I worked in a Howard Johnson's in Maryland back in 1974 or '75. You'll be shocked to hear that people walked out on checks and sometimes stole tips. And I don't recall anyone ever calling the police. Why would they? there was little reason to believe they could find the miscreants.
I don't recall whether the town politicos were Democrats or Republicans and the internet doesn't seem to know. But I DO know that the town was far from woke.
What exactly do you want the politicians to do in this case? Station a cop in every restaurant? Anything short of that will fail as the bad guys will be gone before they get there. I guess if they drove and someone caught their license plate, they could track them down. (Doubt that your homeless guy drove, though.) And even if they catch them - do our courts have the manpower to try every theft under $50? Are you willing to pay higher taxes to fund all these new cops and courts?
You're right that we've always had these problems. My viewpoint, and I did not mention this in my article, is that this has gotten a lot worse in recent years. Not only more of it, but more blatant by the people who do this.
I think it requires in response something like the broken windows approach to policing. Will they catch everyone? No. Do we station a cop in every store? No. But with video cameras in all public places and facial recognition software they can probably identify 90% or more of the perpetrators.
So when you do apprehend one of these individuals, you now have evidence of all the other times they stole. What is then required is for the D.A. to charge them and for the penalties to be sufficient that it will stop most from repeating.
And for those that continue to repeat - longer and longer jail terms. Because at the end of the day, if someone consistently breaks the law, we have to be willing to jail them for extended periods of time. Otherwise it isn't a law, just a suggestion.
I worked in a Howard Johnson's in Maryland back in 1974 or '75. You'll be shocked to hear that people walked out on checks and sometimes stole tips. And I don't recall anyone ever calling the police. Why would they? there was little reason to believe they could find the miscreants.
I don't recall whether the town politicos were Democrats or Republicans and the internet doesn't seem to know. But I DO know that the town was far from woke.
What exactly do you want the politicians to do in this case? Station a cop in every restaurant? Anything short of that will fail as the bad guys will be gone before they get there. I guess if they drove and someone caught their license plate, they could track them down. (Doubt that your homeless guy drove, though.) And even if they catch them - do our courts have the manpower to try every theft under $50? Are you willing to pay higher taxes to fund all these new cops and courts?
Not everything is political.
First off thanks for a thoughtful comment.
You're right that we've always had these problems. My viewpoint, and I did not mention this in my article, is that this has gotten a lot worse in recent years. Not only more of it, but more blatant by the people who do this.
I think it requires in response something like the broken windows approach to policing. Will they catch everyone? No. Do we station a cop in every store? No. But with video cameras in all public places and facial recognition software they can probably identify 90% or more of the perpetrators.
So when you do apprehend one of these individuals, you now have evidence of all the other times they stole. What is then required is for the D.A. to charge them and for the penalties to be sufficient that it will stop most from repeating.
And for those that continue to repeat - longer and longer jail terms. Because at the end of the day, if someone consistently breaks the law, we have to be willing to jail them for extended periods of time. Otherwise it isn't a law, just a suggestion.