I have mixed feelings on stuff like this.
The first thing to sort through is that we can apply that logic to basically anything. Police bust some drug dealers.. “great- but people are being killed…” police bust a drunk driver alone on a road… “people being killed…” police bust a tax evader… “people being killed…” it’s like.. until all the murders are solves police can’t bust anyone else or what?
Then we have to look at how crimes often breed crimes. A drug bust will often be linked to either child endangerment or weapons charges for example. Repeat graft and crimes involving large amounts of money that aren’t corporate crimes (thefts, loan sharking, certain scale illegal gambling, etc.) often link to weapons crimes, drug crimes, violent crimes, extortions, potentially murder. So a “street criminal,” someone who does petty smash and grabs working alone or in a very small group and maybe does it once or “as needed” etc. probably won’t “graduate” to bigger stuff.
When we say “organized crime” people tend to think “mafia” or something like that. No. Say a group of suburban moms or teens or whatever starts shoving small high dollar stuff in a purse at target and stealing it or something. They don’t get caught. It’s lucrative and they work together, planning days and stores etc. that’s organized crime. It can easily escalate to them figuring out they can do baby carriages full of stuff or whatever. Next thing you know you have one of the surprisingly common statewide “suburban” crime rings that is stealing potentially millions of dollars in goods. Not just the store suffers- other customers tend to get the shaft. But it goes deeper. Google about the LA celebrity theft gang of kids. It’s a long story but the immaculate short version is that one or two kids started robbing the homes of the rich and famous using surprisingly simple methods. Stealing lots of clothes and other items worth a lot. Commonly called the “bling ring” they stole over $3mill.
But then you can find many instances where such crimes turn violent. People try and back out or people double cross or feel crossed, people get paranoid and freak out or get greedy etc. in many other cases it’s bystanders who are harmed. They surprise a serial by unskilled criminal and the criminal kills them on accident/reflex or someone is a witness or things go too far or many other scenarios. $300k is a lot of money and it isn’t. In part I suppose it depends on how long the $300k was acquired over etc, but to have $300k in “illegal avocados” raises some questions. We also don’t have all the facts here like we’re they “illegal” because they were stollen? Not to some standard? Untaxed?
Busting up some guys selling a few hundred or a few thousand in “illegal avocados” would seem much more like arresting some dudes just trying to pay bills who are bad at paper work or something. $3 mill seems suspicious.
So maybe these guys were organized criminals and maybe this illegal avocado ring could have gone “over the edge,” or maybe not. It sounds silly to describe some high stakes adrenaline fueled world of danger when talking about avocados- but $300k is $300k wether it is meth or gummy vitamins- so how “silly” the item is doesn’t really matter compared to the worth. Money is just paper (usually cloth mix etc..) and gold is shiny rocks that long before we had chemistry or electronics etc. to make gold useful people killed and did all sorts of things for gold. It’s the value, not the item. Most things are “silly” when we think about it that way. So I do kind of think that there is more than enough potential harm in a crime like that to warrant attention. On to number two…
2. It was probably easy. Yeah. Sounds terrible but welcome to the truth. Police tend to aim for the low hanging fruit. No pun intended. It’s simple. If your car radio or lap top or wallet get stolen and no one is killed etc- you’re probably not getting it back unless it’s dumb luck or just… the worst thief. The amount of looming and the means to use to find something like that or track someone with little evidence for some small crime is insane. Ever lost your keys or your mittens or your phone or something at the mall or beach etc and searched and searched but couldnt find them? Yeah. It’s hard. It isn’t Ike the police can even go door to door or just stop and search everyone even if that was legal or practical either. Your crap could be anywhere. Amazingly even with actual murderers or escaped prisoners, often times they only get caught when they commit the same crime again or commit another crime and an officer happens to realize they are wanted in another crime or the evidence..
.. or confession to other crimes jumps up and bites the officer. It’s basically luck a good deal of the time. Coincidence, and it can be yeaaars if it ever happens at all. So it’s sort of a waste of time a lot of times. Because well… resources. If someone kills and doesn’t kill again, that sucks, but if tracking them takes the resources away that could have stopped or actually
Solved 3-5 other murders, the one time killer who doesn’t kill again isn’t a danger but the murderer at large is right? But if we have 200 or 2000 cases a day- aren’t you going to try and knock off the ones you can, or at least some? Most people don’t care what is going on miles away or at the house down the block as much as they do their house. So this isn’t all on the cops. If your laptop ot your savings etc. is stolen or your home broken in to or you are assaulted and the police say: “sorry, not worth showing up. We have murders to solve..” you’d probably be pissed. If that is the norm, voters get pissed and
Elected officials lean on police brass and $hit rolls downhill. Because really…
Most of you aren’t going to be murdered. Statistically we can predict which ones of you are most likely to be murdered or have someone close murdered based on your address and a few other details. And guess what? As messed up as this is- if you happen to be in one of those places, voter districts and other factors probably mean that you don’t have much political power or historically people from your demographic don’t exercise it, so one of the big reasons why we can predict certain people will likely be murdered compared to others is also why not too many people in power are very motivated to do anything about that. But for the rest of the people who are “counted” and not likely to be murdered…
Arresting murderers probably won’t do anything for your life at all. If you’re in the group unlikely to get murdered, you probably weren’t murdered and are unlike to be. You are probably less likely to have anyone be murdered in your close peer group. If you DID lose the privilege lottery and someone you know was murdered, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that someone else you know is going to be murdered and almost certain that the same murderer isn’t going to strike in your life twice unless it’s a grudge thing or something like that. In general statistically though- unicorn tears
Almost. So most people just won’t “see” a difference in the world if we arrest more murderers. In fact… the average murderer claims ONE victim. Total. Even serial killers average about 2-3 victims. Convicted murderers released from jail tend to reoffend on average of less than 1%, and the overwhelming majority of times a person kills another in our society isn’t even homicide.
The majority of killings of another human being get racked up in traffic or other accidents, manslaughter, negligence (left the manhole cover off and someone fell in, loaded a boat with too many people etc…) and when we include “crimes of passion” which data indicates only occur in a moment and that a person who commits such a crime is almost never going to commit another crime of the same nature as the specific circumstances are often critical to such crimes- the public interest is actually not even terribly invested in locking up most killers. Odds are they are one and done. Asides a sense of “justice” or “punishment,” really the main public good done by arresting murderers is simply to discourage murder. I mean- I don’t have data in this but I think we can all logic out that if we didn’t bother to arrest or punish murderers on the grounds they’ll probably stop at 1- we’d likely have many more murders.
So all told- lots of murders and other scrimped are just “cold.” There is little to no evidence and little to no perceived return worth a serious investment to punish the perpetrator. Law enforcement tends to either go after criminals that are really easy to catch and have good odds of catching a conviction, and/or who repeat the same crime over and over because that makes things easier and usually juicier. Which is the other group they tend to go after. Juicy criminal rings. Big dollar amounts or flaunting their crimes etc. and obvious proof to move for a bust. Why root around in the mud to get literally one person acting alone on charges that often aren’t worth any time, when you can grab 3,5,10,20 guys and a juicy dollar amount? More over, alot of crimes don’t have threads to pull that lead anywhere you’d want to go or that will end anywhere worth while. A crime ring can lead you to arrests one gangs, organized crime groups, a larger theft ring, other scams and fraud etc.
$300k in avocados or lap tops or whatever is rarely babies first rodeo or the work of a loan bad actor. You’re likely to find last and concurrent crimes, related crimes and graft, more accomplices or even a wider network. ROI. return on investment. Society let alone civil forfeiture (a process where police or government get to keep money or property seized in connection to criminal cases) don’t usually get anything returned when you bust an average murderer. It brings no one back,
Costs money but seldom makes it, and seldom does the capture or killing of a killer actually make any real difference to those living loved ones of the victim. Or nothing that couldn’t be gained from other means like therapy etc. so there’s that.
But I do agree that I could see potential
Where a bust like this is a bulls@it bust for the press or other reasons. I also think
Just because I know “how it is” with these things doesn’t mean I agree with it or like it. End of day, not all police are the police that “catch murderers” or solve murders. That’s a certain kind of officer and not all officers have the skill set or altitudes for that. So be assured that the police who catch murderers were probably out working on that while the police that catch illegal produce sellers or
Whatever else we’re working this one. Also understand that while the police do have some discretion to overlook crimes based on priority, if they’re going about their business as usual with nothing else going on and they see a crime, they’ll probably go after it even if it’s minor.
The first thing to sort through is that we can apply that logic to basically anything. Police bust some drug dealers.. “great- but people are being killed…” police bust a drunk driver alone on a road… “people being killed…” police bust a tax evader… “people being killed…” it’s like.. until all the murders are solves police can’t bust anyone else or what?
Then we have to look at how crimes often breed crimes. A drug bust will often be linked to either child endangerment or weapons charges for example. Repeat graft and crimes involving large amounts of money that aren’t corporate crimes (thefts, loan sharking, certain scale illegal gambling, etc.) often link to weapons crimes, drug crimes, violent crimes, extortions, potentially murder. So a “street criminal,” someone who does petty smash and grabs working alone or in a very small group and maybe does it once or “as needed” etc. probably won’t “graduate” to bigger stuff.
Busting up some guys selling a few hundred or a few thousand in “illegal avocados” would seem much more like arresting some dudes just trying to pay bills who are bad at paper work or something. $3 mill seems suspicious.
Solved 3-5 other murders, the one time killer who doesn’t kill again isn’t a danger but the murderer at large is right? But if we have 200 or 2000 cases a day- aren’t you going to try and knock off the ones you can, or at least some? Most people don’t care what is going on miles away or at the house down the block as much as they do their house. So this isn’t all on the cops. If your laptop ot your savings etc. is stolen or your home broken in to or you are assaulted and the police say: “sorry, not worth showing up. We have murders to solve..” you’d probably be pissed. If that is the norm, voters get pissed and
Most of you aren’t going to be murdered. Statistically we can predict which ones of you are most likely to be murdered or have someone close murdered based on your address and a few other details. And guess what? As messed up as this is- if you happen to be in one of those places, voter districts and other factors probably mean that you don’t have much political power or historically people from your demographic don’t exercise it, so one of the big reasons why we can predict certain people will likely be murdered compared to others is also why not too many people in power are very motivated to do anything about that. But for the rest of the people who are “counted” and not likely to be murdered…
Almost. So most people just won’t “see” a difference in the world if we arrest more murderers. In fact… the average murderer claims ONE victim. Total. Even serial killers average about 2-3 victims. Convicted murderers released from jail tend to reoffend on average of less than 1%, and the overwhelming majority of times a person kills another in our society isn’t even homicide.
Costs money but seldom makes it, and seldom does the capture or killing of a killer actually make any real difference to those living loved ones of the victim. Or nothing that couldn’t be gained from other means like therapy etc. so there’s that.
Where a bust like this is a bulls@it bust for the press or other reasons. I also think
Just because I know “how it is” with these things doesn’t mean I agree with it or like it. End of day, not all police are the police that “catch murderers” or solve murders. That’s a certain kind of officer and not all officers have the skill set or altitudes for that. So be assured that the police who catch murderers were probably out working on that while the police that catch illegal produce sellers or
Whatever else we’re working this one. Also understand that while the police do have some discretion to overlook crimes based on priority, if they’re going about their business as usual with nothing else going on and they see a crime, they’ll probably go after it even if it’s minor.