It's no place to play
I just got back from a long weekend out of town. It's always refreshing to put a few hours between myself and the usual haunts.
As we were leaving on Friday, the police were warning everyone about street takeovers in Portland over the weekend, and I couldn't help looking in at some police tweets and media reports about what happened as it unfolded. It appears to me that the Portland cops, enlisting some officers from nearby jurisdictions, put the kibosh on what would otherwise have been another hellish string of days and nights for some unlucky neighborhoods in several area towns. The authorities played a superior game of whack-a-mole and nipped a lot of the dangerous activity in the bud.
Portland police stopped several attempted street takeovers on Sunday afternoon as they concluded what they called a “highly successful” crackdown on the illegal practice over the weekend.
Officers arrested four people Sunday afternoon as part of the mission, after making more than 100 traffic stops and “dozens of arrests” Friday and Saturday night, police said....
As I read the stories, I thought, this is what happens when you have a real police chief, as opposed to the cardboard cutout who immediately preceded him. A tip of the hat to Bob Day. The whole "We don't have enough personnel" and "It's too dangerous" shticks had gotten pretty old.
I suppose that the positive feeling that flows from this impressive outcome must be dampened for some by the deaths of two miscreants who ran from the police and rolled their hot car on 122nd out by Costco on Friday night. Is this not the right moment for "They died doing what they loved"?
Anyway, assuming the street takeover artists don't find a better pastime, let's hope they find another venue, far from here, for their future fests.
One helpful factor is that since the departure of Chloe Eudaly and Joanne Hardesty from the city council, the Portland Police Bureau has added about 100 officers. It is still not at full strength but it now has enough staff to carry out the occasional special project such as the crackdown on street takeovers. To me the important part of the recent crackdown is not how many arrests the Bureau made, but how many miscreants' cars it was able to tow. In 1764 criminologist Cesare Beccaria advanced the theory that "one of the greatest curbs on crime is not the cruelty of punishments, but their infallibility." Seven years ago Professor Daniel Nagin elaborated on Beccaria's thesis to state that long prison sentences don't efficiently deter crime; "crime-prevention policy should instead focus on bolstering the certainty of apprehension." If every street takeover resulted in 10 or 20 cars of participants and spectators being towed and held as evidence until the culprits faced trial, we would see fewer street takeovers. It's expensive to jail the accused criminals, but it's very cheap to lock up their cars.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point. Loss of one's vehicle is an emasculating experience for those types.
DeleteYes, the late Prof. Mark Kleiman wrote an excellent book “When Brute Force Fails: How to have more less about how we’ve gone nuts on the length of sentences, which has a host of negative consequences and costs (many imposed on ourselves rather than criminals) and which have about zero added deterrent effect. A menu of much less severe penalties imposed with much greater swiftness and certainty would do far more to sanction misbehavior while also doing far less damage to the lives of the people apprehended, keeping more of them connected to society rather than making them unemployable for life.
ReplyDeleteWhen Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment Paperback – August 1, 2010
by Mark A. R. Kleiman (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 33 ratings
See all formats and editions
Cost-effective methods for improving crime control in America
Since the crime explosion of the 1960s, the prison population in the United States has multiplied fivefold, to one prisoner for every hundred adults―a rate unprecedented in American history and unmatched anywhere in the world. Even as the prisoner head count continues to rise, crime has stopped falling, and poor people and minorities still bear the brunt of both crime and punishment. When Brute Force Fails explains how we got into the current trap and how we can get out of it: to cut both crime and the prison population in half within a decade.
Mark Kleiman demonstrates that simply locking up more people for lengthier terms is no longer a workable crime-control strategy. But, says Kleiman, there has been a revolution―largely unnoticed by the press―in controlling crime by means other than brute-force incarceration: substituting swiftness and certainty of punishment for randomized severity, concentrating enforcement resources rather than dispersing them, communicating specific threats of punishment to specific offenders, and enforcing probation and parole conditions to make community corrections a genuine alternative to incarceration. As Kleiman shows, "zero tolerance" is nonsense: there are always more offenses than there is punishment capacity. But, it is possible―and essential―to create focused zero tolerance, by clearly specifying the rules and then delivering the promised sanctions every time the rules are broken.
Brute-force crime control has been a costly mistake, both socially and financially. Now that we know how to do better, it would be immoral not to put that knowledge to work.
Sometimes anti-cop agendas are so strong they overlook common sense.
DeleteWe have gone nuts on the lengths of sentences, and you should consider editing yourself.
DeleteIt's simple. Society has long-established rules for the benefit of everyone and the punishments are usually known. Break those rules, suffer the consequences. The common lack of respect for others shouldn't be tolerated. The 99% of society who are just trying to live honest lives shouldn't have to have their lives messed with because the other 1% can't show a scintillating of regard for others.
Delete*scintilla...
DeleteThis raises a good question. How is "scintillate" related to "scintilla"?
DeleteNo idea. Scintillating means a small amount.
Delete*Scinilla. Spell check got me twice. Apologies to all.
DeleteMerriam-Webster: Scintilla comes directly from Latin, where it carries the meaning of "spark" - that is, a bright flash such as you might see from a burning ember. In English, however, our use of "scintilla" is restricted to the figurative sense of "spark" - a hint or trace of something that barely suggests its presence. The Latin scintilla is related to the verb "scintillare," which means "to sparkle" and is responsible for our verb "scintillate" ("to sparkle or gleam," literally or figuratively). In an odd twist, "scintilla" underwent a transposition of the "c" and the "t" (a linguistic phenomenon known as metathesis) to create the Vulgar Latin form stincilla, which is believed to be an ancestor of our word stencil.
DeleteHappy to be a taxpayer helping to foot the bill to put these idiots away.
ReplyDeleteWe have sanctioned motorsports events at purpose-specific facilities for them. If you want to destroy your tires and drive fast, go there and do it somewhat safely. Or go to jail and have your car impounded and seized.
This is the way it should be.
Amen!
DeleteIt’s amazing that the street racers will spend tens of thousands of dollars on their cars. But, won’t spend a few hundred on the fees to use a purpose build track
DeleteA big part of the thrill seems to be the outlaw nature of it, and taking over the street. An appeal to reason is probably out the window. What are you rebelling against? Whaddya got?
DeleteThey would have left them alone if they had BLM flags flying off the antenna...
ReplyDelete