Compare actual crime rates of today in the US to as recently as the 1970s, and even including the small spike that happened during pandemic lockdowns, you're better off in a 'dangerous' inner city now than you would have been in a 'safe' suburb then.
Of course, we still won't know for another generation or two if the drop over time is because we're doing anything societally better, or just the effects over time of banning leaded gasoline.
"Using the FBI data, the violent crime rate fell 49% between 1993 and 2022...FBI data also shows a 59% reduction in the U.S. property crime rate between 1993 and 2022"[1]
My take would be the job that the police aren't doing is traffic enforcement, and driving has gotten noticeably worse in the last decade.
If ring cameras haven’t made communities safer (doubt), they certainly have made it much easier to get video evidence of criminals. Pretty much any real life criminal case heavily relies on pulling surveillance data from private residences now.
A lot of the time police would like to do their damn job, but they have been crippled by more and more restrictions. And then even if they manage to still do their job, the justice system doesn't cooperate, letting criminals out on ridiculously low bails, lenient sentences, etc. All in the name of "disproportionately impacted".
This has such back to the fifties sentiment (leave door unlocked) and I resent that solely for the fact that women had far fewer rights back then.
Yet I feel for you as I myself still live in a country with a functioning government and a police force that is there to help citizens and not just there to protect the rich.
That said, your approach to porch package thieves is missing the point. You don’t steal if you are doing well. Tons of people barely getting by with little to no safety net. Catch a porch pirate and another steps in. But solving the root cause for theft is a political thing and given current political circumstances, caring about people is seen as weak by half of the electorate.
> You don’t steal if you are doing well. Tons of people barely getting by with little to no safety net. Catch a porch pirate and another steps in. But solving the root cause for theft is a political thing and given current political circumstances, caring about people is seen as weak by half of the electorate.
I don’t buy this. Theft wasn’t this bad in San Francisco just ten or twenty years ago. Theft also is worse in SF than it is in places like Alabama/Mississippi where they actually enforce laws.
There's a difference between stealing shit out of a grocery store to survive - but ffs there is no justification for police to let people openly fence stolen goods, looted en masse in flashmobs, on the streets.
