by not enforcing quality of life crimes in the hope people will blame the elected officials they don't like.

Your frustration is real, but the causes you are attributing for them are wrong.