Re:SF’s Black Market Thrives Off Retail Theft
by bartvk on Saturday July 30, 2022 @02:24AM
(#32284744)
There’s a budget, and they prioritize certain crimes. I feel it’s how police departments are run everywhere. My home was burglarized some years ago. The police in Utrecht will not come if you call them, it’s an insurance case. However, in my case I was at home, and there was a fight. In that case, it’s not just burglary, but home invasion, and when my partner called, police arrived with three cars in about 5 minutes.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:SF’s Black Market Thrives Off Retail Theft
by jakelazaroff on Saturday July 30, 2022 @02:26AM
(#32284756)
Sure, but the claim here isn’t that police don’t have the budget to respond. It’s that they’re not bothering to do their jobs because they think it’s “pointless”.
Re:SF’s Black Market Thrives Off Retail Theft
by sershe on Saturday July 30, 2022 @06:06AM
(#32285575)
I would actually love for police to harass thieves even if prosecutors, in the end, would refuse to prosecute them. If nothing else, many criminals are dumb; they might do something dumb while interacting with police and either get prosecuted for that, or get put down on the spot.
However, the problem of prioritization by police is exactly that. Police could be doing any number of things; if the outcome of arresting someone is nothing happens, literally any other remaining work, including the kind that could be expanded a lot - e.g. patrolling - becomes higher priority. But ofc Seattle police for example is so under-staffed that they have trouble with 911 calls and sexual assault investigation backlog.