While other people follow a Broken Windows approach to flagging. To each their own. Let the mods decide.
And still, some of the more egregious economic crimes are committed by people that have all their needs covered. Crime is not the exclusive province of the poor, the very rich do it too. In any case, the poor are punished more frequently and severely.
Pretty much my approach. Though I would like to point out that I did not flag the comment in the thread that touched off this side discussion. I was just pointing out that different folks use flags in different ways.
If economic situation had anything to do with a person’s predilection to steal, all poor people would steal, and all rich people wouldn’t steal. Neither of these statements has any relationship with truth, as such, she is just a thief, despite her economic situation, which is no excuse.
Mitigating circumstances is a thing, sure. However, there is no apparent causal link between economic status and criminality – in fact implying there is such is beyond ludicrous and dangerous, as far as I’m concerned. Poor people can be saints or thugs, rich people can be saints or thugs. Because we know there is total variance in such traits regardless of economic status, economic status alone should not be seen as a mitigating factor. Seems logical enough to me, anyway.
WHOA. So like, the super-rich are the nicest, least criminal people on the planet???
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yeah, think of those as sarcastic air quotes. The original theory is more of “spare the rod, spoil the child” or “we can neural networks to preempt crime” quality: The people who subscribe to it usually don’t recognize the underlaying prejudices because they share them, in some regard.
When I suggest that we should take into account the circumstances of criminals, I don’t necessarily mean economic ones. Mental and physical health, family background, addiction – these are also “circumstances.”
True, but again, for every example you can show me of a person with mental health issues who steals, I can show you many more examples of people with similar mental health issues who don’t steal. Same goes for shitty families, addictions, etc. If this is the case, why should any of these factors be seen as causally related to reasons why someone would steal?
I myself don’t have any easy answers to this. Again, in theory, I think it’s important to look at “circumstances.” The other part of me, however, thinks that this may cause more problems than it solves, as criminality (of the sort we’re talking about here – not, say, smoking weed) is sort of its own beast, and must be treated as such.
I’ll also posit the following: If there is a natural disaster, and your family has no food or water, and there is a big-chain corporate grocery store being looted for food and water, purely stuff needed for immediate emergency purposes, that is ethically different and less “bad” than stealing a random package from an individual, a neighbor. It is also different than the opportunism that might lead someone to, say, steal a flat-screen from Best Buy, during an emergency.
Now me, I’m a nondualist, so the way I look at the situation of the lady breaking her leg stealing a package off a porch is very different than the way most people would look at it. I simultaneously feel empathy toward her and her life situation, and kind of enjoy the insta-karma aspect of the situation. To a nondualist, having these perspectives “superimposed” is not a conundrum.
I disagree. There’s a healthy debate going on, which is something you don’t get many places on the interwebs. Dismissing people you disagree as white knights is discourteous and unhelpful.
Talk past me all you like, it’s a free world/bbs forum.
I’m just saying that without knowing what her circumstances are, I can’t go along with laughing at this woman as she busts her ankle (and then also imagine what went on in that car and afterward for her and that guy), nor with saying “Yay, bitch got what she fucking deserved, BOOM!”
I too hate having to contend with irredeemable assholes, and I have great trouble mustering sympathy for them. I just don’t have enough evidence to decide that this woman is an irredeemable asshole, solely because I watched her steal a couple packages.
Personally, I lean strongly toward the guess that the pair in the video are just basic crooks. But frankly, as arguments against that and all the assorted assumptions in this thread go, in that single sentence you boiled it down to the most salient point.
For my part, I’m not going to say the people, myself included, who got a little schadenfreude out of watching it are totally off base. But we, again including myself, were a little too dismissive of those who said they didn’t. After all, most of the people who said they didn’t refrained from judging those of us who did.
Oh, I think there was definitely some judgement going on, heheh.
Nothing gets you to introduce yourself to your neighbours better than having to call round to collect your Deluxe Intergalactic Bounty Hunter Guy Minibrick figure… 
Like I said later - they used to leave them with neighbors, but no one knows their neighbors now. It would be the same as leaving it with a stranger.
UPS, FedEx and the USPS are so busy, they also don’t have time to be knocking around on doors. You’re lucky half the time if they PLACE it on your porch, vs chucking it on there.
Some packages that have to be signed for can be picked up at the office and a note is left.
Still, the over all number of packages stolen is quite small compared to the total delivered.
Strawman much? I never mentioned the rich, but since you did, it’s worth pointing out that types of crimes committed vary with demographic. People of means aren’t committing property crimes. Unemployed people aren’t embezzling funds from corporate accounts.
Sure, rich people might be evading taxes, parking in handicap stalls, or sexually harassing coworkers or whatever, but I am talking about people stealing packages of porches–simple theft.
What I am saying is that petty shit like theft is directly correlated with poverty. This shouldn’t be a controversial statement.
It’s a controversial statement as far as I’m concerned. Oh my goodness, we both disagree with random people on the Internet!!! 
Edit: The first article that popped up when I did a quick Google search. Definitely seems like this is not a solved question: The Relationship Between Crime Rates and Poverty | The New Republic
Fair enough! But just to be clear my two assumptions are:
Until I dig up research that provides a conclusive demographic analysis on package thieves, I guess we will have to leave it there.
(And fwiw, I liked that inflation argument posited in the linked article. Gunna read up more on that!)
Sounds like leaving it on the porch is the US equivalent to our leaving it with a random stranger.
Most of our mail does still get delivered by the Royal Mail so the postman knows which houses/flats will have people home.
Many stores will also let you designate a neighbour as an alternative delivery spot - which I imagine can make you very popular if you haven’t asked first…
We also have the very popular “Pretend we tried to deliver” ploy where someone turns up and sticks the little “Sorry you were out” note through the door and drives off without bothering to knock or ring the bell, etc.
I think that’s how our less conscientious delivery drivers get round the time constraints.
The debate on whether driving up to a stranger’s house and stealing their property is a good thing?
The debate on whether someone injured while doing something bad deserves an iota of sympathy, or to be seen with schadenfreude, or neither. But I think you know that if you read the thread.
