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0 pointswhateveracct4y ago0 comments

Nobody said that. They said incarceration for petty theft is unreasonable.

0 comments

Refusing to put thieves in jail leads to thieves not caring if they get caught. Which leads us back to modern day SF.

There is a big difference between petty theft as you'd think petty would mean (<$30 of small stuff) and what the law defines it as (<$950 of stuff).

crooked-v4y ago

You're also making the implicit assumption here that people who commit petty theft would actually care about the marginally higher chance of suffering consequences from it in a context where there isn't anything to mitigate the reasons they're committing petty theft in the first place.

remarkEon4y ago

And I think you're making the implicit assumption here that people who are the victims of petty theft just had their stuff stolen, and weren't assaulted, brutalized, terrified, or otherwise demeaned in a way that will change how they function or view their lives in society. There's a larger "cost" to petty theft than just the stuff that gets stolen.

The reason we have laws, and punishment associated with breaking those laws, around petty theft isn't just about incentivizing would-be thieves to not do it.

1 more reply

Freskis4y ago

Would love to have your privilege of considering petty theft to be harmless. For the majority of vulnerable people, it causes extreme emotional and financial distress. Try talking to actual people who are not privileged and see what they think about being victims of petty theft.

whateveracctOP4y ago

I never said it was harmless

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