I suspect you will find that in many cases, people whose brains have been hijacked by chemical dependency may experience some difficulty in behaving as a stakeholder in society. It will often not stack up favorably against feeding that dependency, no matter how much they might favor it in the abstract.
This country has always had a segment of people in chemical dependent desperation since it was founded. The question is, why are we seeing a rise in metal theft? Its not because this population suddenly emerged, nor that they suddenly realized that metal has value as scrap. Its because the prices of metals has increased which creates incentive to fence metals. Theft in this sector is enabled through fences who take this stuff without asking questions.
It's not like selling a stolen bike and pretending it's not stolen. There's just not a lot of good reasons for someone to bring into a recycler an old brass plaque from a city monument or a hundred yards of wire from a bridge. Law enforcement knows this at least and is lenient on the thieves if they help pin the fence.
Re:Metal thieves in America's cities
by fallingknife on Tuesday July 09, 2024 @05:48PM
(#40921589)
There have always been thieves and the "they are only criminals because they are victims" line is nonsense. It is a risk vs reward calculation for them and it's not a surprise that the crime is more popular when you reduce the risk with minimal punishment.
>There have always been thieves
And yet countries that aren't as rich as the US and are a lot softer on crime, have a lot less of it than the US. So maybe something is actually wrong in the US at a societal leve, that it has such a higher crimerate.
Fewer and fewer people have a stake in their communities and their community's prosperity. Fewer have a stake in the housing market. Fewer have a stake in our institutions working properly. Fewer have a stake in capitalism itself. It's not surprising that these things are slowly becoming devalued. The solution may involve welcoming back more people as stakeholders in society rather than pushing them away.