When it doesn't happen with any other makes, yes! Cost cutting out industry standard anti-theft tech should be the car companies responsibility. Also....17 other local prosecutors, not just Baltimore.
"industry standard". What standard? You mean the federal vehicle standard, which didn't require cars to have immobilizers?
Or do you mean that because Hyundai/Kia didn't do what other companies do, that the government has the right to fine them? If yes, then what is the federal standard for?
Industry standard means used widely across the industry, I would like to note that Hyundai and Kia are the largest Korean automotive makers. In the NA market, Hyundai is positioned #5 with 10% market share. In Korea, Kia and Hyundai combined have ~79% of the market. So to frame it as "they are not using industry standard" is wrong as at least 10% of the NA market and ~80% of the Korean market does not use this technology.
So in the past, the most stolen make of car was the Honda Accord.
Apparently Honda should have taken note and aggressively pushed new anti-theft technology.
You are looking for a technological solution to a societal problem.
We got a car in the mid 1990s with better anti-theft features. The only reason that these manufacturers are manufacturing cars this way is because other people are bearing the cost of theft.
Buyer beware? To argue on behalf of the Koreans, the cars didn't come with immobilizers, which is perfectly legal in the US, whereas in the EU it's a requirement. Maybe Baltimore should be suing whichever agency it is that permits that.
I wonder if an analogy can be made with airbags, of course airbags are well-advertised and sane buyers would avoid cars without them, how about seat-belt pretensioners instead?
Yeah, I've seen "The Wire" too, I get that people totally ignorant of what life in my town is like will overindex on that. But honestly, this is just an embarrassingly ill-informed take. You'd do exactly as well to defend an email provider whose exceptional account takeover rate derives from the fact that they don't support passwords.
There are an infinite number of people in the US willing to steal cars that are this easy to steal. Our culture is to risk positive for arresting people to stop this.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait, especially of the ideological battle variety? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. This has been a problem for a while, and we eventually have to ban accounts that keep doing this kind of thing.
Yep, but those will represent the "most desirable" cars, not the "easiest" ones.
Those lists (with some few exceptions for top cars) usually reflect the "most sold" or "most common" cars, as these represent the largest "market" for spare parts.
Imagine if a city sued homeowners because it’s their fault for calling the police after a break-in, because they used a deadbolt that failed the LockPickingLawyer. This is about equally as sane.
Yes, yes, I know that Hyundai and Kia vehicles are easy pickings, but they talk as though “those vehicles are easy to steal, so those teenagers, they just felt so compelled to…” Nobody forces somebody to steal a car. If anti-theft prevents a car theft, consider that is still someone who had intent to steal a vehicle if it were possible.
This situation is more like a deadbolt with a cover that could be pried off with your fingers, and then could be opened by any key shaped object once the cover is off.
Maybe to put in software terms - a login page that allowed anyone to sign in to any account by viewing source and finding an admin login button sitting there for anyone to see.
It truly is a flawed design. Yes, a design that might not be flawed for many societies around the world, but it's certainly flawed for a product that is sold in the USA.
Mechanical engineers operate under the same assumption, though it's generally a stupidity standard vs a maliciousness standard. In this case, they absolutely should have recognized there was no backup to their (much more affordable) immobilizer design, and caught it in the early design review phases.
LockPickingLawyer is highly skilled, and can defeat locks that most others can’t.
This is like selling one of those old Kryptonite locks that could be defeated with a Bic pen. At that point, the lock is truly defective, and should be pulled from the market. Your lock should require something more than a readily-available, vaguely key-shaped object to operate—so if you can operate the lock with a Bic pen (like the old Kryptonite locks) or a USB charging cable (like the new Kias), the lock is defective.
True, I agree, but here is the thing: There is no federal standard requiring fancy anti-theft equipment.
Baltimore is quite literally suing because two manufacturers aren’t doing what other manufacturers do, because it would be more convenient for them, despite there being no rule requiring such technology.
That’s a slippery slope. For heaven’s sake let’s make a rule, but trying to sue a manufacturer for not doing what other manufacturers do in absence of a law seems dangerous.
Let’s say Tesla and Ford start requiring all auto parts to be digitally paired, to “prevent theft,” so parts are not interchangeable. If this case succeeds, any automaker who doesn’t do that could be found liable.
I don’t think we should need to codify every possible problem as a rule. It is enough that Kia knows, or should know, the consequences of their actions, but chose to let somebody else (the owners, the police) deal with the consequences.
Basically, I think mens rea is a much more sound basis for law than rules prescribing specific behavior, in general. Like, if you are an engineer and you design a bridge, and it turns out that the bridge fails and you should have known that it would fail, you bear the liability. This basic doctrine can be augmented with specific rules (like, cars must have back-up cameras and airbags, houses must have three-prong outlets with proper grounds and GFCI in bathrooms & kitchens), but the law should not have to make rules for everything before it happens—as long as you have mens rea (you knew the risks or should have known the risks), you bear some responsibility for your actions.
That is just a false dichotomy. Of course the thieves are at fault, but the manufacturer is also liable because they failed to ensure even the most basic degree of security.
I, as a consumer, expect that the car has a key because the key keeps people who don't have the key from starting and operating my car. They sold a product for money that operates so poorly that it fails at one of its basic functions.
Imagine if Google sold a Pixel whose fingerprint sensor could be bypassed if you just licked your finger before pressing the sensor. Suddenly this phone is now the target of thieves because it's easily unlocked and wiped. You're suggesting there's no onus on the manufacturer for that?
The identical twin thing affects 1 in 250 people, and I think we could reasonably expect an identical twin to know the risks of face unlock without having to spell it out for them. So if you’re an identical twin, and you don’t want your twin accessing your phone, you set a passcode instead.
Kia owners don’t really have an alternative. The car is defective.
People already have the cars. And the 2023 models don't seem to be affected. So getting people to stop buying them is sort of pointless (because the people who already own them are now stuck holding the bag). If the government has no business getting companies who produced a flawed product that—as you suggest—people should stop buying to fix their products, why exactly do we have standards at all? What part of "you have an obligation to issue a recall that fixes the product" is micromanaging? That could be done with a court order.
> the scenario you proposed is already possible with face unlock
I didn't mention face unlock. Any fingerprint sensor that is trivial defeated is fundamentally broken.
In every jurisdiction, where they can, police are going after Kia thieves. You can keep throwing people in jail, but more and more jail is obviously not an effective deterrent. This is scientific fact, accepted by the DOJ. [1] It is a simple solution to make the manufacturer fix the car so it is not as easily driven away.
What are the level of auto theft in Korea? Or Japan? You are insisting on putting law abiding population into a cage because we cannot deal with criminal few.
There is an effectively unlimited supply of kids who believe they have no future and are therefore willing to risk it all. Enforcement can't stop them from stealing a car when it takes a cord everyone has and less than 30 seconds.
This USB nonsense is misleading, it is nothing like the Kryptonite+Bic pen.
You:
1) need to enter the vehicle (lockpick, smashed window, etc.)
2) break the ignition block to remove the key cylinder
3) turn a tab underneath the cylinder with whatever you see fit (pliers)
Only coincidentally the tab fits inside a USB A connector.
Now, that the ignition block may be (or may be not) easier to break than any other one could be debated, but - unlike the Kryptonite locks - you need to break it by force.
No, that is not an apt analogy. Homeowners did not design the lock. Homeowners did not introduce a flaw into the lock to save money.
Think about it this way: no one forces a kid to jump into a pool and drown, but if you have a pool without a fence completely surrounding it and the kid does just that, you are liable for the damages by creating an attractive nuisance. Hyundai created the situation of easily stolen cars by not "building the fence around their pool".
The answer is enforcement: cars were much easier to steal in the past, and somehow we managed to deter theft anyway. But in many US cities if your car gets stolen the cops won't even pick up the phone. They openly admit there's next to no chance of recovery, and rarely help you even if you have some kind of tracking solution.
If you do manage to track down your car, you won't get a timely enough response from the police to hold folks who stole it accountable. Most of the time they'll simply claim that they procured the car from someone else, and the police don't push the issue. Same with bicycle theft.
Not the homeowners but the Master Lock. Which when hearing about quality of their products seems exactly same scenario. They do deserve to be sued in similar fashion for producing poor products. Like any pin and tumbler lock makers.
The key difference is that Master Lock is terrible in the same was as nearly every other lock in widespread use by homeowners. If break-ins by lock picking double in my city this year it won't be because an unusual number of people happened to pick Master Lock over Schlage when they were installing locks.
With Kia and Hyundai the cars involved are actually much worse than the comparable alternatives. Several cities are seeing a big increase in car thefts almost entirely due to more Kia and Hyundai thefts using methods that would not have worked on the 96% of cars in the US that have immobilizers.
How is it Hyundai's fault that people steal cars? It's acting as if theives are some force of nature that we can't control or something. You prevent theft by putting theives in jail. It's not complicated.
>Certain Kia or Hyundai models can be stolen using a screwdriver and a USB charging cord.
>Cleveland, St. Louis and Seattle are among the other cities that started suing the the car companies earlier this year. Baltimore’s lawsuit says the companies “failed to keep up with industry standards,” and claim it was a result of business decisions made to reduce costs and boost profits “notwithstanding decades of academic literature and research supporting the deterrent effects” of anti-theft technology.
>Car thefts in the city have nearly doubled this year compared to the same time last year, part of a nationwide trend after videos showing how to easily steal the vehicles racked up millions of views on TikTok.
But that is exactly where this line of reasoning will take you.
If you don't take "reasonable precautions" then you are liable.
I will also note that I often see comments here talking about living in SF and how they leave their car unlocked or windows down to limit the damage from thieves smashing the windows to get inside.
So with this "reasonable precautions" line, everyone who does this should be liable for promoting theft.
People downvoting are so used to scummy people that they think it's the norm.
In other societies crime is not normal, and "teenagers" have two braincells to understand that a thief is a repugnant person and that the consequences are not worth it.
I have seen teenagers break car windows in London, Brussels, Montreal, Newark NJ... I haven't been to Asia, but I guarantee teenagers do stupid shit there too. I'm not sure why you think teenagers have fully formed brains in other localities but somehow not in Baltimore.
Are you reading the same article? The city is going after Kia, not the car owners. Kia is making defective cars; people are buying them; the city is going after Kia.
Yeah, suing clothing manufacturers because people wearing them were raped is not any better. The city has an obligation to prevent crime, car manufacturers do not.
>“Hyundai and Kia’s decision to put cost savings and profits over public safety has had significant consequences for Baltimore and its residents..."
Hyundai has some of the safest, most efficient small cars on the road, for great prices. I'd say these things are a net positive to "public safety" over all.
It's ridiculously easy for anyone to steal. If I buy a door I expect the lock to work, that's the value doors provide. If it turns out that the lock actually does nothing I would consider myself defrauded by the door manufacturer unless they specifically told me that the lock doesn't work.
People have baseline expectations when they buy a product. If you buy a lock the expectation is that you need some level of skill to steal it. If it turns out that anyone can just pull the lock open you've been defrauded by the lock seller. But if the lockpicklawyer opens it you haven't, because no one expects locks to be unpickable.
They cheaped out and didn't include a basic security feature that 96% of all other cars have.[0] This isn't a problem in countries outside the US because they have regulations requiring immobilizers in new cars.
Nothing in the article nor the parts that you extracted establishes exactly why a municipality would have standing to sue a product manufacturer for damages, or why a manufacturer is somehow obligated to include features that a municipality deems to be 'standard'.
The fact that there are consumer products whose absence of features creates a negative externality for local law enforcement doesn't seem like sufficient grounds for standing, and this sort of thing is hardly limited to auto antitheft features. Awarding a municipality damages or other relief here would set precedent opening the door to all sorts of whacky things. Should spraypaint manufacturers be held liable for graffiti? Should speaker manufacturers that sell devices without decibel-output-limiters be held liable for noise complaints? The sane answer here to all of this seems like 'no'.
The appropriate venue for dealing with this is federal auto safety regulations, not municipalities trolling manufacturers in civil court.
The city should run a public campaign to publicly advertise the consequences of stealing a vehicle (e.g./ jail, heavy fines, reduced job prospects, etc.). Make it clear criminals will be punished hard for stealing cars. Maybe they can ask the manufacturers and dealers to sponsor or donate to it.
Or the city can run a public campaign advertising these car models as prone to being stolen. That hurts the companies image, which puts pressure on them to get better. Of course it is cheaper if they don't have to buy ad-space for such an advertisement. Maybe they could use publicity around a lawsuit? Maybe that is what we are reading right now?
How far does that line of reasoning go? Suppose that every car they sold used the same key. "We just said that the car has locks. We didn't say that those locks have unique keys."
Clearly there has to be some degree to which a customer can assume that a product they buy meets the standard functionality associated with that product.
Then they still wouldn't be at fault. It's not their fault that the society Baltimore has crafted is so low trust that you can't leave your car outside for a second without it getting stolen.
It's their fault they made a defective product though. When people buy a car the expectation is that you can't steal it in under 10 seconds with no tools.
These cars are in full compliance of regulations. It is not manufactures fault that the country they sell cars in is so massively incompetent that they do not set proper standards.
The customer has clear cause. Fitness for purpose, warranty, etc. The municipality probably doesn't. If anything, they should try to coordinate a class action lawsuit among consumers.
While that would definitely be a problem, that's the end-user's/customer's problem. It would be appropriate for a Hyundai/Kia buyer to sue Hyundai/Kia for damages experienced because of such a thing. It doesn't make sense for a municipality to sue here - they're not a party with a stake in the ostensibly defective product.
The city is expected to police all crime regardless. The car manufacturer might (or might not) have some duty to the customer in this area, but certainly not the city for contributing to a crime increase.
You might as well say that a company that produces an exceptionally desirable product, one that perhaps entices thieves, would be responsible for a crime increase.
There isn't a standard they are obligated to follow for preventing someone from starting a car without a key. Just because many companies do something one way does not automatically make it reasonable to assume all will. The entire point of being able to shop around between different car manufacturers is that you may want a vehicle that does something differently. For example, if you are in a place without a lot of car thieves, maybe you'd prefer the cost savings from a cheaper, inferior anti-theft system.
Baltimore can make a standard requiring cars to have a better anti-theft system, but they haven't.
Can I assume what you were talking about is the immobilizer? I thought that thing is everywhere, especially in the new cars made in the last couple of years.
Yes they are put in jail. But who bears the cost of extra policing, court time, jail space? The city does. So the city is seeking reparation from the cost incurred.
> But who bears the cost of extra policing, court time, jail space?
Does that really exceed the cost damage done if they're left to keep on stealing/crashing cars? At some point they'll kill someone, and the 'cash value of a human life' question will come up.
Yes, "You prevent theft by putting thieves in jail." But it's actually complicated if you adopt a realistic stance other than "I want to speak with the manager".
The part that's Hyundai's fault is both the ridiculously easy to steal a car BUT also they dragged their feet when asked to address the issue and didn't do anything other than telling police and local governments "Wait for the next model in a couple of years"
It's Hyundai's fault that it's trivially easy to steal their cars. Also, you may prevent subsequent thefts by putting a particular thief in jail, but not the first one they commit. Hyundai make the jail route less valuable because the learning curve to steal Hyundai cars is so shallow that there can be a constant stream of new thieves committing their first theft.
> You prevent theft by putting theives in jail. It's not complicated.
Damn you right, it's so simple, why didn't they thought of just putting the thieves in jail?!
Also, seems like this whole "people stealing cars" thing doesn't just happen in Baltimore. What if putting the thieves in jail could work in other cities too? Maybe even internationally?
You could be on to something really big here, I hope people from Baltimore government comes across your comment.
This is such an incredible naive view of the world.
Whether or not crimes are committed is a complicated interplay of cost/benefit.
You say that the city is acting as if thieves are some force of nature. And to a certain extent they are. If it is easy enough to commit a crime and the reward is high enough a crime will be committed. As an example if you leave gold bars littered on your front yard people will pick them up. No amount of "putting thieves in jail" will save you.
Obviously increasing the chance of getting caught acts as a deterrent. But it is not cost free. Investigating and prosecuting car thieves cost hard money. If there are too many thieves of opportunity created by sub-par security arrangements the police/justice system becomes overwhelmed. The city can and should increase their police force of course, but at a certain point it is like trying to stop a tide with a rake. If you can prevent crime before it happens, for example by following sane and cost-efficient security practices that saves money and aggravation for everyone involved.
What prevents crime is multiple overlapping layers of our society engineered such that crime is maintained at a certain level. "putting thieves in jail" is just one of those layers. And if you think you can simply policeman yourself out of any situation then you haven't thought about the problem to a sufficient depth yet
I notice that jewelers and goldsmiths in Riyadh have nowhere near the level of secure access controls, nor the type and amount of reinforced display cases that you see in Chicago or NYC. Likewise, I can leave a $4000 macbook on a table in a bar in the cheapest neighborhood in Saitama, and not have it walk off if I step outside for a smoke.
Why do you suppose this is?
What is happening there, that isn't happening in Baltimore?
> As an example if you leave gold bars littered on your front yard people will pick them up. No amount of "putting thieves in jail" will save you.
Of course there is an amount of "putting thieves in jail" which will save you; once all the thieves are in jail, the remainder of the populace would mind their own business and walk past the gold bars.
If your thesis is that literally everyone would steal those gold bars, then I have to point out that this is a very pessimistic view, and that there are multiple different places around the world where it wouldn't happen.
> once all the thieves are in jail, the remainder of the populace would mind their own business and walk past the gold bars
Perhaps. I posit that you are going to run out of one of these things sooner than you are going to run out of thieves though: gold bars, patience of police to hunt down your stolen gold bars, places in prison.
You are going to run out of gold bars because if there is a stash of them unsecured there will be some thieves who either by sheer luck, or by being better at their job than the police at theirs will succesfully get away with stealing them.
You are going to run out of police patience by one of two ways: either immediately, once they hear that your unsecured gold bars were just laying in your front garden. In which case they take your report and chuck it in a drawer to forget about it. Or if you are politically well connected they will try to persuade you to secure them better. If you are literally their king and they can’t convince you to store the gold better they might try to protect it by posting a policeman next to it
And then finnaly if you have so much money that replenishing the stolen gold is not a problem, and you have so much political power that the police is not able to change your storage practices then that is when you are going to run out of space in your prisons.
> If your thesis is that literally everyone would steal those gold bars
Not at all. But it doesn’t need to be. My thesis is that there would be enough people who would try that it overwhelms your police force destined to throw thieves in prison.
But then a new thief is spontaneously generated by greed, stupidity or "because it seemed funny", "this person has so many gold bars, surely they won't care about me taking one" and even "it was out there, unwatched, unlocked, thought it was fine to take one". And you will never know who. Maybe you put all the obvious thugs and hooligans in jail, only for some otherwise kindly old grandma to steal some bars because of the thrill of it. Or a thief from another city in passing.
In other places around the world those things are controlled by close-knit communities where being seen stealing would spread the word like wildfire and ruin the thief's reputation (or end up in a beating), not because people is purer and immune to sin or idiocy.
It's not pessimistic nor paranoid to lock your door. All it takes is one bad apple, even if it's one in a million.
Found a list of models that are blacklisted from being added to insurance policies [1]:
2015-2021 Hyundai Accent (all body styles)
2015-2021 Hyundai Elantra (two-door and four-door)
2015-2021 Hyundai Kona
2015-2021 Hyundai Santa Fe
2015-2021 Hyundai Tucson
2015-2018 Hyundai Veloster
2015-2021 Kia Forte
2015-2021 Kia Optima
2015-2016 Kia Optima Hybrid
2015-2021 Kia Rio (all body styles)
2015-2021 Kia Sedona
2015-2016 Kia Sorento
2015-2021 Kia Soul
2015-2021 Kia Sportage
edit: forbes [2] offers a slightly different list of models:
> Hyundai is offering a free software update to prevent thefts on certain targeted vehicles, starting Tuesday on nearly 4 million Hyundais on the road. The first million eligible cars are 2017 to 2020 Elantra, 2015 to 2019 Sonata and 2020 to 2021 Venue vehicles. Affected owners can bring in the car to Hyundai dealerships for the free anti-theft upgrade. It takes about an hour to install. Once updated a window decal will (hopefully) alert and deter thieves from targeting the vehicle.
> The next batch of eligible vehicles will go in for the software update in June and includes a long list of Kia models, including:
2018-2022 Accent
2011-2016 Elantra
2021-2022 Elantra
2018-2020 Elantra GT
2011-2014 Genesis Coupe
2018-2022 Kona
2020-2021 Palisade
2013-2018 Santa Fe Sport
2013-2022 Santa Fe
2019 Santa Fe XL
2011-2014 Sonata
2011-2022 Tucson
2012-2017, 2019-2021 Veloster
If you own a Kia, enter your VIM on their site below and it'll tell you if it's vulnerable. I just checked my 2012 Sportage - it has an electronic keyfob start so it's OK.
Lots of comments that didn’t read the article so here’s a good excerpt on why there’s a lawsuit.
Baltimore’s lawsuit says the companies “failed to keep up with industry standards,” and claim it was a result of business decisions made to reduce costs and boost profits “notwithstanding decades of academic literature and research supporting the deterrent effects” of anti-theft technology.
“The dramatically increased rate of Hyundai and Kia theft in Baltimore has required city and police resources that would not have been needed but for Hyundai and Kia’s deliberate failures,” the lawsuit says. “Car thieves — many of them teenagers— take advantage of these failures and engage in reckless driving, creating substantial safety risks to themselves and Baltimore residents and their property.”
It’s also worth noting that this was all started with a viral TikTok video showing Hire ridiculously easy it is to steal a Kia/Hyundai is. Here’s a collection of graphs showing the before and after of theft data in major cities. https://usafacts.org/data-projects/car-thefts
This echoes what happened in 2004 with Kryptonite locks and Bic pens.
Someone figured out that you could open a Kryptonite lock using a Bic pen, which has roughly the same shape as a tubular lock key. You did not need to use the actual key or pick the lock. There was a rash of bike thefts afterwards.
TikTok is a convenient scapegoat, but I think the problem would exist without TikTok, because it so closely echoes a similar situation from 2004. To be honest, I think that the manufacturer should bear the blame in both scenarios—it’s their responsibility to make sure that the products can withstand, for at least a few minutes, an unskilled thief with inconspicuous, unpowered, commonly available tools (like, a thief with no lock picks or angle grinders).
When that happened Kryptonite voluntarily created a free lock replacement program, where if you owned a tubular cylinder Kryptonite lock they replaced it for free, postage paid.
Those charts are great, really drives home how quickly trends like this explode and increase total car theft. Also interesting how regional it is, the exploit at its peak quadrupled car thefts in Milwaukee in less than a year so Baltimore has plenty of room for things to get worse.
Am I missing something, or did they not do anything to adjust for how many Kias/Hyundais are in those cities?
That could explain why some cities saw much bigger spikes than others - or it might not! Feels sloppy.
edit: this obviously doesn't negate your point, there's clearly an enormous spike. It's just weird since the article took the time to break it down by city, and to call attention to some cities seeing larger spikes than others.
I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, this sort of thing is generally based on a reasonable person standard. I.e. would a reasonable person assume that if their car requires a key to start, then it cannot be started with something as trivial as a USB key?
I keep hearing this vague claim that the cars can be started with a usb key. How does this work? Is there a usb port that reads some secret file off the USB key? Is it just the USB plug shape that fits somewhere in the car that forces it to turn on?
As I understand it, USB-A plugs fit the ignition lock cylinder and will turn it. Unknown if you have to flip it and reverse it a minimum of two times before achieving usb-a super position and being able to plug in.
Apparently it's more of a joke, you can do it completely bare handed if you don't mind tearing some plastic and manage to grab a finicky bit. The cars have no immobilizers at all apparently.
These lawsuits are part of a longstanding effort by cities and states to try and develop a theory of manufacturer legal accountability through public nuisance law, an effort that is perhaps morally laudable but legally fraught; to date, other than a few outlier environmental cases from the '70s, courts have almost uniformly declined to create a kind of parallel product-liability law through nuisance. While individual car owners have legal recourse through traditional product liability and negligence routes, hard to see these cases succeeding in court; on the other hand, they do create some additional political pressure on Hyundai/Kia to take more responsibility, which is ultimately where the tobacco lawsuits in the '90s ended up -- not winning at the bench, but at the conference table.
Thanks to tort carveouts in the PLCAA, liability suits against firearms manufacturers have additional hurdles to overcome; the Remington settlement was surprising because the plaintiffs would have had a hard time prevailing at trial. It’s likely that Remington (which settled without admitting fault), didn’t want to run the risk of sympathetic plaintiffs managing to kick a state-level hole in their otherwise ironclad federal protection against product liability suits.
“The dramatically increased rate of Hyundai and Kia theft in Baltimore has required city and police resources that would not have been needed but for Hyundai and Kia’s deliberate failures,”
I'd like to see the data here. Is there any indication that the crime wouldn't be present in other areas of life? Would the people committing these crimes be law-abiding citizens if not for the temptation of these cars being easier to steal? Or would the police resources be spent on alternate crimes? It seems the common denominator here is people willing to commit crimes, not the city's claim that it "would not have been" if the company increased security.
Here’s the link that I posted above with data showing the before and after. It’s quite stark just how big of a spike there has been in theft. https://usafacts.org/data-projects/car-thefts
Not exactly the data I was looking for. This is very niche and not from a more comprehensive level. However, the city level data seems to show that some cities are not seeing a higher spike, but others are. Without any real analysis, this seems to indicate that there are other factors at play than simply Kias being easier to steal.
Why are people disagreeing with this? If you run an experiment looking at a variable change and it doesn't change much in some places but changes a lot in others, then wouldn't this prove that there are other variables at play - that it couldn't possibly be that single variable itself?
There is a theoretical limit to the rate at which a society can digest unsocialized people, and this is affected by the exposed surface area of the clumps of unsocialized people. Where by “unsocialized” I mean with respect to that particular society - people in any society are “unsocialized” with respect to any other sufficiently separate society. We seem to have run into a case of serious indigestion. Traditionally we warehoused people who weren’t being digested successfully. Why we stopped is a really interesting question.
I absolutely agree. I hate that "lock up criminals" has become a race-loaded statement, because in Baltimore (and in my neighborhood) the victims are Black/POC. This doesn't impact Becky on IG, it impacts the older people who spent their lives turning America's urban areas around.
That depends. It's likely less of an issue if they know they can steal a car without confrontation than say car jacking or robbery, which carry a higher risk of people being hurt.
> Lots of comments that didn’t read the article so here’s a good excerpt on why there’s a lawsuit.
Yea, I don't think that is it.
> "Car thieves ... engage in reckless driving, creating substantial safety risks to themselves and Baltimore residents and their property."
I don't see anything about Hyundai or Kia taking the cars for joy rides. They are not going out and encouraging people to steal their cars. They are not responsible for enforcing community standards. There is no law which states they must use any certain anti-theft technology. The cars are in no way malfunctioning. So why is there a lawsuit?
Why not go after the owners? They bought the cars and didn't care whether they had anti-theft technology.
I didn't read it either... because I'd read a bunch of other articles and watched videos about the problem a couple of months ago.
IMHO the root cause is that it's impossible with current legislation/courts practice to deter this kind of behaviour. Specifically:
* Many of the perpetrators are minors
* Stealing a car, depending on cirsumstances, is a misdemeanor
* There is no mounting of repeated offenses
* Police can't keep the suspects on custody for long and prosecution is overkill for the results
So more or less, stealing a car is free. And instead of fixing the above points (maybe Baltimore as a city can't do that on its own) the "solution" is suing car makers.
Sorry, it's been a couple of months and I can't remember the details. Is there a different threshold for minors? I don't know your legal system and maybe I "translated" what I was hearing with ours in mind. Or the article was about another state.
I do remember that the police officers were very clear that they can do nothing. Even if the arrest the kids, the DA won't prosecute them.
And you should be sued for leaving your door unlocked if you get robbed, and the guy that robbed you should be pampered by the government as a victim of the system.
In EU immobilizers were mandated in 1998, 2001 in Australia, 2007 Canada.
I.e. it wasn't like the manufacturers decided that they were useful, they were forced to introduce them by the national or pan-national authorities.
If the US didn't mandate them, the reference to industry standards is - at best - a very feeble one, the city of Baltimore could - maybe - sue the NHTSA
The headline literally matches the content of the article, even the quotes you posted. So saying that people "didn't read the article" is a strange claim.
even after reading the article this lawsuit makes no sense.
inherently a car that can easily be repaired can easily be stolen. the implication is that Baltimore does not want cars that can easily be modified so they cannot easily be stolen.
troubling to say the least. then again, baltimore isn't exactly the pinnacle of governance.
Right? Why don’t we all have our catalytic converters digitally paired with the Engine Control Unit iPhone-style? Is it the manufacturer’s fault for not doing that?
Heck, just like an iPhone, let’s have all parts on a car from the headlamps to the door handles to the mirrors digitally paired together. That would stop theft, and any car maker who doesn’t do it is encouraging theft.
> Federal, state, and local law enforcement partners from across the United States executed a nationwide, coordinated takedown today of leaders and associates of a national network of thieves, dealers, and processors for their roles in conspiracies involving stolen catalytic converters sold to a metal refinery for tens of millions of dollars.
> ...
> They knowingly purchased stolen catalytic converters and, through a “de-canning” process, extracted the precious metal powders from the catalytic core. DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million.
Ok, not quite melted down, but reduced to rather base components. They are not reused in the same form.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. My understanding is that the part that they omitted was some sort of chip. Soldering in a new chip is something that could be easily done by someone making repairs but which would be difficult for someone to do during a theft.
Are you saying Hyundai and Kia did this so the car is more easily modifiable? Are they known for making more repairable cars? Are they framework laptop of the car world? Or merely cheap carmakers who found the wrong corner to cut and save costs?
what I'm saying is that if you imagine the most reparable car in the world, it would inherently be easy to steal and thus subject to the same lawsuit being presented to Kia and Hyundai.
There is no relationship. I can take apart my front door including the lock without a problem, and it is still secure. Security is a property of the locked state, repairability a property of the unlocked state.
no it is not. the fact that you can take apart your front door makes it inherently easier to get into your house vs. a door that could not be disassembled.
I’m wondering if you can explicitly say what about including an immobilizer in the north American market inherently makes those vehicles less repairable than their immobilizer-equipped counterparts in other markets.
I don't follow the reasoning that inherently easily repairable cars are easily stolen. Cars have shipped for decades with steering and in some cases transmission locks. These required physical key and programmed fob to be present in order to start and drive. Security was down to the quality of the engineering of those components. I don't see how it hampered modification to or ability to repair the rest of the car.
you disagree that a car that's more reparable is more easily stolen? imagine a car with screws on the door to be swapped, and another car without them. you don't think the car with the screws would be easier to steal?
> you disagree that a car that's more reparable is more easily stolen?
Yes,I do.
> imagine a car with screws on the door to be swapped, and another car without them. you don't think the car with the screws would be easier to steal?
I imagined that. Every car door I have ever interacted with had the screws on the hinges such that you could only access them with the door open. You could swap all of them. This is not a particularly good example you choose I am afraid.
You can design cars which are hard to repair and easy to steal, or one which is easy to repair and hard to steal.
Thing is nobody is asking Kia to do something unprecedented. All people are asking to be about as safe from stealing as cars from other manufacturers are.
I don't know what to tell ya then. clearly and obviously, a door that can be taken off, and thus is more easily repaired, could be stolen easier than one that is not (e.g. door is welded after being attached to the car). if you disagree with that then we have to agree to disagree.
> Thing is nobody is asking Kia to do something unprecedented. All people are asking to be about as safe from stealing as cars from other manufacturers are.
how about you just not buy kia. they'll figure it out. why people want to involve the government in everything is just beyond me.
You might as well argue that a car built to be human drivable is easier to steal since the human needs to be able to see the surroundings, and a car with glass windows is easier to break into than a steel box with some external camera and lidar modules.
Yes, that is true too, but the law says a car needs windows or similarly sized cavities. Within the minimum requirements for a steer legal car, more repair ability makes it easier to steal inherently.
Idk why people argue against this obvious fact. Things have trade offs and this is one of them. Of course you can design things to be repairable and minimize risk of theft, but if you didn’t care about that things could be even more accessible for modification if desired.
Well maybe tell me a single car model where the door cannot be taken off and a single source outside of yourself who claims this as an anti-theft feature.
> if you disagree with that then we have to agree to disagree.
I agree with you that welding the hinge of a door to the chassis would lower its repairability. I disagree that it would make it less likely to be stolen. Cars are not stolen by people walking off with their doors. Assuming that there is some means of ingress and egress enabling normal users to regularly enter the vehicle, that is the doors are not completely welded shut, thiefs will use that.
If you are making the point that a vehicle completely welded shut would be less repairable, and also less likely to be stolen I guess I have to agree with that. For some reason I don’t predict it to be a comercial success though.
Common vehicle anti-theft features include immobilisers, steering locks, coded key fobs, car alarms, kill switches. I don’t see that you have shown that these techniques make cars less repairable.
> how about you just not buy kia.
Consider it done.
> why people want to involve the government in everything is just beyond me
I can explain this part. People get their car stolen and they call the police to report it. They expect that the police will expend resources to find it and punish the thieves. Many in among these very comments have expressed that sentiment. That is where the government gets in the picture.
Or people fall victim of some other crime. Like they have a hit and run traffic accident, or someone smashes into their shop window with a car and drives away with stolen goods, or any number of other crimes. They report it to the police who investigates and realises that the criminals used a stolen car to facilitate their crime. Because a ready source of easily stolen cars is not just a headache for the people whose car have gone missing. It undermines the security and safety of others too. This is an other way how the government got involved.
Are you with me so far? Do you agree that people can and should report to the police when crimes have been commited against them?
Assuming that we are on the same page so far. Or at least that you are seeing my point even if you are not agreeing: what happens next is that the police looks at their statistics and sees that many of these crimes have their root in the shoddy safety practices of a particular car manufacturer. They see that it costs them a lot of money too. So they go and ask their own government paid lawyer and ask them if they can do something about this. And presumably said lawyer told them that yes they can do something about it, they can sue the car manufacturer for public nuisance.
That is how people reporting crimes leads to the police noticing a common theme in the crimes and that leads to the city suing the vehicle manufacturer. I hope that answers your question about how and why people got the government involved in this issue.
Yes I do. Your door screws are a bad example. My car door hinges are secured with bolts not accessible when the door is closed. I have given some examples of security features which don't impact repairability and you've ignored them.
An easily repairable safe is not an insecure safe. The security of the safe shouldn't be able to be easily compromised from the outside of the safe. Just because I can repair and replace parts doesn't make it insecure.
a safe that could be repaired from in and out of the safe would be even more reparable than one that could only be repaired from inside. thus, the most reparable safe would be also one that could be compromised. there inherently is a tradeoff between security and modifiability by end users.
there is nothing about a safe that says it cannot be repaired from the outside (though it would certainly be a bad safe). regardless, my example isn't limited to safes to begin with.
I have an older (2011) Kia and took it in for a firmware update. It changed two things:
1. Alarm sounds for 60s, increased from 30s
2. The key must be in the ignition for the vehicle to start
#2 seemed kinda odd, but then I realized that people who used any sort of remote start kit would have a bit of a dilemma, as it would no longer function after the update.
> Car owners could sue Kia for selling defective cars.
> Insurance companies should charge far more for Kias.
Great, someone made the unknowing mistake of buying one of these defective cars before it was known they are easily stolen. Now their insurance goes up and they have to sue the manufacturer. How many people actually have the money to deal with that? Suing the car company is expensive. And if I don't have the cash to buy another car (and the trade in value of the one I have has crashed) I'm just stuck paying increased insurance costs. And fees from the city, apparently.
This isn't the economic motivation you think it is, it's just pushing the burden onto the owners who had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
What you've done is proposed a bunch of complicated rules that burden consumers and dealers to do everything possible to prevent people from buying these cars, all so you can avoid just having the manufacturer do a recall. The government can simply say that the cars lack safety features, force a recall, and move on. Cut out all the consumer-unfriendly bureaucracy.
Of all the entities that could be blamed, it's not the jails that create recidivists, it's not the law enforcement that fails to intervene before serious crimes are committed, and it's not the schools that are raising delinquents.
People are commenting on this with a fundamental lack of understanding of a car's ignition system.
This design truly is flawed. Traditionally, the immobilizer in an ignition system is physically tied to the steering column. Basically, you'd need to remove the steering column (the physical pipe that goes between your steering wheel and the front steering rack) in order to remove the part. If you want to defeat that immobilizer, you need to do a massive amount of damage to the mechanism, and that damage usually destroys the electronics that register the correct key being put into the ignition switch. This is more or less a self-reinforcing security feature, since the car wont start without this electronic signal.
Kia/Hyundai decided to just tack a little immobilizer module on without integrating it into the steering column, and they didn't even do a decent job mechanically securing it to the column from the outside. That means you can jam a screwdriver in there and pop the "security" mechanism off. Once that's gone, you're left with a little (conveniently USB sized) nub that can be turned which will immediately start the car. No muss, no fuss, no recognition that it's missing its immobilizer module.
Its a fundamentally flawed design, and it never should have made it past review.
flawed or not, the onus is not on Kia. ultimately baltimore is suing them because of the spike in car thefts, not because of the flawed design. presumably if baltimore had no thieves, there would be no thefts irrespective of the design.
so in effect baltimore is suing kia becuase their cars are getting stolen which is ridiculous.
i don't know how anyone can defend this.
this would be like baltimore suing banks for allowing customers to put in the pin "1234" after seeing a spike in money theft through ATMs.
if Baltimore wants the cars to be harder to steal, then they should work with the governor to pass a law that requires cars sold in Maryland to have whatever security functionality they deem necessary.
Here’s a better analogy - imagine the atm manufacturer wanted to save money so they built a machine with a lock that could be pried off with a screwdriver instead of integrating security features inside the machine. This ATM would be about as trivially easy to break into as stealing a Kia/Hyundai is. Would the bank be right to pursue legal damages against the atm manufacturer for negligence?
You cannot make something that you know will cause a nuisance. You cannot, for instance, sell fireworks only between 1-3am in the middle of a neighborhood and act surprised when the neighbors are mad at you because kids are setting them off all night.
It was absolutely predictable that these cars would be stolen and that the police would have to deal with the fallout. Just because there's no explicit law does not mean that Kia doesn't know better. Kia needs to pay for that.
Yea, I'm really surprised at all this defense of these corporations. They produced and sold a defective product, which is causing monetary damages to cities as they need to deal with the predictable exploit of that defect. I'm sure the city is prepared to show that these damages are a result of the companies' negligence.
If I owned one of these defective cars, I'd also be keen on participating in a lawsuit against the company.
If these cars had a defect that caused them to suddenly catch fire and burn down neighborhoods, you'd bet there would be lawsuits from everyone, including cities who pay for fire departments.
> Yea, I'm really surprised at all this defense of these corporations.
Well, the government does already set a bunch of standards for cars.
And before the car leaves the factory, it's fine for the government to be issuing mandatory standards for lights, spare parts, seatbelts, crash safety, pedestrian protection, fuel economy and so on.
But the government having a second, secret set of requirements? That can change without anyone being notified? To me that seems rather irregular.
There's no federal standard that says cars must not explode in a fireball during refueling. If one make of car started exploding, you'd see the federal government get involved very quickly.
To me, that seems like a responsible way to react to an irregular situation.
The cars are not exploding. The government has no reason to car about your private property. Should bike manufacturers be sued as well for the rampant bike theft that happens in virtually every city in America? Gimme a break
Affected owners should put together a class action and force a recall on the affected cars. As for those who actually got their cars stolen - they should take that up with the police and their insurance.
is there evidence that car thefts are higher due to Kia, or due to lax enforcement? I suspect it’s a bit of both and Baltimore is trying to pin it all on anyone else but them.
Not making excuses for Kia. They should absolutely get penalties for taking shortcuts. But I feel that higher insurance premiums and a bad reputation would take care of it. And people won’t buy their cars.
> is there evidence that car thefts are higher due to Kia, or due to lax enforcement?
Yes. In numerous cities the car theft rate has gone way up in the last couple of years, in some doubling or more, with something like 95% of the increase being thefts of these particular Kia and Hyundai models.
> Its a fundamentally flawed design, and it never should have made it past review.
It is a flawed design, but there’s just one problem for a lawsuit: Immobilizers are not legally required in the US. A flawed immobilizer is fine, considering there doesn’t even need to be an immobilizer.
Baltimore is suing because, yes, they are easy to steal and that makes things inconvenient for Baltimore. But no law was broken - there is no law requiring cars to be hard to steal. Thus they are trying to claim “public nuisance” instead of “negligence.”
This, in my mind, is a super slippery slope. You know parts pairing on iPhones, where you can’t swap the camera without Apple’s approval? One day there could be a carmaker or two that pairs everything from mirrors to catalytic converter to “prevent theft and fraud.” If Baltimore wins, anyone who doesn’t do that could be found liable. Just an extreme example of how this could go sideways fast.
Or let’s say two or three bike manufacturers start putting GPS systems into their bikes, to prevent theft. Can any bike manufacturer that doesn’t do that be sued in the future? I would argue, they should absolutely not be in absence of a law.
The product sold doesn't comply with the stated fit of purpose. A consumer has the reasonable expectation that an ignition switch will hamper the efforts of someone to steal their car. There are lots of consumer protection laws that can be applied here - up to fraud. I suspect Baltimore isn't as interested in the the money to be gained as they are in generating negative PR for KIA and thus forcing them to address the issue.
And Baltimore is asserting they have standing regarding financial damages incurred from policing the thefts. If only there was some way to resolve whether the defendant or plaintiff is the correct party!
Hyundai should countersue the city, for having such a reprobrate populace that necessitates that manufacturers of durable goods implement increasingly elaborate and expensive antitheft schemes. "Maintaining a Nuisance", I think the term is.
Or perhaps they should have owners sign a release, promising not to operate or store the vehicle in any zip code that insurance companies deem high risk.
I kinda agree! Forcing the customer to sign a car theft waiver that other car companies do not would solve the problem somewhat. It informs them so that they can use their money on a different vehicle.
But it's established through case law that police aren't obligated to do anything about theft. So the costs of policing thefts would seem to be voluntary, not damages. Interesting to see how it turns out.
You have a good point here, would the judge rule that only the time taken to help file a report can be sued for? Any more than that and it sounds like you could theoretically sue the police for not finding your car.
The design of the ignition system is completely irrelevant. Even if a manufacturer designed a car that simply had an "on" button without the need for keys, it would not be their fault if that car was stolen.
Also, this would be completely legal to sell. There’s no law requiring keys, or an immobilizer, or really any anti-theft technology.
If you don’t like that, and I don’t, change the law. Don’t sue for something completely legal because it makes life inconvenient for a city. There is a long list of things cities find inconvenient, like bicycles without a built-in GPS, or even things as dumb as American flags in an upscale neighborhood.
> Don’t sue for something completely legal because it makes life inconvenient for a city.
I don't understand this reasoning. The city believes there is already a law under which what the car manufacturer did is not legal. They and the car manufacturer will go in front of a judge where the city will need to prove this, while the lawyers of the car manufacturer will presumably argue otherwise.
Should I be feeling bad for Kia that they have to justify their choices?
The city is going to spend substantial time and taxpayer dollars to argue a legal theory that is extremely dubious at best. If private citizens want to sue for dumb reasons, that's their prerogative, but a public entity with lots of other problems to deal with is fair game for criticism when they engage in boondoggles.
Legally it is. If there was no signs of forced entry then you're not going to be compensated for your loss and the police aren't going to pursue any suspects.
But that's not what this case is about. To use your analogy, imagine KIA were a lock maker such as Kwikset. You bought their lock to install on your front door. You locked your door and left the house. You came back and your TV was gone, with no signs of forced entry. That's when you discover a major flaw in the design of the lock - if you turn the knob the opposite way then the lock will unlock from the outside. It's a flaw in the design. The lock maker is definitely legally liable for that defect, and, this is the important point, the city of Baltimore could sue them claiming damages incurred by having excessive police calls caused by their defective product. Of course every case is different, but Baltimore would be likely to win.
I'd say they're likely to win in this case as well. Since KIA has been aware of this problem for some time and taken no steps to resolve it, I imagine Baltimore is applying some financial incentive. As other cities take note they too may file their own suits and then KIA may realize it's cheaper and better PR to issue a massive and costly recall.
> Legally it is. If there was no signs of forced entry then you're not going to be compensated for your loss and the police aren't going to pursue any suspects.
To the extent that common law is generally adopted in the United States, theft is the intentional taking of the property of another with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of said property. It doesn't matter whether there's forced entry or not (you may be thinking of burglary -- either way, principles of "constructive breaking" could still apply depending on the law as codified by a given jurisdiction).
Even from a less pedantic standpoint, if I had a home surveillance system that captured the entire incident on camera (along with the perpetrator's face and the license plate of the vehicle that he used to drive off with my TV), there is still sufficient evidence to arrest and prosecute. There is no legal requirement of "signs of forced entry" to sustain a theft charge under these circumstances.
The police aren't going to pursue any suspects over a stolen TV period. The obligation of the police is not to solve crime. They are more or less required to create a police report for you, but that is about it.
Not to defend the police but the cops (in CA) did follow up on a burglary of my wife's handbag (with wallet/ids/phone) from her car at a gas station.
If the theft was part of a bigger issue with (to use the Kwikset hypothetical) the vendor's product defect allowing mass thefts then it would be important to the police.
The first time I tried picking a lock I just put the picks in and the lock opened. No need to worry about pins, just put something, and it opened. I can pick a Kwikset lock, but it is not that easy. (I'm not very good, Kwikset doesn't have a good rep among lock pickers, but it isn't the worst)
> Legally it is. If there was no signs of forced entry then you're not going to be compensated for your loss and the police aren't going to pursue any suspects.
This is not correct. The police will take a report, and your insurance (if you have it) will cover your TV even if you left the door wide open. Even if you were drunk. Even if you weren't drunk. There is no clause in standard insurance policies or our laws and statutes that failure to lock shit up somehow makes it free for anyone else to take.
A typical modern (say, mid 90s or later) car immobilizer is not mechanical, it is electronic. If you don't have a properly programmed key (or fob) in close proximity to the sensor, the ECU won't let the engine start. No amount of physical force or access to the steering column will defeat it. You may get far enough to make the starter turn the engine, but the ECU won't fire the injectors.
The problem with Hyundai & Kia is that they elected not to include this 25 year old technology at all.
The problem is that some people decide to steal cars and face no consequences. What’s the car theft levels in Seoul compared to Baltimore? Should we expect them to be different? Why?
The electronic immobilizer on my 2009 jetta is a communication between the cars computer and the key doing some sort of key exchange or rolling code. There’s no amount of tampering with anything in the steering column which can result in a running car. You start the engine and without the correct authentication the computer shuts the engine off after one second. I experienced it myself in a situation where i had a physical key which was not electronically paired with the engine so i could unlock and start the car one second at a time. There’s no option outside of hacking the car computer or having access to dealer only computer interface tools.
I live in Baltimore, in a pretty "good" part of town where most of the young professionals and Hopkins hospital staff live. I know 4 different people who've had cars stolen in the past 24 months. In 3 of these cases the perpetrators were teenagers, and in 2 of these cases they brandished guns. Only one of these thefts were Hyundai/Kia-related, and the thief punched my buddy in the face during the theft.
Many others I know have had cars broken into, homes broken into, tons of packages stolen, property vandalized, etc. Basically any form of property crime you can imagine.
The idea that Hyundai or Kia are somehow culpable for these this extreme social dysfunction is absolutely farcical. Vagrants and criminals are kept like livestock by the local government and a class of parasitic NGOs- left to terrorize normal law-abiding citizens who barely have a legal recourse to violence should one of these incidents go sideways.
It would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city
Yeah, at some point in Chicago and Baltimore people figured out that career criminals vote, and will vote in their own interests. Very few people vote in local elections anyway, so they've managed to elect a ton of prosecutors who promise not to prosecute.
Feels like the 70s in Urban America repeating itself. I feel bad for the older Black population in Baltimore. They busted ass for the last 50 years and they got to enjoy a really lovely city from like 2009 to 2013. Imagine growing up like Henrietta Lacks, only to have all your shit stolen by teenagers who are legally untouchable.
You don’t have to be a major voting block to be a consistently consequential swing vote. California is a major voting block but its interests are rarely persuasive in federal politics because it’s never a swing vote in elections.
That’s fair. The logic still holds: Ohio’s interests are over-represented in Federal politics even though it’s not major because it’s important on the margins.
This is largely true. I own an Elantra, had a window, the ignition, and steering column trashed, and the would be thief failed to actually steal the car. I was still out almost $1200 after towing and my deductible.
Having a steering wheel lock has worked so far since then, but there is a tremendous incentive for someone to ruin my car again given the chance, since it'll (maybe always) appear to be an easy target, kill switch or no.
A good option is to install one or two hidden switches that need activating corectly for the fuel pump to run - even with your key they won't be able to take your car.
I think it's Autralia where like 80% of the car theft are done with the owner's key? (Too lazy to look for the citation)
Cities get what cities vote for. If they naively vote for "good intentions" over practical policy, there's a cost to the lessons learned. The cost may exceed the value, particularly if the lessons could be called self-evident. The cost can also be ruinous (e.g. Portland, S. Francisco.). In the long view, we can hope for correction and that the philosophical observer can say, "Well, that didn't work out like we thought it would", but this is cold comfort to the victims in the intervening years and the opportunity cost for the city at large.
From the outside, the policies seem to defy all common sense. Doubling down on bad policy seems like foolishness, naivety, denial, complicity, or AOTA. When the plane's computer is saying 'terrain.', 'terrain.', at what point do you decide to pull up, and what does that even look like in Balitmore? The complexity of Baltimore's problems brings out the defeatist in anyone, but I think there are some obvious starting points.
It reminds me of C.S. Lewis's statement about progress:
"Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."
Nearer to what are Baltimore's leader's trying to get?
Baltimore is one of the most dangerous cities in the world, constantly dealing with people fleeing the city for the county, and they have been in large numbers since the 70s. Not the same flavor of hysteria as SF or Portland
I would suggest that something rhymes in the how prosecutorial discretion and bail policies are implemented in each of these places, though my point isn’t to compare one city to the other aside from them all being examples of “one reaps what one sows” at a practical policy level.
Baltimore is one of the most entrenched cities in US on a number of levels. It’s kind of ridiculous you are comparing the hyperwoke follies of SF and Portland with the outright despair and corruption in Baltimore. We have not reaped what we have sown, we hardly have a shot
They're not the same, but speaking as someone who's been both cities, there are some interesting similarities . Both endemic corruption by a single party which uses social issues as a ploy to forestall reform. Baltimore is a poor city that has been forgotten, whereas SF is a rich city in the limelight. Baltimore's problems begin much earlier, SF's problems are relatively more recent; but the rot in both speaks to a deeper shared problem in American society.
The longevity of a city's sad state doesn't seem to have any bearing on the dynamic of "bad policies delivering bad outcomes". I feel like this is the third time saying it so don't worry about a fourth, but the comparison was limited strictly to that equation.
The character of the bad outcomes certainly changes with longevity, such as entrenchment, as you mention. The fixes must also be different. I'm not disagreeing with you that these cities and their situations are entirely different.
There is data on the Kia/Hyundai problem that is unique to these makes because they cut corners on safety features that are standard across industry -- I don't know why your anecdote of people getting carjacked is relevant at all?
> "Theft and violence reigns supreme in a lawless urban wasteland"
> "How are these anecdotes relevant?"
This is a tremendous leap in logic, but I am suggesting that Baltimore's problems can and do exist wholly independently of the engineering standards of Korean automakers
Ok. I mean, we've all seen The Wire. But the problem with Kia and Hyundai is happening in other cities across the country, and is well documented on social media. There absolutely is something special about these particular makes, so discounting it just doesn't make sense.
It doesn't. Cars which are easy theft targets have an actual impact on police availability, because they have to investigate this shit alongside problems that people didn't create for themselves by buying shitty cars. Just because it doesn't directly affect you, personally, doesn't indicate that problems are unrelated.
Haha it won't take Ra's or Bane, just more time and more people with money moving into the city and helping to build out the tax base.
Imo now is a great time to buy property if you can deal with the rest.
Sorry to hear about the bad string of luck those close to you have had. It's vile and disgusting how much psychopathic behavior is tolerated by some residents in the city.
All of which is neither here nor there when it comes to their failure to install common antitheft measures other manufacturers do, even taking it at face value (which frankly I find hard to do).
It might be hear or there when it comes to suing them. They would need to show that the antitheft deficiencies caused more crime. Or did it shift it to different manufacturers cars.
From other comments I get the sense that yes they can show this, but defence can argue that the crime would happen anyway. A bit like the security system doesn’t stop a burglar it makes them walk to the next home.
I wouldn’t be so sure that more people don’t commit crimes if they’re just really easy. Imagine someone leaving their car unlocked with a sack of cash sitting on the driver’s seat. Isn’t it pretty easy to imagine someone taking that even if they’re not exactly committed enough to theft to smash cars’ windows and rifle through the gloveboxes?
As another person currently residing in Baltimore (and who just re-signed a lease to stay in a city I've enjoyed living in), it's worth pointing out that when people talk about "systemic" issues in policing and law enforcement, they're talking about things like the fact that for the last, oh, literally 162 years, Baltimore PD has not been administrated within the City of Baltimore, but instead by state lawmakers in the capital, Annapolis, which is around a 45-minute drive away. It's only been during the most recent local election that control was moving locally instead[1][2][3].
This kind of thing has resounding consequences. Baltimore is a city with a complicated history; for one thing, it's down from it's peak of almost 1M people to under 600k [4]. There's a significant history of racism in Maryland at large. There's a lot of fundamental issues, ranging from food deserts to lack of public transportation among the poorer areas. But to say that "[I]t would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city" is not true. It's certainly not all sunshine and roses, there's a lot of work being done at the grassroots as well, from new local investigative news organizations like the Baltimore Banner being funded to small makerspaces being set up in the now-plentiful well-built, but unused buildings that cities like Boston or Washington, DC. would only dream about having near their harbor or highways, and it's unfair to dismiss these things as being worthless.
I'll cherry-pick one line. "There's a lot of fundamental issues, ranging from food deserts to lack of public transportation among the poorer areas."
Food deserts in Baltimore? Like the Mondowmin Mall that was destroyed by residents during the Freddie Gray riots? And the companies that tried to rebuild and provide in the neighborhood, only to be robbed constantly to the point that companies gave up for not being able to guarantee workers'safety?
And public transport, in areas where cabbies fear to go, buses take hours, and electric scooters and bikes are routinely dumped in the harbor? Vandalism runs rampant. Bus seats are sliced open, gang members threaten riders, etc.
I hate what poor Baltimore has become. Yuppie white-collar Baltimore thrives, just not in these areas. 35 yrs ago I love going to Balt to play tourist. Nice people, Inner Harbor, restaurants, stores... Employed so many people. Corrupt city government at all levels, corrupt cops, and promotion of a victim mentality are some of the things that brought it down. Baltimore is screwed in general, by its own actions.
I'm not going to try to defend every bad thing about the city; as I clearly stated, it's not all sunshine and roses. But let's look a the public transport issues you names. Again, we can look how the state government under the former Governor Hogan persistently re-directed funding away from things like improving existing light rail or adding new lines[1][2] that would have benefited poorer, usually Black communities, and instead moved that money towards road maintenance or expansion further out into the state in wealthier, whiter ones.
A good example of this is the East-West Red Line project, which would have been the only cross-city rail line that didn't go North-South among the already well-serviced neighborhoods, with a lot of that money getting spent re-vitalizing those areas. But once again, this isn't a cause for dismissal--the new Governor Moore has made reviving the Red Line project possible again[3], which (if it happens), could be a huge boon for the city. Imagine NYC without the MTA or Boston without the MBTA--almost unthinkable. These kind of projects, which finally have the potential to become un-stalled, offer hope of moving Baltimore in that direction.
Car theft is a compound problem. Some cars are stolen because their security systems are garbage. Others are stolen at gunpoint. I don’t understand why the existence of one problem means we shouldn’t try to solve the other.
In my small neighborhood there is a group of 4 teenagers who have stolen probably a dozen kias. They drive them for 20 minutes, total them for a tik tok, and walk away with immunity. They have been arrested, charged, and released at least 3 times.
One of my neighbors has a recent kia that is not susceptible to these hacks, and 2 weeks ago witnessed these teens trying to steal her car one night. She went out and told them they were on camera, and they threatened her and kept trying to steal the car. She called the police who came later and explained steering wheel locks and did little else. The next night the same teens came back, and this time having learned about the details, went out and informed them that her car was not susceptible. They continued trying, damaging the ignition with a screwdriver but not stealing it. The third night in a row, she left a note explaining it in the window, which did not deter them but cause them to bust out the window with the note taped on it.
The city is now distributing steering wheel locks for free to any kia owners, but they have caused a local shortage and can no longer offer them.
I've had neighbors waiting for their appointment to have the ignition modified have their cars totaled.
If you street park your car, even if it isn't a kia, you have high odds of being side swiped by one of these kids on purpose.
It's not a car theft issue, it's a legal joyride and clout exercise. You are lucky if your city is still only experiencing car theft and not this new form of car terrorism.
"You stole a deadly vehicle and put people's lives in danger with it. Multiple times. You will be tried as an adult and the minimum sentence is 5 years."
Why is this not the obvious solution?
(not as if you could single-handedly enact it, of course, but why isn't the city's leadership doing so?)
This used to be the "solution", except all it did was act as a gladiator academy that turned out more hardened criminals after 5 years. Do that every year and every year you are just working a machine to create crime.
Turns out that just putting people in jail doesn't make society safer.
Turns out patting people on the back and tearfully nodding to the stories about their sad youth doesn’t make society safer either. Ultimately life just isn’t fair and people do need to be induced to take responsibility for themselves.
no, but some "lost causes" understand only violence, fear and shame if anything, religion served most of that purpouse, but that isnt effective nowadays. This strict treatments should be reserved to violent, higly recidive, antisocial, worst of the worst criminals, as a way to not have them treating the punishment of prison as a "gladiatior academy". 41bis like treatments in Italy could be a starter.
Just give violent criminals exponentially increasing sentences for each conviction. Then they'll only get a handful of chances to reoffend in their lifetime
To be honest I don't understand the laws but in my city there is a dude who has literally been charged with car vandalism 90 times, let alone all the times he's gotten away with it.
Rich people buy up the nicest houses. They buy themselves new Teslas. They buy $5k sofas and $10k refrigerators and $20k NFTs. They hire landscapers and cleaners and movers and roofers and pay them minimum wage, or less. They buy up all the other houses and rent them out for double the mortgage payments. They get a $50k bonus from their job at some payday-loan-app startup and they buy another Tesla. All while their neighbors starve.
And then one day someone steals one of their Teslas, and they bemoan the injustice that normal, law-abiding citizens like them face and resolve to hate the poor even more.
It's social dysfunction alright, just not how you think.
> And then one day someone steals one of their Teslas, and they bemoan the injustice that normal, law-abiding citizens like them face and resolve to hate the poor even more.
They hire private security for they gated community, don't have any Teslas stolen, bemoan on how poor kids that steal cars are a result of dysfunctional society and pat each other on backs for being so progressive. All while completely ignoring the fact that it's mostly other poor people, who are victims of those crimes. See [0]
I agree that Hyundai and Kia don't own the whole problem. But they are unusual in shipping new cars without immobilizers. And it is solely done to reduce cost. That does contribute the the problem.
Not by some specific regulation, no. IANAL, but that doesn't necessarily shield you from liability when you do something that's unusual for the industry.
You don't need Ra's al Ghul to build transit, improve educative, open more small businesses and start more after school and job training programs. People turn to crime because they don't have other options. And even with those things in place, it will take decades to un-learn the behaviors people learn in a straight up survival/war zone. We have to reckon with reality and buckle down for very long periods of hard work, or it really won't improve.
NGOs “keep” vagrants and criminals like livestock to terrorize law abiding citizens? This is so vague that I have no idea what you’re suggesting is actually going on.
How about prosecutors who recieved support from George Soros or affiliated groups are declining to bring charges against criminals for long list of offenses?
The City of Baltimore has repeatedly demonstrated that they will do anything besides try to change the behavior of the population. It's a failed city, and luckily the model is being exported to places like SF, LA, and DC.
Why should we punish people who repeatedly commit crime anyway? Fuck it, why do anything? Let's sue Kia instead, maybe we can get a payday
If there were a bicycle manufacturer that knowingly made its bikes easier to steal and sell, AND those bicycles when stolen were linked to numerous horrific collisions resulting in death and major injury of innocent parties, then there might be a comparison.
If it were possible for two problems to exist at the same time, I'd say one problem is a product defect reducing the barrier of entry so low that car theft is accessible to bored teenagers.
But of course you are right, only one problem can ever exist and the problem is car thieves.
They would first steal the keys, then the cars. That's actually more dangerous as it involves robbery or burglary. In a way it's better that the cars are easy to steal. Similarly, in bad areas some people leave their cars unlocked so that instead of breaking a window to rummage around inside, thieves can simply open the door.
What in the sibling comment caused it to be flagged ‘dead’? Hyundai and Kia are Korean auto manufacturers. Is this product defect occurring there as well? If so, are car thefts increasing there as well?
Sorry, just to get this clear, you are likening an argument over a manufacturer creating defective products with arguments that might come from a rapist's defense attorney?
The argument isn't comparing the manufacturers liability, but that of the people choosing to steal the cars in the first place - why is it relevant how easy the cars are to steal?
If I buy a front door lock that has a systemic manufacturing problem and someone breaks into my house, I might want to sue the manufacturer.
But if someone breaks into my house--regardless of whether it was unlocked, the lock was defective, or they broke a window--and the police are negligent or incompetent in investigating or prosecuting the perpetrators, in what world is that a) not the police's fault? and b) an opportunity for the _police_ to sue the _manufacturer_?
If I start a cultural movement to get rid of front door locks and it gains traction, and then B&Es spike, can the police sue _me_ too?
If you make a lock that is recognizable and easily broken to the extent that B&Es double nationwide, I don't see a problem with cities suing you over it.
I don't know why you want to try and link the idea of a cultural movement? There's very clearly a difference between a defective product and a deliberate decision.
It's the government's fault for allowing criminals to run loose. It's their job to deal with criminals regardless of how capable the victims are to protect themselves.
When you see an Asian granny being beaten up you don't sue her for being so easy to beat up.
Not the police. It's a failure of the courts. Prosecutors are simply not charging or reducing charges for these offenders. The police routinely arrest the same people over and over again - including for gun charges! But the courts let them out.
Case in point. A couple of teens stole a car, smashed it into another car, killed a 6mo old and put his mother in the hospital. The charges? Trespassing.
I don't think you realize how easy it is to steal these cars. Look up a few videos. You rip off the plastic on the steering column, pry out the ignition cylinder and then use the A end of a usb cable to turn the exposed nub to start the car. Under 30 seconds. While there are other issues going on, this is gross negligence on Kia/Hyundai to not use an immobilizer.
Cars have been this easy to steal forever. Thieves generally take your car in under 30 seconds regardless. This particular vulnerability was just one of the first to get fully documented and distributed to everybody and popularized by an algorithm.
What I understand from this specific case these models don't have an engine immobilizer AND it's very easy to turn on the ignition using a USB cable. If I understood it correctly this is easier than stealing a car in the 80s, you don't even have to smash a window, it's that bad.
The United States is an exception to the rule being the only first world country that I know of to not mandate engine immobilizers (I'm sure someone will be able to point an exception, but overall these are mandatory in a lot of countries for decades already).
You need to access the vehicle (if you are good by opening the door with a lockpick or with some other non-damaging trick, otherwise breaking a window), then you force the ignition block, removing the lock cylinder, then you use something to turn the ignition on.
In the '80's you would have probably used a screwdriver, as what remained below the removed lock cylinder would have been a slot, on these particular models you could use a pair of thin nosed pliers but a USB A connector is coincidentally just the right size for the "tab" that has to be turned.
It shouldn't really matter that theft is easy. If you're prepared to smash a window, you could steal from homes and businesses, not just cars. There should be a strong enough deterrent to make it uncommon.
You may not be able to stop desparate people from stealing, but if kids are repeatedly stealing cars for entertainment, then problem isn't the security of the cars.
I feel that this comment section is more a place for people to vent their feelings about crime freeform than an opportunity to actually consider the facts at hand.
As someone currently in Japan, still a bit shocked how it's actually possible to leave your bike unlocked in a major city and expect to see it the next day, I do find it rediculous to blame the manufacturer for crime. Like what's next, suing a lock manufacturer for being too easy to pick (you can literally look up how to pick 99% of locks on YouTube).
Everyone here keeps failing to mention the part where Kia didn’t care about the customers who complained, but instead extorted people out of another $500 to $1,000 to resolve the issue for them.
People have also failed to mention the part where insurers are dropping people with Kia Souls because they are too high risk.
Seemingly if you read deep enough in the features for the car, it would be described there. If they lied, that's another issue entirely.
It's totally fair for absolutely no one in the US to buy from KIA again. But if they were following the law by omitting ignition locking (maybe under some misguided notion that the US isn't as crime ridden as it is).
There's some countries and still some parts of the US where you could realistically leave the cars in the ignition for weeks and the car wouldn't be stolen. This is nothing but a symptom of a larger issue.
> Like what's next, suing a lock manufacturer for being too easy to pick (you can literally look up how to pick 99% of locks on YouTube).
This already happened almost 20 years ago in the United States. Ingersoll Rand was sued when it was shown that their Kryptonite locks could be opened with a Bic pen. Ingersoll Rand ended up settling. [0] I will grant that actual owners of the easily picked bike lock have obvious grounds to sue, whereas in the case of municipalities suing Hyundai due to theft problems, showing that the municipality is an injured party with standing to sue Hyundai isn’t as clear.
That which is asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. I was there yesterday, my evidence is my experiences and memories. My judgement: not a failed city.
Do you have evidence to the contrary you feel is strong enough to prove your currently unproven claim?
You haven't seen much of the city, then. I live not far away, and functional cities do not have streets that look like what many of Baltimore's streets look like. And they don't have public schools were not a single student, out of hundreds, is meeting the minimum standards of proficiency
He's obviously not talking about the state of the road surface. Anybody who's spent much time in Baltimore, not just in the tourist areas, knows what I mean.
Then said commentator should obviously spend time writing with more clarity so their intended connotation is understood rather than using rhetoric that points to the state of the road surface. Anyone who's spent much time discussing and fixing real issues, rather than writing off whole cities as intractably broken, knows what I mean.
I've found that the people who complain most loudly about crime also tend to take great offense to the idea of government trying "to change the behavior of the population". It seems that this is viewed as an encroachment on freedoms.
This isn't as simple as "no immobilizer". My 2004 Ford F250 doesn't have one either.
Thieves got into it and tried extremely hard to force the ignition and steal it. They tried hammering a flat head into it and rotating. Didn't work. They tried grabbing the outside of the mechanism with some kind of pliers and rotate, and that didn't work. I can see they easily spent several minutes on the whole ordeal, and didn't get anywhere. The entire lock mechanism was destroyed, almost shaved smaller from how many times they tried and their pliers slipped.
When I got to it a few days later, I had to get home using that truck. I put the key in the ignition and turned it, and drove off.
Are there regulations requiring car companies to include this anti theft equipment? If not, that seems like the obvious route for government to pursue? Lacking a regulation requiring this up front, it seems like there is zero case here?
I figured these Hyundai/Kia thefts using a USB cable was some techy issue... like there was a auto technicians USB port that would disable car security if it has something plugged into it.
No.
After 5 minutes of searching you see that a USB-A connector just happens to fit perfectly over the nub in the ignition and allows you to turn it.
The problem is there is no engine immobilizer. So you can start the engine just by physically turning the ignition. I thought EI was pretty much standard on all cars post late 90's.
I can see why news organizations don’t want to publicize “your old phone cable is a skeleton key for Kia/Hyundai ignitions” - but it’s kind of a critical piece of information that does push this issue into the realm of manufacturer negligence imo.
"Immobilisers have been mandatory in all new cars sold in Germany since 1 January 1998, in the United Kingdom since 1 October 1998, in Finland since 1998, in Australia since 2001 and in Canada since 2007." (Wikipedia)
I should point out to those not from the US that this is how Americans view the US. There is a lot of crime, the government and NGOs are on the side of the criminals etc. It is up voted to the top as well, with agreement in the replies, this is how Americans view the US.
The US incarcerates more people than China, despite China having more than four times as many people, but the view obviously is the incarceration rate needs to increase even more, as crimes are barely being prosecuted according to him. The US is off the charts in incarceration rates, but he thinks they are far too low and want them increased more, as he sees increasing incarceration even more as the solution to the problem which western Europe does not seem to have to this extent.
So those outside the US can get insights into what the US is and how it thinks from threads like this.
I agree the US incarcerates too many people, does the comparison to China make sense? How can we trust their numbers especially when they disappear people.
"Too many" doesn't mean much when you look at actual crime rates of serious things like murder and rape where most people don't want those people to be free to commit more crimes that are less susceptible to reporting bias.
Yeah I mean we also have more crime too, so I feel like we’d need to normalize this somehow with like incarcerated/crime rate or something. Given I think nonviolent offenses should be less severely punished than they are today.
The US has very similar camps in the form of forced labor (i.e. slavery) by prisoners. These slaves have built products in the US that many of us have used, including clothes and office furniture. They make 63 cents per hour - make no mistake, they are slaves.
> The US is a massive area of land with a variety of different regional geographic and cultural differences. You wouldn't go about describing Europe or an entire continent with equally broad strokes.
The 13th amendment is federal and applies everywhere in the US. Not every state takes full advantage of prison slave labor, sure, but it is legal everywhere, and some do.
Sending most of the citizens below retirement age of a province to concentration camps certainly seems like a normalized practice in China today.
It was wrong when we did the same here in the USA with Japanese Americans (George Takei wrote about his time there) and we should not normalize this mass imprisonment without individual right to fair trial.
Just for awareness, the US also had people of Japanese heritage sent from Latin America to the US to put them in camps. Peru sent 3000 Peruvians with Japanese heritage.
The way the Chinese government talks about things tends to not be that accurate. The Uyghurs are not terrorists. They are an ethnic minority that is being terrorized and subjected to genocide by the Chinese government.
The source I remember was that China’s waiting lists for organ transplants were extremely low. If you have a refutation of that specific point, I would be very interested to read what you have to write.
and china is the least country of voluntary donations of organs in the world.
According to the statistics, the deceased organ donation rate in China currently is only about 0.6/1,000,000 China citizens, one of the lowest in the world. The sad truth is that there are about 1 to 1.5 million people in China needing organ transplant every year and only 10,000 people can get a new organ successfully[0]
What exactly are you talking about regarding the "organ harvesting thing"? It's undeniable that it happened. In 2014 China promised to stop doing it. Here's an article from Chinese state media:
> China's long-term dependence on executed prisoners as organ donors will end at the start of next year, according to a high-ranking official.
My understanding is the debates are over whether or not it still happens and to what extent political prisoners (particularly Falun Gong members) were victims.
This was obvious hyperbole meant to express a deep frustration at having suffered at the hands of criminals in a city I care deeply about. People I love have been terrorized
>FWIW, the parent poster doesn't want increased incarceration, they want these people executed (probably without due process).
that isn't just wrong -- it's not even what parent said.
Their hyperbole was pointing out that the perceived situation is so bad that it would take something drastic to turn it around, not that they in anyway wanted or desired it.
There is a lot of purposeful misinterpretation/mis-reading going on in this thread, it seems.
"It would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city" dereferences directly to "It would take [mass gassing the residents of Baltimore to death] to resolve the problems of this city", as Batman Begins is the scheme being referred to.
Both are hyperbole, but that is indeed what was said and implied. Defend it as rhetoric, don't gaslight it as a purposeful misreading.
It feels bizarre to make appeals to a foreign society with a history, culture, government, and demographics which are utterly alien to the situation in the west. We don't live in China. Are you so sure that our situation SHOULD be that of China that you'd be willing to risk you or a loved one being victimized by a violent thug? It always confused me that people would side with criminals over the innocent.
The massive incarceration rates in the US don't seem to be solving anything, although you don't think they're enough. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world yet in your view it is barely incarcerating at all.
If China is too different, look at western Europe. England's incarceration rate is less than one third of the US's. Canada is on sixth of the US's. These countries have lower incarceration rates but less crime.
You could have chosen from about 220 countries with a lower incarceration rate than the US, but because you said China, people are ignoring the substance of your comment.
Yeah, that's a weird comparison. But I doubt the people who are deliberately focusing on China instead of Europe would engage in an honest discussion about things even without it.
Locking up violent people and thieves is very popular among those outside the US!
You're right about the comparatively huge US prison population, but the difference is NOT because other countries let violent people and thieves roam free!
America's dominant culture is toxic individualism. Respecting others is largely thought of a waste of time. There is no culture of shame like there is in eastern asian countries. Seriously, disrespecting people is something to be proud of for a huge number of americans. Everyone looks out for themselves and taking care of number 1 is generally seen as the correct decision. There is incredible income inequality which leaves many of the poor feeling abandoned. The cowboy may be the most famous American caricature. It celebrates toxic individualism and law breaking. This leads to tons of cultural artifacts that glorify crime. Those things all add up to a feeling that the social contract has been broken and crime is an acceptable thing to do.
This is wrong. No amount of toxic individualism is going to make someone cross the Rubicon of using extreme violence (ie: shooting someone). Maybe non-violent theft but the US has serious violence issues.
People who use extreme violence against other people are deranged. It's a mental health issue. In other countries, it's limited and so the heuristic is to just lock these people up in some place called prison. In the US it's endemic making it difficult to control no matter how many people you are incarcerating.
Does it matter? The solution to keeping violent people away from the rest of us is orthogonal to the solution to limiting societal production of violent people.
- schools with no ability to deal with bad behavior
This leads to young adults who think they can get away with anything?
Baltimore is one of the worst places I’ve visited for work. Everyone in the office told us visitors to stay on the main streets in downtown.
Baltimore City, MD - Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Baltimore city, MD was 57.45%
I’m sure there are plenty of good single parents out there, but a lot of these kids aren’t getting a good foundation for life?
I know many teachers, and I frequently hear how behavior at schools is the worst they’ve ever seen. It seems like it’s only getting worse.
One thing I noticed is that lax laws create more criminals. For instance, on the D.C. metro they used to take fare evasion very seriously, and you almost never would see people jumping the fare gate for the metro. Then a few years ago, the Council decided to decriminalize fare evasion. No you see tons of people just openly stepping over the gate every day. If they ever want to tackle the problem, they're going to have to have _much_ more enforcement, because now there's probably 100x or 1000x the fare jumpers than there used to be.
Many places in the U.S. allow a certain level of criminality, which not only encourages criminal behavior, but means the people involved only face consequences when they do something truly horrendous that brings a long sentence. Let a teenager walk free when they steal cars, and they end up killing the next person they steal a car from (happened here recently). Never charge a stalker when he assaults his stalking victim multiple times while on probation, and he eventually kills her (also happened here recently). Let someone simply walk away from the court after being convicted of an armed robbery, and they'll eventually murder an innocent (again - happened here recently).
It can take years to undo this. We started moving in the right direction - cracked down on crime, brought the crime rates down, which started bringing down the incarceration rate. But then people got impatient and wanted undo everything, with many big promises that never materialized. Now crime rates are up, and we're probably going to end up with more incarceration.
Many other countries have lower incarceration stats. But in my experience, the people in those countries are often shocked when they learn that in nice neighborhoods of the U.S., large groups of men can walk into a store in the middle of the day, openly fill up bags of stolen merchandise in front of everyone, and simply walk out with no consequences. The base level of crime that's accepted in many places in the U.S. is simply much higher than in many other countries.
> I should point out to those not from the US that this is how Americans view the US. There is a lot of crime, the government and NGOs are on the side of the criminals etc. It is up voted to the top as well, with agreement in the replies, this is how Americans view the US.
What? No. This is not remotely a universal American viewpoint -- especially the government being "on the side of the criminals etc." What would that even mean?
> Police arrested one of two gun-wielding people caught on camera during a double shooting at a crowded holiday celebration this past weekend in south St. Louis, but the 33-year-old woman was released Wednesday afternoon after the prosecutor’s office refused charges against her.
> The suspect’s release drew public ire, but Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner’s office declined to further explain.
So, to start with, I absolutely agree that the news can distort out notions of what is representative or not and it's something I've done my best to notice and account for by looking at broader statistics and trends in the data. In this case, though, it's part of a new phenomenon and there's no lack of examples.
Here's Alvin Bragg, talking about no longer charging certain crimes at all:
If you prefer specific cases, here are some lawyers who were facing domestic terrorism charges for firebombing a police car. They had already plead guilty. They were given a new, lesser plea deal:
I can find a lot more individual cases. For example, the Zimminskis who may only have been prosecuted because Binger was called to account for that during trial. They managed to get arrested for multiple other crimes, including a kidnapping, while on bail.
1.) Though this is becoming an increasingly popular viewpoint in many of the American cities that are experiencing these problems right now, it’s far from universally held.
2.) The U.S. is not a monolith, so looking at the prison population of the United States as a whole doesn’t tell you about what’s going on in an individual state or city.
3.) The number of people incarcerated has a long tail. In the U.S. in particular, many people received long sentences during the years following the ‘94 crime bill. Little if any effort is being made to commute these despite policies centered on new incarceration changing.
4.) In the places where reduced incarceration is being tried in the U.S. it’s important to recognize that it’s being tried effectively in a vacuum. In many other places which are able to sustain low incarceration rates, there are a lot of social programs that help make that possible, and also programs to help people rehabilitate after a conviction. The U.S. has little if any of that. Where reduced incarceration is being tried, it’s usually not replaced with something that’s more effective.
I consider myself a liberal, but while I think pretty much all drug possession charges should be dropped and decriminalized, violent crime? Robbery? Those folks should absolutely be in jail. I don't care if we have to build tent cities to incarcerate them. You hurt someone intentionally, you should not be breathing free air for a while.
The fundamental problem is that the misguided attempt to criminalize drugs destroyed respect for the law for generations. Once you're at risk of being locked in a cage for decades for engaging in behavior that would otherwise just be called running a small business, then robbery isn't a huge leap. Especially after your industry ends up creating its own parallel justice system because the usual courts have been made unavailable.
So yes, while drugs should be deillegalized and those crimes expunged, this is only but a first step on a long road to repairing the severe damage that was done to actual law and order by the very people fallaciously rallying behind "law and order" in the 80's and 90's.
The police unions have a crazy amount of influence over politics where the basically just cry if they don't get their way and threaten to not go after criminals, it's happened in multiple states iirc
Basically every step of the way, whenever some sort of reform comes up they fight it tooth and nail while simultaneously grabbing every bit of extra power that they can.
These powers include things like surveillance and literal highway robbery in the form of civil forfeiture. In the way of surveillance, they can now purchase peoples data and there are companies selling services to police which analyze and track citizens movements without a warrant. Combine this with a story I saw on HN earlier today about a company purchasing live footage feeds from citizen surveillance cameras for cops to, again without a warrant, use at will.
But wait, there's more!
There are also electronic communications surveillance programs such as prism (NSA) and hemisphere (DEA) combined with the magic of parallel construction to obfuscate the fact that any surveillance was even used to spy on citizens illegally.
Cops basically get to do whatever they want without any sort of punishment when they do harm to citizens, which they do regularly including murdering innocent ones. Perhaps you've heard of the LASD gangs that terrorize the communities they're supposed to be protecting? It's well documented and has been going on for years, it still is.
Prosecutors and judges generally side with the cops because they need them to do their jobs, they have undue influence not only over prosecution but also legislation in the form of strikes and union lobbying.
Police unions are probably the only union I think should be dismantled, all other unions for workers are great but police unions are actively harmful to society.
I agree police unions are awful and cause more harm than good. Everything you say is true (to some degree) but I don't think this qualifies the country to be a police state. I'm not afraid of the police coming to my door because the police have a problem with me. I don't like them but I don't fear them and neither does anyone I know. There is still a due process and even though even one incident is too many, most times the police acts out of line they are punished even if it takes a while (again, due process). The punishment is usually far, far too lenient but at the very least, for the sake of this conversation, shows that they do not have the ultimate power.
There is a lot that can be done about the quality of policing in this country but we are really far off a police state. We are simply a state with an incompetent perpetually afraid power hungry police, likely due to the prevalence of guns. It's tragic as is.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Maybe you aren't the target now but who's to say you won't be in the future? Consider your perspective versus those who live in predominantly Black communities
I thought GP was being ridiculous and hyperbolic when I first read their comment, but on second thought it's more technically correct than not. Regulating what substances people can use to affect their own bodies is totalitarian, as it presupposes a state/societal ownership interest of individuals' bodies. Mass surveillance plus parallel construction most certainly constitutes secret supervision. And any attempt to reform the system is met with a strong lobby from police and prison guards, who have long ago succumbed to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy. It's not the stereotypical power-trickles-down-from-a-small-cabal-to-control-society, but rather an analog in the framework of inverted totalitarianism.
Of course there are different degrees, and throwing out these characterizations in a thread about even more totalitarian societies would be inappropriate whataboutism. But as domestic societal critique they do have some truth.
The thing is that some people don't have the same experience with police leading them to believe that there is no issue with our current system, that's why you see such denial of the damage caused
I don’t have a problem with some drugs being state regulated and I know it would reduce violence but the harder drugs should never be state sold we already have huge issues with alcohol which is a very hard drug. Acting as if lone actors serving narcotics or prostitutes are regular small business owner is an insult to legitimate entrepreneurs
Aside from the legality, what’s different between a liquor store owner and a weed dealer? You may disagree with their breaking the law, but commerce is commerce, and this is victimless except with regard to the rule of law.
There are other ways to handle abuse and addiction besides trying to prohibit a widely-desired substance. You rightfully point out that some people have huge problems with alcohol. The solution isn't just to blanket make it illegal (with the ensuing chaos that would/did cause), but rather directly address the acute harm caused by the people with the problems.
Ultimately the reason we consider some things natural rights isn't to create some prescriptive model that we imagine as the shape an enlightened society will take. Rather it's due to the inevitable ugliness when government attempts to legislate into individual autonomy, and people react en masse. And the results of the "drug war" have most certainly been quite ugly!
Prison is where criminals go. Jail is where people not convicted of a crime go.
Drug Offenses are nearly half the prison population [1]. So the prison population can decrease by significant amounts without releasing any violent criminals.
The problem area seems to be property crime without direct violence.
It can ruin the victims life just as much as non-lethal violence (taking away a person's source of income, or transport required to keep a job, or wrecking a business they've spent many years building), but many take the 'it's only property, it's probably insured!' attitude.
And many at least see stealing from 'big nasty corporations' as relatively OK. But if people keep stealing from businesses until they close down or relocate and there's no easy shoplifting targets, will the thieves stop, or will they move on to stealing from homes?
I almost had to sit for a jury trial. Guy stole things worth less than $950, was likely homeless, the prosecution took 22 months to build a case and failed to leverage a plea bargain, named about 30 law enforcement officers and/or forensics specialists as potential witnesses, and jury selection started with 100 citizens and took 4+ days, then the judge claimed it would take 6 weeks to try the case.
The problem isn’t just insurance. It’s that prosecution is insanely slow and is far more harmful to society than the actual crime.
If people work for my living and see someone just steal for theirs with absolutely no consequence, what they learn is that social dysfunction is optimal, and that doing otherwise is being a chump.
Please re-read your parent. Same concept here. If you make it that comfortable, then why work? Keep in mind that there will always be people who want things the programs won't provide that they're literally willing to kill for - drugs, the newest iPhone, in-style basketball shoes, etc.
Now, I do agree in a parallel way, but with a different solution. If we fix structural problems preventing people from being, or having hope of being, productive members of society, than that can prevent some crime.
It also results in a disincentives for all parties involved to invest all the time and effort. You could either convince everyone that "don't be insensitive it's a lot of money for them", or you could try to make the process easier.
Insurance increases the expected cost of loss! -- the insurer would go broke if they were charging less than that.
So yeah, sure, it can save you from the boundary effect of it instantly wreaking your life but only by putting you at a constant disadvantage to people who live in less crime prone areas or whom are wealthy enough to self insure against such loss.
People who say this don't have real jobs; not the type of jobs where they'll end up on pain killers when they retire. They have laptop jobs on the softer side of intellectual rigor.
Money is time traded from your life, health traded from your body to your employer. Stealing property is literally stealing the purpose of hours of grueling work.
It should also be noted that locking people up puts them in contact with a bunch of convicted criminals. Making weed illegal put a bunch of otherwise harmless people in a situation where they wanted to do illegal business.
The liberal position—don’t make relatively harmless stuff illegal—is one way to reduce the amount of crime.
Sure, lock up people who do violent crimes (I mean, get them out of society while we try to figure out if we can get them psychological help), but instead of doing something dystopian like tent prison cities, just let out the people who shouldn’t be there in the first place.
(All that is to say, I agree with you, just think we should focus on the part that will benefit society).
I think some of this political conflict is over what constitutes a harmless or victimless or nonviolent crime.
In the past year I've seen different people claim that hemp consumption, property crime, and even intimidation with a firearm were nonviolent and that their perpetrators were merely marginalized individuals who need social assistance rather than prosecution.
I think GP's point is that even property crime is not victimless: It hurts everyone, it makes society worse, and it likely hurts the people at the bottom of society disproportionately.
But I may add, then, that the reformers have the burden of showing evidence for their position: they need to demonstrate that it is possible to have a low-crime, low-prosecution, high social net city somewhere in the US. I'm beginning to suspect that they are missing some critical component which is required to make such a system work for everyone.
That's my point, that some people will draw the line at things that are objectively nonviolent, and others will draw it at things that are objectively very close to violent. Actually come to think of it, violence is really just a proxy for harm to others.
Having spent a considerable portion of my adult life imprisoned, I don't think the contact with other criminals increases a person's penchant for criminality. I think the incarceration itself does though by essentially fucking your entire life up and resetting you to a hard zero. And while you are inside you are not making any improvement to your life, e.g. skill building, improving your emotional intelligence; and in fact you are usually letting any skills you might have had stagnate and deteriorate beyond use.
Well, good thing is that rehabilitation is the central goal of correctional systems; so you can send thiefs/etc to prison without feeling guilty. This is not a problem that requires a novel solution; almost every other rich country has this sorted out. The central issue US has to fix is reorient prisons around this goal, instead of trying to exploit the slave labor loophole in your constitution.
You hurt someone intentionally, you should not be breathing free air for a while.
Genuine question; is that only physically? If I like causing people pain and anguish and suffering, and my weapon of choice is words, should I also be incarcerated because I hurt people intentionally? I tend towards not giving people a free pass simply because their weapon of choice is words, but (amongst other things) the US has a reputation for being very permissive with the spoken word.
> If I like causing people pain and anguish and suffering, and my weapon of choice is words, should I also be incarcerated because I hurt people intentionally?
No, you shouldn't be incarcerated for that. You would be an asshole if you intentionally caused people anguish with your words, but being an asshole is not a crime (and shouldn't be).
>I should point out to those not from the US that this is how Americans view the US.
No, it isn't. It's the opinion of a single person, and you're taking it for granted that their comment was made in earnest and that they truly represent 'the American view' -- whatever that is.
>So those outside the US can get insights into what the US is and how it thinks from threads like this.
No, they can't. They can learn about the opinion of a single person.
Can you point me to a country with such a unified opinion that any single person can cover the opinions of the entire populous?
If not, why would you assume that such a case may exist for the United States?
And more to the point, the premise was that it is ridiculous to hold the manufacturer of stolen goods to be wholly responsible for the theft in a jurisdiction that has law enforcement -- do you disagree with that, or do you just care to make an example out of someone?
High incarceration rate makes sense when the US has a high crime rate. I don't understand why anyone thinks incarceration rate should not be correlated or would not be correlate to crime rate.
Incarcerating criminals isn't the issue, having so many criminals is the issue.
The US prison system is violent and brutal, which begets a high recidivism rate. In my opinion this is because American culture tends to confuse retribution for justice but opinions vary I'm sure.
In most countries the prison system is unpleasant, including the UK, Italy, Spain, Japan, Ukraine, Mexico, etc. In addition the justice/legal systems slightly favor the prosecution.
Salvador was overrun with gang violence, a new government came in, rounded up the gangsters and crime has gone down. On balance the population of Salvador is better off.
"'The Department of Justice conducted a thorough investigation of Alabama’s prisons for men and determined that Alabama violated and is continuing to violate the Constitution because its prisons are riddled with prisoner-on-prisoner and guard-on-prisoner violence. The violations have led to homicides, rapes, and serious injuries.'"
This is not a system that is going to successfully reintegrate people. We owe a basic level of humane treatment even to prisoners, if not for the sake of liberal values than for the pragmatic reason that violent people who are put in an environment which encourages further violence will remain violent people when they are released back into our society.
The same department of justice that continues to prosecute a case against Assange? I'm nonplussed. Boris Becker (UK), Amanda Knox (IT), speak to prison brutality (and those are well known international personages.)
I linked the DOJ and not the Equal Justice Initiative because I thought they would be less likely to be seen as partisan or politically motivated. But here’s EJI on the same issue: https://eji.org/issues/prison-conditions/ and Harvard Political Review making a similar argument to my top post (that US prisons don’t adequately rehabilitate): https://harvardpolitics.com/recidivism-american-progress/
Ukraine, Mexico, and Brazil are nowhere near as highly developed as the US.
Spain is definitely closer, but Spain doesn’t execute people like the US does. Of course problems with prisons exist elsewhere.
What’s specifically appalling about the US is the juxtaposition of extreme wealth and relative freedom with widespread, institutionalized abuse and neglect of prisoners, not just to their detriment, but to the detriment of the US as a whole.
I agree that our justice and prison systems need a recalibration to one, focus on violent crime, aggravated sexual crime, property crime, and de-emphasis on personal vice correction while also trying to guide prisoners to a better path.
At the same time, I wish to point out most other prison systems in the world are similar or worse and suspects before they become prisoners have fewer legal rights afforded them.
That said, the catch-and-release as well as the watch-and-do-nothing approach we're seeing in some places are aggravating crime and they are not doing anyone any favors, the criminals or the victims.
> At the same time, I wish to point out most other prison systems in the world are similar or worse
This might be true but I do not think it’s true of most peer countries (Western Europe, Canada, etc). I do believe that US prisons are among the least humane of this group as well as the least effective at rehabilitation. Again, this is not to say that those other systems do not have problems, just that the severity of the worst abuses and the extent of abuse in general is worse here.
Rehabilitation doesn’t work. The modern sociological study of crime and criminals began at the latest in the 70s. They’ve been looking for a reliably working method of rehabilitation for 50 years and have nothing. Prisons works fine as incapacitation, keeping criminals warehoused until they age out of their prime criminal years but rehabilitation doesn’t work.
> Prisoner rehabilitation does not work, says former prisons boss
> Sir Martin Narey says focus should be on treating inmates with decency and dignity
> California’s prisons are supposed to be rehabilitating inmates, not merely warehousing them, but a new report from the state auditor says it’s not effectively reducing recidivism among those released from the system.
They serve a function other than deterrence: they remove criminals from the street.
There is a certain political faction that has developed the habit of observing the effects of jail on criminals while ignoring the effect of criminals on the innocent. I think the parent is reacting to the disingenuousness of this position.
High incarceration rate might cause high crime. Especially since ex-convicts are almost banned from any work. The only thing they can do to sustain themselves is more crime.
US views criminals a people who failed the society, while at these numbers it would be way more reasonable to see them as people failed by the society.
If China executes prisoners who would be imprisoned in the US, is it a fair to compare the number of incarcerated in the US and China [1]? In the US they get a lengthy prison sentence, increasing the moving sum of incarcerated for the US, in China they are shot, decreasing the moving sum of the incarcerated for China.
Sorry, these views are not "how Americans view the U.S."
The GP comment is pushing a certain narrative that (in my view) has been ginned up by reactionary groups for their own ends.
In addition, it's wrong on the facts (insofar as it makes any fact-based claims versus just pushing buttons).
I'll go farther. I scoff most profoundly at the viewpoint of the GP post. I view people pushing it as low-information and politically naive (if they actually believe it) or evil and opportunistic (if they are just "intensifying the contradictions" for their own reactionary ends).
> the government and NGOs are on the side of the criminals
I lived in Vancouver in Canada, that is true there too, Seattle is the same (the CHAZ bs a couple years ago? 3rd avenue in Downtown?).
Hell, in Argentina is also the same and that's south america.
I think this is more a problem of places with left leaning politics which consider criminals victims of society which means that they can't be held responsible by their actions. Meanwhile, everyone else suffers.
> So those outside the US can get insights into what the US is and how it thinks from threads like this.
No, everyone outside of your head can get insights into your willingness to cherrypick a single comment and extrapolate to fit your pessimistic, hyper-critical mental model.
It's also interesting how you talk about incarceration rates independently of crime rates, and act as if the US is prosecuting and incarcerating broad swathes of innocent people. For those of us who have had loved ones murdered or assaulted, or been mugged/beaten, we don't have the luxury of thinking of this in an abstract way fitting a bong rip session in a dorm room. Take off the Che Guevara t-shirt, take a walk outside, and realize that the world isn't a neat little theory straight from a professor being interviewed on Democracy Now!.
> This tendency to lie pervades all police work, not just high-profile violence, and it has the power to ruin lives. Law enforcement officers lie so frequently—in affidavits, on post-incident paperwork, on the witness stand—that officers have coined a word for it: testilying. Judges and juries generally trust police officers, especially in the absence of footage disproving their testimony. As courts reopen and convene juries, many of the same officers now confronting protesters in the street will get back on the stand.
> Defense attorneys around the country believe the practice is ubiquitous; while that belief might seem self-serving, it is borne out by footage captured on smartphones and surveillance cameras. Yet those best positioned to crack down on testilying, police chiefs and prosecutors, have done little or nothing to stop it in most of the country. Prosecutors rely on officer testimony, true or not, to secure convictions, and merely acknowledging the problem would require the government to admit that there is almost never real punishment for police perjury.
Police and DAs, the parties who do most of the investigating of police perjury, are not exactly eager to share their internal findings for reasons we can probably guess, but the article does offer one striking anecdote:
> One NYPD officer, David Grieco—commonly known as Bullethead—has been sued at least 32 times, costing the city $343,252, for civil rights violations, including excessive force and fabrication of evidence. Yet Grieco was promoted and prosecutors continued to call him to the stand long after a slew of his victims blew the whistle on his violent and lawless behavior. Judges continued to rely on his word to lock up defendants. And Grieco’s name did not appear on Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s long-secret list of officers with known credibility problems.
Which does not disprove the implication I made, since you assumed the hypothesis to be false. Given that they are guilty, would you still support them? There sure seems to be a lot of “we should be nicer to thieves” in this thread, so I think we already know the answer.
Personal attacks are not allowed here, so please don't do that.
Also, please don't use HN for ideological battle, regardless of what you're battling for or against. It looks like you've been doing that a lot, unfortunately. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
It is interesting that you reject his observation (which I agree with) that many people do, in fact, believe, at a visceral level, that crime is out of control and many more people must be added to our already substantial pool of incarcerated persons... But then tack on another paragraph that starts from that exact premise.
Note: the incarceration rates were much higher in the past and that's the basis of many of these claims. What you're seeing now is the political backlash from those rates. Many crimes aren't prosecuted and the cops often don't do anything. So it's not exactly fair to say that Baltimore has a high incarceration rate these days.
Although I lived in the US for just a year, my impression was that a) US promoted an all-or-nothing culture, and b) crime, especially gun-related crime, was wildly glorified.
My layman belief is that this isn’t just a law and order issue. Its a cultural dysfunction.
It's the tyranny of low standards. I sat in an airport in Florida in 2016 watching CNN rerunning the same police shooting footage over and over trying to convince anyone still listening that the pistol that had fallen out of the kid's hand was, in fact, a book. At the time I could have told you the exact type of gun it was, too.
The criminal is excused because he doesn't know any better, those that defend themselves are punished to the fullest extent because it's politically expedient to do so.
1. Two things can be true. The US imprisons a lot and the US doesn't imprison the right folks.
2. Comparison with China is not accurate. a) Can't trust numbers from China and b) China has a much more rigid social structure and rules and the population has been beaten in submission (e.g. make pie Tiananmen square). Imagine a visa system that prevents folks from California from migrating to Texas (we are even for allowing mass migration from outside).
3) If this is really not a problem with Baltimore (as you imply), other locations with Kias and Hyundias should also be suing them. As far as I know, they are also sold in China but don't have these issues.
The previous poster didn't really say anything about incarceration. They didn't say anything about any solution – they just said there's a serious problem. You're reading far too much in to their comment.
He says he wants to take the solution of the Batman villain in Batman begins. He doesn't want to incarcerate more people. He wants to destroy the city of Baltimore with all the people in it.
Think of the poor thieves. Stealing is a basic human right! Hopefully we can spread the word to looters across the country that the EU will welcome them with open arms.
I’m unaware of many places in the EU where it’s socially acceptable to walk into a store take a bunch of stuff and leave without paying and without the staff or the police doing anything about it…
I mean that many europeans do not believe in the right for a victim to defend their property, ie. if they get away they get away, whereas a robber’s choices in America when the victim is armed are to comply or be forced to. And if they are caught, EU police will stick them in a cosy waterfront prison to play with iPads and eat Michelin star food, probably costing the victim more in taxes then whatever was being stolen from them.
I’m also from the US and I’ll second that this is basically correct and should be taken as an implicit assumption about most Americans if you’re looking in from the outside.
Most Americans are only presented with increasing incarceration rates as the only realistically viable way of solving most social ills. As such, there are many flavors and colors of “increase the incarceration rate” across the political spectrum, and lots of people will pick a boogeyman (drug addicts, thieves, etc.) to justify it. For those that don’t pick a boogeyman their support of increasing the incarceration rate is tied to something entirely unrelated (e.g. “My guy that supports mass incarceration is so much better than your guy that supports mass incarceration! Look at his track record on {social issue}!”)
The fact that this is the view shared by the majority is reflected in the barely-fluctuating incarceration rate and military-sized “crime fighting” budgets. It is also a fact that is reflected in who Americans continue to elect and which policies we vote to enact.
Has it occurred to you that different countries, and different groups of people within those countries, might have different rates of criminal behavior?
Well the alternative is vast, and I do mean VAST, spending on social welfare.
The US is ofcourse rich enough to do it but that would require scrapping every single tax cut since Reagan. Which would inconvenience those in the upper strata of society.
> The US incarcerates more people than China, despite China having more than four times as many people
This is an apple & orange measure. Starting from first principles, that is how people behave in society, we can at least temper superficial reading of bare metrics.
Human beings self police under surveillance. This is the entire point of setting up surveillance states. US in contrast tends more towards police state: show of force to partition society in distinct 'social climates', directly informed by economic means.
So, yes, a police state will attempt to partition, even to the extremity of incarceration, and a surveillance state (which is a super-set of police-state) applies psychological force and thus has a much reduced subset that it will deem 'problematic'. Ideally, a state like China will like to approach the limit of having every 'citizen' well trained and well behaved, as domesticated humans.
Our problem over here is (given a generous disposition) that we struggle with reconciling freedom and order without resorting to brainwashing the population, or (less generously) that structural characteristic of our system where "freedom" is bound with at times grotesque wealth disparities naturally creates social hostility, and the economic incentives of a criminal life.
China doesn’t count non-judicial punishment as incarceration, so there are lot more people forced into work camps for their behavior (or speech) than those numbers tell. Also, if you get caught stealing a wallet in say Shanghai, the victims friends are more likely to beat you up before the police arrive, with no penalty to them (I didn’t make up this example, I saw it for myself).
The problem with the USA’s prison system is that it doesn’t focus on rehabilitation at all and instead focuses on punishment. We get the exact results expected of such a system, which is a lot of repeat business.
A lot of commenters are on the parent post are of the opinion our American prison rates are high because of more criminal activity, which may be true, but I think it's also important to recall having a small prison population doesn't necessarily equal a just society.
There were very few long term prisoners in medieval society, not because of a progressive outlook but because most crimes were punished with some form of torture, execution, or both. Also, many things were crimes that now are thought of as basic human rights. You can have small prison population if your are willing to truly brutalize your population.
China performs about half of the execution in the world every year, is known to torture dissidents, and I doubt it reports those being re-educated as prisoners. I would hardly consider that more just than America.
A society can also have a small inmate population and be unjust because enforcement is rare, or selective either due to corrupt or ineffective law enforcement. Additionally if acts of vigilantism are common in a society you can have also have less prisoners since "justice" is found in the streets.
I think there are reasonable critiques of the American prisons, criminal justice system, and especially for profit prisons, but there are also much worse alternatives. The system we have really is an imperfect attempt in need of adjustment and not a deliberate attempt at cruelty. The cruelty is a bug not the feature.
No, there was almost no prison in medieval times because the bulk of crimes were punished with fines (good for the government) or expulsion from the area. Capital punishments were not as common as you imagine, and some forms, such as being pulled apart with horses, have become legendary yet were almost never used.
This argument suffers from Simpson’s Paradox. While the US may have high rates of incarceration, a city like San Francisco with which I’m familiar has European rates of incarceration. In addition, you can drive down the incarceration rate by reducing sentence lengths instead of reducing conviction rates for crimes or diverting bonafide criminals from prisons into various makework social programs that do not work to keep society safe or rehabilitate criminals.
Yes, violent people should be removed from society. Full stop. That's the point.
The tired trope that the US incarcerates so many non-violent criminals is just that, a trope. It's not based in reality. You could let out every single non-trafficking drug offense today and you wouldn't make a noticeable dent in the prison population at all. Drop that down to all non-violent offenses and it's not much better. At this point it's an outright lie when people bring this topic up, it's not simply being misinformed any longer.
The fact is US society is far more violent than many others it's compared to. There are many reasons that should be addressed, but we certainly do not have a problem of over incarceration of habitually violent criminals. Quite the opposite in fact. A very small percentage of people are responsible for the vast majority of the crime, and as a society we simply stopped caring bout their victims and let them roam free after dozens of interactions with law enforcement.
Then you have someone who is generally a decent citizen who makes a mistake and gets the entire book thrown at them - since they have something to lose and it's not politically dangerous.
This is a problem in the US. Hand-waving it away as saying American's simply want to jail everyone is silly. Live in some of these urban neighborhoods and tell me with a straight face you don't want more people in prison. You will be astounded at the people left to simply walk the streets and terrorize others. Literally everyone in the community knows who they are but nothing at all is done about it.
> Then you have someone who is generally a decent citizen who makes a mistake and gets the entire book thrown at them - since they have something to lose and it's not politically dangerous.
Speaking of tired tropes...
> Live in some of these urban neighborhoods and tell me with a straight face you don't want more people in prison.
Since you asked, I've lived in Dallas, Baltimore and the Detroit metro. I can tell you with a straight face I don't want more people in prison.
>You will be astounded at the people left to simply walk the streets and terrorize others.
It's more like you will be astounded at how dramatized this is, you will not be terrorized walking down the street.
> It's not based in reality. You could let out every single non-trafficking drug offense today and you wouldn't make a noticeable dent in the prison population at all. Drop that down to all non-violent offenses and it's not much better. At this point it's an outright lie when people bring this topic up, it's not simply being misinformed any longer.
In other words, China incarcerates 3x as many people per homicide as the USA, and the USA homicide rate is 12.8x that of China. Homicide is used instead of/as a proxy for violent crime, because it is largely immune to bias by overpolicing or racism, which are the usual excuses to dismiss statistics. Source:
We could also compare the demographics of China and America. What percentage of Chinese are from other countries/cultures with other rules and laws?
How many young people are in China vs the US?
> The city of Baltimore has filed a federal lawsuit against car manufacturers Kia and Hyundai, joining a number of cities who say the companies created a public nuisance by making cars that can be easily stolen.
later on:
> Cleveland, St. Louis and Seattle are among the other cities that started suing the the car companies earlier this year.
I feel like this whole thread has a lot of odd takes stirred up by people's suppositions of what happens particularly in "Baltimore".
Maybe this is naive, but wouldn't the solution be not to sell the cars in Baltimore? It's not that large of a market and there are local car manufacturers there as well. Maybe require in the user agreement not to drive to Baltimore either, similar to the rental car agreements that don't allow for the cars to be driven to Mexico?
I mean, like, people relocate and stuff or go into other cities to buy cars. Banning sales isn't going to do much other than a middle finger to Baltimore.
> Maybe this is naive, but wouldn't the solution be not to sell the cars in Baltimore? It's not that large of a market and there are local car manufacturers there as well.
Baltimore may not be a large market, but there are also several other cities suing, and at least 18 state attorney generals have gotten involved. That's a much larger market than Baltimore.
668 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 411 ms ] threadOr do you mean that because Hyundai/Kia didn't do what other companies do, that the government has the right to fine them? If yes, then what is the federal standard for?
So in the past, the most stolen make of car was the Honda Accord.
Apparently Honda should have taken note and aggressively pushed new anti-theft technology.
You are looking for a technological solution to a societal problem.
I wonder if an analogy can be made with airbags, of course airbags are well-advertised and sane buyers would avoid cars without them, how about seat-belt pretensioners instead?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33014228 (Sept 2022)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30086559 (Jan 2022)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19830614 (May 2019)
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Those lists (with some few exceptions for top cars) usually reflect the "most sold" or "most common" cars, as these represent the largest "market" for spare parts.
Yes, yes, I know that Hyundai and Kia vehicles are easy pickings, but they talk as though “those vehicles are easy to steal, so those teenagers, they just felt so compelled to…” Nobody forces somebody to steal a car. If anti-theft prevents a car theft, consider that is still someone who had intent to steal a vehicle if it were possible.
Maybe to put in software terms - a login page that allowed anyone to sign in to any account by viewing source and finding an admin login button sitting there for anyone to see.
It truly is a flawed design. Yes, a design that might not be flawed for many societies around the world, but it's certainly flawed for a product that is sold in the USA.
It is funny how conditioned we are to assume people online will be as malicious as we allow them to be.
This is like selling one of those old Kryptonite locks that could be defeated with a Bic pen. At that point, the lock is truly defective, and should be pulled from the market. Your lock should require something more than a readily-available, vaguely key-shaped object to operate—so if you can operate the lock with a Bic pen (like the old Kryptonite locks) or a USB charging cable (like the new Kias), the lock is defective.
Baltimore is quite literally suing because two manufacturers aren’t doing what other manufacturers do, because it would be more convenient for them, despite there being no rule requiring such technology.
That’s a slippery slope. For heaven’s sake let’s make a rule, but trying to sue a manufacturer for not doing what other manufacturers do in absence of a law seems dangerous.
Let’s say Tesla and Ford start requiring all auto parts to be digitally paired, to “prevent theft,” so parts are not interchangeable. If this case succeeds, any automaker who doesn’t do that could be found liable.
Basically, I think mens rea is a much more sound basis for law than rules prescribing specific behavior, in general. Like, if you are an engineer and you design a bridge, and it turns out that the bridge fails and you should have known that it would fail, you bear the liability. This basic doctrine can be augmented with specific rules (like, cars must have back-up cameras and airbags, houses must have three-prong outlets with proper grounds and GFCI in bathrooms & kitchens), but the law should not have to make rules for everything before it happens—as long as you have mens rea (you knew the risks or should have known the risks), you bear some responsibility for your actions.
This is a false dilemma. You can go after both.
should bike manufacturers also be sued for not designing a bicycle in a way that cannot be ridden off by anyone who is not the owner when parked?
idk how people defend these frivolous suits.
Imagine if Google sold a Pixel whose fingerprint sensor could be bypassed if you just licked your finger before pressing the sensor. Suddenly this phone is now the target of thieves because it's easily unlocked and wiped. You're suggesting there's no onus on the manufacturer for that?
the scenario you proposed is already possible with face unlock and identical twins and look-alikes. should we sue Apple?
Kia owners don’t really have an alternative. The car is defective.
> the scenario you proposed is already possible with face unlock
I didn't mention face unlock. Any fingerprint sensor that is trivial defeated is fundamentally broken.
I know you didn't. The point is that your phone can be accessed by those who are not you.
and the standards should be around safety
[1] https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf
You:
1) need to enter the vehicle (lockpick, smashed window, etc.)
2) break the ignition block to remove the key cylinder
3) turn a tab underneath the cylinder with whatever you see fit (pliers)
Only coincidentally the tab fits inside a USB A connector.
Now, that the ignition block may be (or may be not) easier to break than any other one could be debated, but - unlike the Kryptonite locks - you need to break it by force.
Think about it this way: no one forces a kid to jump into a pool and drown, but if you have a pool without a fence completely surrounding it and the kid does just that, you are liable for the damages by creating an attractive nuisance. Hyundai created the situation of easily stolen cars by not "building the fence around their pool".
If you do manage to track down your car, you won't get a timely enough response from the police to hold folks who stole it accountable. Most of the time they'll simply claim that they procured the car from someone else, and the police don't push the issue. Same with bicycle theft.
With Kia and Hyundai the cars involved are actually much worse than the comparable alternatives. Several cities are seeing a big increase in car thefts almost entirely due to more Kia and Hyundai thefts using methods that would not have worked on the 96% of cars in the US that have immobilizers.
The concerns are valid
>Certain Kia or Hyundai models can be stolen using a screwdriver and a USB charging cord.
>Cleveland, St. Louis and Seattle are among the other cities that started suing the the car companies earlier this year. Baltimore’s lawsuit says the companies “failed to keep up with industry standards,” and claim it was a result of business decisions made to reduce costs and boost profits “notwithstanding decades of academic literature and research supporting the deterrent effects” of anti-theft technology.
>Car thefts in the city have nearly doubled this year compared to the same time last year, part of a nationwide trend after videos showing how to easily steal the vehicles racked up millions of views on TikTok.
In a sexist way would be similar that you are being raped because you wear some specific clothes.
Or you are hacked because you don't apply a patch.
Car makers should make their cars as hard as reasonably possible to steal.
If dumb ass tenager can do that, the it is a mess
If you don't take "reasonable precautions" then you are liable.
I will also note that I often see comments here talking about living in SF and how they leave their car unlocked or windows down to limit the damage from thieves smashing the windows to get inside.
So with this "reasonable precautions" line, everyone who does this should be liable for promoting theft.
Sounds stupid, like the way to blame hyundai or kia for existence of scum people like thieves.
In other societies crime is not normal, and "teenagers" have two braincells to understand that a thief is a repugnant person and that the consequences are not worth it.
Hyundai has some of the safest, most efficient small cars on the road, for great prices. I'd say these things are a net positive to "public safety" over all.
[0] https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2022/09/129_336571.htm...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35915492
It absolutely is, though.
By only looking at cities you are pulling in a large number of other policies and effects that only cities may have implemented.
The fact that there are consumer products whose absence of features creates a negative externality for local law enforcement doesn't seem like sufficient grounds for standing, and this sort of thing is hardly limited to auto antitheft features. Awarding a municipality damages or other relief here would set precedent opening the door to all sorts of whacky things. Should spraypaint manufacturers be held liable for graffiti? Should speaker manufacturers that sell devices without decibel-output-limiters be held liable for noise complaints? The sane answer here to all of this seems like 'no'.
The appropriate venue for dealing with this is federal auto safety regulations, not municipalities trolling manufacturers in civil court.
Clearly there has to be some degree to which a customer can assume that a product they buy meets the standard functionality associated with that product.
It's a self-correcting problem, no lawsuit required.
The city could even have a special tax on "cars without immobilizers" that Kia owners paid, to cover their costs. Again: no lawsuit required.
You might as well say that a company that produces an exceptionally desirable product, one that perhaps entices thieves, would be responsible for a crime increase.
"Failing to keep up with industry standards" is also ridiculous because it's just a bandwagon fallacy.
When they purchase a car, a reasonable person would assume that the key works to the degree that is standard in the industry.
Baltimore can make a standard requiring cars to have a better anti-theft system, but they haven't.
If Kia is liable for inducing crime, government should be similarly liable for allowing crime; as preventing it is their main job.
Does that really exceed the cost damage done if they're left to keep on stealing/crashing cars? At some point they'll kill someone, and the 'cash value of a human life' question will come up.
Yes, "You prevent theft by putting thieves in jail." But it's actually complicated if you adopt a realistic stance other than "I want to speak with the manager".
The part that's Hyundai's fault is both the ridiculously easy to steal a car BUT also they dragged their feet when asked to address the issue and didn't do anything other than telling police and local governments "Wait for the next model in a couple of years"
Damn you right, it's so simple, why didn't they thought of just putting the thieves in jail?!
Also, seems like this whole "people stealing cars" thing doesn't just happen in Baltimore. What if putting the thieves in jail could work in other cities too? Maybe even internationally?
You could be on to something really big here, I hope people from Baltimore government comes across your comment.
This is such an incredible naive view of the world.
Whether or not crimes are committed is a complicated interplay of cost/benefit.
You say that the city is acting as if thieves are some force of nature. And to a certain extent they are. If it is easy enough to commit a crime and the reward is high enough a crime will be committed. As an example if you leave gold bars littered on your front yard people will pick them up. No amount of "putting thieves in jail" will save you.
Obviously increasing the chance of getting caught acts as a deterrent. But it is not cost free. Investigating and prosecuting car thieves cost hard money. If there are too many thieves of opportunity created by sub-par security arrangements the police/justice system becomes overwhelmed. The city can and should increase their police force of course, but at a certain point it is like trying to stop a tide with a rake. If you can prevent crime before it happens, for example by following sane and cost-efficient security practices that saves money and aggravation for everyone involved.
What prevents crime is multiple overlapping layers of our society engineered such that crime is maintained at a certain level. "putting thieves in jail" is just one of those layers. And if you think you can simply policeman yourself out of any situation then you haven't thought about the problem to a sufficient depth yet
Why do you suppose this is?
What is happening there, that isn't happening in Baltimore?
Of course there is an amount of "putting thieves in jail" which will save you; once all the thieves are in jail, the remainder of the populace would mind their own business and walk past the gold bars.
If your thesis is that literally everyone would steal those gold bars, then I have to point out that this is a very pessimistic view, and that there are multiple different places around the world where it wouldn't happen.
Perhaps. I posit that you are going to run out of one of these things sooner than you are going to run out of thieves though: gold bars, patience of police to hunt down your stolen gold bars, places in prison.
You are going to run out of gold bars because if there is a stash of them unsecured there will be some thieves who either by sheer luck, or by being better at their job than the police at theirs will succesfully get away with stealing them.
You are going to run out of police patience by one of two ways: either immediately, once they hear that your unsecured gold bars were just laying in your front garden. In which case they take your report and chuck it in a drawer to forget about it. Or if you are politically well connected they will try to persuade you to secure them better. If you are literally their king and they can’t convince you to store the gold better they might try to protect it by posting a policeman next to it
And then finnaly if you have so much money that replenishing the stolen gold is not a problem, and you have so much political power that the police is not able to change your storage practices then that is when you are going to run out of space in your prisons.
> If your thesis is that literally everyone would steal those gold bars
Not at all. But it doesn’t need to be. My thesis is that there would be enough people who would try that it overwhelms your police force destined to throw thieves in prison.
In other places around the world those things are controlled by close-knit communities where being seen stealing would spread the word like wildfire and ruin the thief's reputation (or end up in a beating), not because people is purer and immune to sin or idiocy.
It's not pessimistic nor paranoid to lock your door. All it takes is one bad apple, even if it's one in a million.
> Hyundai is offering a free software update to prevent thefts on certain targeted vehicles, starting Tuesday on nearly 4 million Hyundais on the road. The first million eligible cars are 2017 to 2020 Elantra, 2015 to 2019 Sonata and 2020 to 2021 Venue vehicles. Affected owners can bring in the car to Hyundai dealerships for the free anti-theft upgrade. It takes about an hour to install. Once updated a window decal will (hopefully) alert and deter thieves from targeting the vehicle.
> The next batch of eligible vehicles will go in for the software update in June and includes a long list of Kia models, including:
[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/these-hyundai-and-kia-models-a...[2] https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/kia-hyundai-car-thefts-se...
https://ksupport.kiausa.com/ConsumerAffairs/SWLD
Baltimore’s lawsuit says the companies “failed to keep up with industry standards,” and claim it was a result of business decisions made to reduce costs and boost profits “notwithstanding decades of academic literature and research supporting the deterrent effects” of anti-theft technology.
“The dramatically increased rate of Hyundai and Kia theft in Baltimore has required city and police resources that would not have been needed but for Hyundai and Kia’s deliberate failures,” the lawsuit says. “Car thieves — many of them teenagers— take advantage of these failures and engage in reckless driving, creating substantial safety risks to themselves and Baltimore residents and their property.”
Someone figured out that you could open a Kryptonite lock using a Bic pen, which has roughly the same shape as a tubular lock key. You did not need to use the actual key or pick the lock. There was a rash of bike thefts afterwards.
TikTok is a convenient scapegoat, but I think the problem would exist without TikTok, because it so closely echoes a similar situation from 2004. To be honest, I think that the manufacturer should bear the blame in both scenarios—it’s their responsibility to make sure that the products can withstand, for at least a few minutes, an unskilled thief with inconspicuous, unpowered, commonly available tools (like, a thief with no lock picks or angle grinders).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5efaWSWwlk
That could explain why some cities saw much bigger spikes than others - or it might not! Feels sloppy.
edit: this obviously doesn't negate your point, there's clearly an enormous spike. It's just weird since the article took the time to break it down by city, and to call attention to some cities seeing larger spikes than others.
If it's required, it should be documented.
Apparently it's more of a joke, you can do it completely bare handed if you don't mind tearing some plastic and manage to grab a finicky bit. The cars have no immobilizers at all apparently.
Afaik, lawsuits again gun manufacturers are actually successful [1].
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/sandy-hook-school-shooting-reming...
I'd like to see the data here. Is there any indication that the crime wouldn't be present in other areas of life? Would the people committing these crimes be law-abiding citizens if not for the temptation of these cars being easier to steal? Or would the police resources be spent on alternate crimes? It seems the common denominator here is people willing to commit crimes, not the city's claim that it "would not have been" if the company increased security.
Almost all crime is committed by a tiny, tiny group of people - in NYC, 327 people commit 1/3rd of all shoplifting. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/nyregion/shoplifting-arre...
We used to just warehouse people like this, and we stopped because that was mean and did not get us likes on Instagram.
It's really, really unjust.
Easily stolen cars lead to nuisance behavior that affects far more than the immediate victim of the theft.
Yea, I don't think that is it.
> "Car thieves ... engage in reckless driving, creating substantial safety risks to themselves and Baltimore residents and their property."
I don't see anything about Hyundai or Kia taking the cars for joy rides. They are not going out and encouraging people to steal their cars. They are not responsible for enforcing community standards. There is no law which states they must use any certain anti-theft technology. The cars are in no way malfunctioning. So why is there a lawsuit?
Why not go after the owners? They bought the cars and didn't care whether they had anti-theft technology.
I didn't read it either... because I'd read a bunch of other articles and watched videos about the problem a couple of months ago.
IMHO the root cause is that it's impossible with current legislation/courts practice to deter this kind of behaviour. Specifically:
* Many of the perpetrators are minors
* Stealing a car, depending on cirsumstances, is a misdemeanor
* There is no mounting of repeated offenses
* Police can't keep the suspects on custody for long and prosecution is overkill for the results
So more or less, stealing a car is free. And instead of fixing the above points (maybe Baltimore as a city can't do that on its own) the "solution" is suing car makers.
I do remember that the police officers were very clear that they can do nothing. Even if the arrest the kids, the DA won't prosecute them.
I.e. it wasn't like the manufacturers decided that they were useful, they were forced to introduce them by the national or pan-national authorities.
If the US didn't mandate them, the reference to industry standards is - at best - a very feeble one, the city of Baltimore could - maybe - sue the NHTSA
inherently a car that can easily be repaired can easily be stolen. the implication is that Baltimore does not want cars that can easily be modified so they cannot easily be stolen.
troubling to say the least. then again, baltimore isn't exactly the pinnacle of governance.
take the iphone for example, which are notoriously difficult to use if stolen. the result has been people tend not to steal iphones as much (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-06-19/how-an-ip...).
however the result is you have less control of your device. is this a worthy tradeoff?
Heck, just like an iPhone, let’s have all parts on a car from the headlamps to the door handles to the mirrors digitally paired together. That would stop theft, and any car maker who doesn’t do it is encouraging theft.
As to "all the parts on a car paired" - there is VIN etching. https://www.allstate.com/resources/allstate/attachments/tool...
The audio system has some semblance of paring.
Though with he KIA, this is more often dealing with use (e.g. joy riding) of the car rather than reselling it.
> Federal, state, and local law enforcement partners from across the United States executed a nationwide, coordinated takedown today of leaders and associates of a national network of thieves, dealers, and processors for their roles in conspiracies involving stolen catalytic converters sold to a metal refinery for tens of millions of dollars.
> ...
> They knowingly purchased stolen catalytic converters and, through a “de-canning” process, extracted the precious metal powders from the catalytic core. DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million.
Ok, not quite melted down, but reduced to rather base components. They are not reused in the same form.
Yes,I do.
> imagine a car with screws on the door to be swapped, and another car without them. you don't think the car with the screws would be easier to steal?
I imagined that. Every car door I have ever interacted with had the screws on the hinges such that you could only access them with the door open. You could swap all of them. This is not a particularly good example you choose I am afraid.
You can design cars which are hard to repair and easy to steal, or one which is easy to repair and hard to steal.
Thing is nobody is asking Kia to do something unprecedented. All people are asking to be about as safe from stealing as cars from other manufacturers are.
> Thing is nobody is asking Kia to do something unprecedented. All people are asking to be about as safe from stealing as cars from other manufacturers are.
how about you just not buy kia. they'll figure it out. why people want to involve the government in everything is just beyond me.
You might as well argue that a car built to be human drivable is easier to steal since the human needs to be able to see the surroundings, and a car with glass windows is easier to break into than a steel box with some external camera and lidar modules.
Idk why people argue against this obvious fact. Things have trade offs and this is one of them. Of course you can design things to be repairable and minimize risk of theft, but if you didn’t care about that things could be even more accessible for modification if desired.
Well maybe tell me a single car model where the door cannot be taken off and a single source outside of yourself who claims this as an anti-theft feature.
> if you disagree with that then we have to agree to disagree.
I agree with you that welding the hinge of a door to the chassis would lower its repairability. I disagree that it would make it less likely to be stolen. Cars are not stolen by people walking off with their doors. Assuming that there is some means of ingress and egress enabling normal users to regularly enter the vehicle, that is the doors are not completely welded shut, thiefs will use that.
If you are making the point that a vehicle completely welded shut would be less repairable, and also less likely to be stolen I guess I have to agree with that. For some reason I don’t predict it to be a comercial success though.
Common vehicle anti-theft features include immobilisers, steering locks, coded key fobs, car alarms, kill switches. I don’t see that you have shown that these techniques make cars less repairable.
> how about you just not buy kia.
Consider it done.
> why people want to involve the government in everything is just beyond me
I can explain this part. People get their car stolen and they call the police to report it. They expect that the police will expend resources to find it and punish the thieves. Many in among these very comments have expressed that sentiment. That is where the government gets in the picture.
Or people fall victim of some other crime. Like they have a hit and run traffic accident, or someone smashes into their shop window with a car and drives away with stolen goods, or any number of other crimes. They report it to the police who investigates and realises that the criminals used a stolen car to facilitate their crime. Because a ready source of easily stolen cars is not just a headache for the people whose car have gone missing. It undermines the security and safety of others too. This is an other way how the government got involved.
Are you with me so far? Do you agree that people can and should report to the police when crimes have been commited against them?
Assuming that we are on the same page so far. Or at least that you are seeing my point even if you are not agreeing: what happens next is that the police looks at their statistics and sees that many of these crimes have their root in the shoddy safety practices of a particular car manufacturer. They see that it costs them a lot of money too. So they go and ask their own government paid lawyer and ask them if they can do something about this. And presumably said lawyer told them that yes they can do something about it, they can sue the car manufacturer for public nuisance.
That is how people reporting crimes leads to the police noticing a common theme in the crimes and that leads to the city suing the vehicle manufacturer. I hope that answers your question about how and why people got the government involved in this issue.
Maybe they know almost nobody wants to steal their cars, so no need for anti theft tech :)
Government should thank Kia for making criminals easier to spot.
Government should raise fees for people who buy substandard cars and then waste city resources dealing with their trash.
Car owners could sue Kia for selling defective cars.
Insurance companies should charge far more for Kias.
Government should mandate insurance cost disclosures as part of car sales.
Problem solved.
> Insurance companies should charge far more for Kias.
Great, someone made the unknowing mistake of buying one of these defective cars before it was known they are easily stolen. Now their insurance goes up and they have to sue the manufacturer. How many people actually have the money to deal with that? Suing the car company is expensive. And if I don't have the cash to buy another car (and the trade in value of the one I have has crashed) I'm just stuck paying increased insurance costs. And fees from the city, apparently.
This isn't the economic motivation you think it is, it's just pushing the burden onto the owners who had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
What you've done is proposed a bunch of complicated rules that burden consumers and dealers to do everything possible to prevent people from buying these cars, all so you can avoid just having the manufacturer do a recall. The government can simply say that the cars lack safety features, force a recall, and move on. Cut out all the consumer-unfriendly bureaucracy.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This design truly is flawed. Traditionally, the immobilizer in an ignition system is physically tied to the steering column. Basically, you'd need to remove the steering column (the physical pipe that goes between your steering wheel and the front steering rack) in order to remove the part. If you want to defeat that immobilizer, you need to do a massive amount of damage to the mechanism, and that damage usually destroys the electronics that register the correct key being put into the ignition switch. This is more or less a self-reinforcing security feature, since the car wont start without this electronic signal.
Kia/Hyundai decided to just tack a little immobilizer module on without integrating it into the steering column, and they didn't even do a decent job mechanically securing it to the column from the outside. That means you can jam a screwdriver in there and pop the "security" mechanism off. Once that's gone, you're left with a little (conveniently USB sized) nub that can be turned which will immediately start the car. No muss, no fuss, no recognition that it's missing its immobilizer module.
Its a fundamentally flawed design, and it never should have made it past review.
so in effect baltimore is suing kia becuase their cars are getting stolen which is ridiculous.
i don't know how anyone can defend this.
this would be like baltimore suing banks for allowing customers to put in the pin "1234" after seeing a spike in money theft through ATMs.
if Baltimore wants the cars to be harder to steal, then they should work with the governor to pass a law that requires cars sold in Maryland to have whatever security functionality they deem necessary.
no. rather what would happen is that the bank would rightfully ask them to fix it or they would go with another manufacturer that meets their needs.
likewise, the government should increase the standard if they're not happy with it. not give the rubber stamp and still complain.
Baltimore didn't buy these cars.
I also wonder if auto insurance companies might refuse to insure Kia and Hyundai vehicles until this is fixed.
It was absolutely predictable that these cars would be stolen and that the police would have to deal with the fallout. Just because there's no explicit law does not mean that Kia doesn't know better. Kia needs to pay for that.
If I owned one of these defective cars, I'd also be keen on participating in a lawsuit against the company.
If these cars had a defect that caused them to suddenly catch fire and burn down neighborhoods, you'd bet there would be lawsuits from everyone, including cities who pay for fire departments.
Well, the government does already set a bunch of standards for cars.
And before the car leaves the factory, it's fine for the government to be issuing mandatory standards for lights, spare parts, seatbelts, crash safety, pedestrian protection, fuel economy and so on.
But the government having a second, secret set of requirements? That can change without anyone being notified? To me that seems rather irregular.
To me, that seems like a responsible way to react to an irregular situation.
Affected owners should put together a class action and force a recall on the affected cars. As for those who actually got their cars stolen - they should take that up with the police and their insurance.
Not making excuses for Kia. They should absolutely get penalties for taking shortcuts. But I feel that higher insurance premiums and a bad reputation would take care of it. And people won’t buy their cars.
Yes. In numerous cities the car theft rate has gone way up in the last couple of years, in some doubling or more, with something like 95% of the increase being thefts of these particular Kia and Hyundai models.
It is a flawed design, but there’s just one problem for a lawsuit: Immobilizers are not legally required in the US. A flawed immobilizer is fine, considering there doesn’t even need to be an immobilizer.
Baltimore is suing because, yes, they are easy to steal and that makes things inconvenient for Baltimore. But no law was broken - there is no law requiring cars to be hard to steal. Thus they are trying to claim “public nuisance” instead of “negligence.”
This, in my mind, is a super slippery slope. You know parts pairing on iPhones, where you can’t swap the camera without Apple’s approval? One day there could be a carmaker or two that pairs everything from mirrors to catalytic converter to “prevent theft and fraud.” If Baltimore wins, anyone who doesn’t do that could be found liable. Just an extreme example of how this could go sideways fast.
Or let’s say two or three bike manufacturers start putting GPS systems into their bikes, to prevent theft. Can any bike manufacturer that doesn’t do that be sued in the future? I would argue, they should absolutely not be in absence of a law.
Baltimore, not being the customer, probably lacks standing.
Or perhaps they should have owners sign a release, promising not to operate or store the vehicle in any zip code that insurance companies deem high risk.
If you don’t like that, and I don’t, change the law. Don’t sue for something completely legal because it makes life inconvenient for a city. There is a long list of things cities find inconvenient, like bicycles without a built-in GPS, or even things as dumb as American flags in an upscale neighborhood.
I don't understand this reasoning. The city believes there is already a law under which what the car manufacturer did is not legal. They and the car manufacturer will go in front of a judge where the city will need to prove this, while the lawyers of the car manufacturer will presumably argue otherwise.
Should I be feeling bad for Kia that they have to justify their choices?
But that's not what this case is about. To use your analogy, imagine KIA were a lock maker such as Kwikset. You bought their lock to install on your front door. You locked your door and left the house. You came back and your TV was gone, with no signs of forced entry. That's when you discover a major flaw in the design of the lock - if you turn the knob the opposite way then the lock will unlock from the outside. It's a flaw in the design. The lock maker is definitely legally liable for that defect, and, this is the important point, the city of Baltimore could sue them claiming damages incurred by having excessive police calls caused by their defective product. Of course every case is different, but Baltimore would be likely to win.
I'd say they're likely to win in this case as well. Since KIA has been aware of this problem for some time and taken no steps to resolve it, I imagine Baltimore is applying some financial incentive. As other cities take note they too may file their own suits and then KIA may realize it's cheaper and better PR to issue a massive and costly recall.
Now practically, whether it's legal or not, no one is going to help you.
To the extent that common law is generally adopted in the United States, theft is the intentional taking of the property of another with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of said property. It doesn't matter whether there's forced entry or not (you may be thinking of burglary -- either way, principles of "constructive breaking" could still apply depending on the law as codified by a given jurisdiction).
Even from a less pedantic standpoint, if I had a home surveillance system that captured the entire incident on camera (along with the perpetrator's face and the license plate of the vehicle that he used to drive off with my TV), there is still sufficient evidence to arrest and prosecute. There is no legal requirement of "signs of forced entry" to sustain a theft charge under these circumstances.
If the theft was part of a bigger issue with (to use the Kwikset hypothetical) the vendor's product defect allowing mass thefts then it would be important to the police.
This is not correct. The police will take a report, and your insurance (if you have it) will cover your TV even if you left the door wide open. Even if you were drunk. Even if you weren't drunk. There is no clause in standard insurance policies or our laws and statutes that failure to lock shit up somehow makes it free for anyone else to take.
The problem with Hyundai & Kia is that they elected not to include this 25 year old technology at all.
I'm also still a little disappointed that the MSRP came out about 10% higher than the estimates. We're getting into too much money for a car there.
Many others I know have had cars broken into, homes broken into, tons of packages stolen, property vandalized, etc. Basically any form of property crime you can imagine.
The idea that Hyundai or Kia are somehow culpable for these this extreme social dysfunction is absolutely farcical. Vagrants and criminals are kept like livestock by the local government and a class of parasitic NGOs- left to terrorize normal law-abiding citizens who barely have a legal recourse to violence should one of these incidents go sideways.
It would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city
Feels like the 70s in Urban America repeating itself. I feel bad for the older Black population in Baltimore. They busted ass for the last 50 years and they got to enjoy a really lovely city from like 2009 to 2013. Imagine growing up like Henrietta Lacks, only to have all your shit stolen by teenagers who are legally untouchable.
Please don’t come on my turf and start trashing out city without facts.
I just looked down my street to Fort McHenry and our flag was still there :)
In Baltimore, Maryland, you cannot vote while in prison. But you can once you get out. Felony conviction or no.
(I honestly don't think that the population with felony convictions are significant factors in elections, but they can and do vote.)
Having a steering wheel lock has worked so far since then, but there is a tremendous incentive for someone to ruin my car again given the chance, since it'll (maybe always) appear to be an easy target, kill switch or no.
I think it's Autralia where like 80% of the car theft are done with the owner's key? (Too lazy to look for the citation)
Good scotty kilmer video on one such option
I heard OCP has some ideas and products they'd like to pitch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMtqRir7dco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYsulVXpgYg
From the outside, the policies seem to defy all common sense. Doubling down on bad policy seems like foolishness, naivety, denial, complicity, or AOTA. When the plane's computer is saying 'terrain.', 'terrain.', at what point do you decide to pull up, and what does that even look like in Balitmore? The complexity of Baltimore's problems brings out the defeatist in anyone, but I think there are some obvious starting points.
It reminds me of C.S. Lewis's statement about progress:
"Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."
Nearer to what are Baltimore's leader's trying to get?
The character of the bad outcomes certainly changes with longevity, such as entrenchment, as you mention. The fixes must also be different. I'm not disagreeing with you that these cities and their situations are entirely different.
This is a tremendous leap in logic, but I am suggesting that Baltimore's problems can and do exist wholly independently of the engineering standards of Korean automakers
Imo now is a great time to buy property if you can deal with the rest.
Sorry to hear about the bad string of luck those close to you have had. It's vile and disgusting how much psychopathic behavior is tolerated by some residents in the city.
From other comments I get the sense that yes they can show this, but defence can argue that the crime would happen anyway. A bit like the security system doesn’t stop a burglar it makes them walk to the next home.
This kind of thing has resounding consequences. Baltimore is a city with a complicated history; for one thing, it's down from it's peak of almost 1M people to under 600k [4]. There's a significant history of racism in Maryland at large. There's a lot of fundamental issues, ranging from food deserts to lack of public transportation among the poorer areas. But to say that "[I]t would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city" is not true. It's certainly not all sunshine and roses, there's a lot of work being done at the grassroots as well, from new local investigative news organizations like the Baltimore Banner being funded to small makerspaces being set up in the now-plentiful well-built, but unused buildings that cities like Boston or Washington, DC. would only dream about having near their harbor or highways, and it's unfair to dismiss these things as being worthless.
[1] https://baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/baltimore-officials-co...
[2] https://www.wbaltv.com/article/baltimore-city-control-police...
[3] https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-power/local-gove...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore#Demographics (other sources available)
Food deserts in Baltimore? Like the Mondowmin Mall that was destroyed by residents during the Freddie Gray riots? And the companies that tried to rebuild and provide in the neighborhood, only to be robbed constantly to the point that companies gave up for not being able to guarantee workers'safety?
And public transport, in areas where cabbies fear to go, buses take hours, and electric scooters and bikes are routinely dumped in the harbor? Vandalism runs rampant. Bus seats are sliced open, gang members threaten riders, etc.
I hate what poor Baltimore has become. Yuppie white-collar Baltimore thrives, just not in these areas. 35 yrs ago I love going to Balt to play tourist. Nice people, Inner Harbor, restaurants, stores... Employed so many people. Corrupt city government at all levels, corrupt cops, and promotion of a victim mentality are some of the things that brought it down. Baltimore is screwed in general, by its own actions.
A good example of this is the East-West Red Line project, which would have been the only cross-city rail line that didn't go North-South among the already well-serviced neighborhoods, with a lot of that money getting spent re-vitalizing those areas. But once again, this isn't a cause for dismissal--the new Governor Moore has made reviving the Red Line project possible again[3], which (if it happens), could be a huge boon for the city. Imagine NYC without the MTA or Boston without the MBTA--almost unthinkable. These kind of projects, which finally have the potential to become un-stalled, offer hope of moving Baltimore in that direction.
[1] https://washingtonmonthly.com/2022/06/20/larry-hogan-purple-...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/fiv...
[3] https://www.wbaltv.com/article/reviving-baltimore-red-line-p...
One of my neighbors has a recent kia that is not susceptible to these hacks, and 2 weeks ago witnessed these teens trying to steal her car one night. She went out and told them they were on camera, and they threatened her and kept trying to steal the car. She called the police who came later and explained steering wheel locks and did little else. The next night the same teens came back, and this time having learned about the details, went out and informed them that her car was not susceptible. They continued trying, damaging the ignition with a screwdriver but not stealing it. The third night in a row, she left a note explaining it in the window, which did not deter them but cause them to bust out the window with the note taped on it.
The city is now distributing steering wheel locks for free to any kia owners, but they have caused a local shortage and can no longer offer them.
I've had neighbors waiting for their appointment to have the ignition modified have their cars totaled.
If you street park your car, even if it isn't a kia, you have high odds of being side swiped by one of these kids on purpose.
It's not a car theft issue, it's a legal joyride and clout exercise. You are lucky if your city is still only experiencing car theft and not this new form of car terrorism.
Why is this not the obvious solution?
(not as if you could single-handedly enact it, of course, but why isn't the city's leadership doing so?)
Turns out that just putting people in jail doesn't make society safer.
To be honest I don't understand the laws but in my city there is a dude who has literally been charged with car vandalism 90 times, let alone all the times he's gotten away with it.
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/atlanta-police-suspect-90-p...
Rich people buy up the nicest houses. They buy themselves new Teslas. They buy $5k sofas and $10k refrigerators and $20k NFTs. They hire landscapers and cleaners and movers and roofers and pay them minimum wage, or less. They buy up all the other houses and rent them out for double the mortgage payments. They get a $50k bonus from their job at some payday-loan-app startup and they buy another Tesla. All while their neighbors starve.
And then one day someone steals one of their Teslas, and they bemoan the injustice that normal, law-abiding citizens like them face and resolve to hate the poor even more.
It's social dysfunction alright, just not how you think.
They hire private security for they gated community, don't have any Teslas stolen, bemoan on how poor kids that steal cars are a result of dysfunctional society and pat each other on backs for being so progressive. All while completely ignoring the fact that it's mostly other poor people, who are victims of those crimes. See [0]
[0] https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-symbols-and-the-...
Why should we punish people who repeatedly commit crime anyway? Fuck it, why do anything? Let's sue Kia instead, maybe we can get a payday
The city is suing to recover the money they spent on all the police efforts expended because Kia cut corners to reduce costs.
Your and at the end is really just building a straw man, it's not what's being discussed here.
Deadly Crash Brings New Attention To Viral 'Kia Challenge' Trend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B1laqHpw7A
Robbins police: 3 teens in stolen Kia arrested after 71-year-old man dies in crash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC_QeFdPtus
Teen killed, suspect on the run after stolen car crashes on Roosevelt Boulevard https://www.fox29.com/news/police-stolen-kia-involved-deadly...
You simply switched to an argument you could 'win' despite no one else actually bringing it up or refuting it.
Maybe the problem is the thieves?
But of course you are right, only one problem can ever exist and the problem is car thieves.
And P.S. the police in the city have been handing out steering wheel locks and educating affected owners, so I believe you are misinformed.
"You dressed like that? It's your fault"
But if someone breaks into my house--regardless of whether it was unlocked, the lock was defective, or they broke a window--and the police are negligent or incompetent in investigating or prosecuting the perpetrators, in what world is that a) not the police's fault? and b) an opportunity for the _police_ to sue the _manufacturer_?
If I start a cultural movement to get rid of front door locks and it gains traction, and then B&Es spike, can the police sue _me_ too?
I don't know why you want to try and link the idea of a cultural movement? There's very clearly a difference between a defective product and a deliberate decision.
When you see an Asian granny being beaten up you don't sue her for being so easy to beat up.
Case in point. A couple of teens stole a car, smashed it into another car, killed a 6mo old and put his mother in the hospital. The charges? Trespassing.
The United States is an exception to the rule being the only first world country that I know of to not mandate engine immobilizers (I'm sure someone will be able to point an exception, but overall these are mandatory in a lot of countries for decades already).
You need to access the vehicle (if you are good by opening the door with a lockpick or with some other non-damaging trick, otherwise breaking a window), then you force the ignition block, removing the lock cylinder, then you use something to turn the ignition on.
In the '80's you would have probably used a screwdriver, as what remained below the removed lock cylinder would have been a slot, on these particular models you could use a pair of thin nosed pliers but a USB A connector is coincidentally just the right size for the "tab" that has to be turned.
You may not be able to stop desparate people from stealing, but if kids are repeatedly stealing cars for entertainment, then problem isn't the security of the cars.
People have also failed to mention the part where insurers are dropping people with Kia Souls because they are too high risk.
It's totally fair for absolutely no one in the US to buy from KIA again. But if they were following the law by omitting ignition locking (maybe under some misguided notion that the US isn't as crime ridden as it is).
There's some countries and still some parts of the US where you could realistically leave the cars in the ignition for weeks and the car wouldn't be stolen. This is nothing but a symptom of a larger issue.
This already happened almost 20 years ago in the United States. Ingersoll Rand was sued when it was shown that their Kryptonite locks could be opened with a Bic pen. Ingersoll Rand ended up settling. [0] I will grant that actual owners of the easily picked bike lock have obvious grounds to sue, whereas in the case of municipalities suing Hyundai due to theft problems, showing that the municipality is an injured party with standing to sue Hyundai isn’t as clear.
[0] https://www.reallaw.us/2007/04/25/class_action_defense_cases...
Are there things that could be improved? Sure. Roll up them sleeves.
Do you have evidence to the contrary you feel is strong enough to prove your currently unproven claim?
You may be experiencing a bit of proximity bias. Roads all over the north east are torn up.
I'd argue the school district issue can be fixed, but it will take funding.
As for the schools, they already get a ton of funds: https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/update-balti...
But more money won't fix systemic incompetence, corruption (https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/former-baltimore-mayor-ca...), and misguided policies.
>Things are just about as good as they've ever been in the history of the United States of America. Baltimore, too.
>Turn off the Fox News.
Thieves got into it and tried extremely hard to force the ignition and steal it. They tried hammering a flat head into it and rotating. Didn't work. They tried grabbing the outside of the mechanism with some kind of pliers and rotate, and that didn't work. I can see they easily spent several minutes on the whole ordeal, and didn't get anywhere. The entire lock mechanism was destroyed, almost shaved smaller from how many times they tried and their pliers slipped.
When I got to it a few days later, I had to get home using that truck. I put the key in the ignition and turned it, and drove off.
No.
After 5 minutes of searching you see that a USB-A connector just happens to fit perfectly over the nub in the ignition and allows you to turn it.
The problem is there is no engine immobilizer. So you can start the engine just by physically turning the ignition. I thought EI was pretty much standard on all cars post late 90's.
The US incarcerates more people than China, despite China having more than four times as many people, but the view obviously is the incarceration rate needs to increase even more, as crimes are barely being prosecuted according to him. The US is off the charts in incarceration rates, but he thinks they are far too low and want them increased more, as he sees increasing incarceration even more as the solution to the problem which western Europe does not seem to have to this extent.
So those outside the US can get insights into what the US is and how it thinks from threads like this.
The 13th amendment is federal and applies everywhere in the US. Not every state takes full advantage of prison slave labor, sure, but it is legal everywhere, and some do.
Except its not; the 13th amendment allows, and several states have institutionalized, involuntary servitude of prisoners.
> I agree they should be paid more though.
In addition to not always being voluntary, it is also not always paid at all.
It was wrong when we did the same here in the USA with Japanese Americans (George Takei wrote about his time there) and we should not normalize this mass imprisonment without individual right to fair trial.
Edit: spelling
According to the statistics, the deceased organ donation rate in China currently is only about 0.6/1,000,000 China citizens, one of the lowest in the world. The sad truth is that there are about 1 to 1.5 million people in China needing organ transplant every year and only 10,000 people can get a new organ successfully[0]
[0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4820883/
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Most organisations worldwide, are openly anti-communist, except those that explicitly support dictatorship and human rights abuse.
I guess that's a good thing.
I don't understand why Americans still cling to this villain. It's 2023, the USSR collapsed 30 years ago.
https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-vietnam-relationship...
So communism clearly isn’t the issue.
> China's long-term dependence on executed prisoners as organ donors will end at the start of next year, according to a high-ranking official.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-12/05/content_190287...
My understanding is the debates are over whether or not it still happens and to what extent political prisoners (particularly Falun Gong members) were victims.
Just because China calls everything it dislikes “propaganda” doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
FWIW, the parent poster doesn't want increased incarceration, they want these people executed (probably without due process).
that isn't just wrong -- it's not even what parent said.
Their hyperbole was pointing out that the perceived situation is so bad that it would take something drastic to turn it around, not that they in anyway wanted or desired it.
There is a lot of purposeful misinterpretation/mis-reading going on in this thread, it seems.
Both are hyperbole, but that is indeed what was said and implied. Defend it as rhetoric, don't gaslight it as a purposeful misreading.
"Why do you love criminals and want innocent families to be terrorized and executed by criminals?"
If China is too different, look at western Europe. England's incarceration rate is less than one third of the US's. Canada is on sixth of the US's. These countries have lower incarceration rates but less crime.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarce...
You're right about the comparatively huge US prison population, but the difference is NOT because other countries let violent people and thieves roam free!
People who use extreme violence against other people are deranged. It's a mental health issue. In other countries, it's limited and so the heuristic is to just lock these people up in some place called prison. In the US it's endemic making it difficult to control no matter how many people you are incarcerating.
- higher rates of bad/no parenting
- schools with no ability to deal with bad behavior
This leads to young adults who think they can get away with anything?
Baltimore is one of the worst places I’ve visited for work. Everyone in the office told us visitors to stay on the main streets in downtown.
Baltimore City, MD - Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Baltimore city, MD was 57.45%
I’m sure there are plenty of good single parents out there, but a lot of these kids aren’t getting a good foundation for life?
I know many teachers, and I frequently hear how behavior at schools is the worst they’ve ever seen. It seems like it’s only getting worse.
Many places in the U.S. allow a certain level of criminality, which not only encourages criminal behavior, but means the people involved only face consequences when they do something truly horrendous that brings a long sentence. Let a teenager walk free when they steal cars, and they end up killing the next person they steal a car from (happened here recently). Never charge a stalker when he assaults his stalking victim multiple times while on probation, and he eventually kills her (also happened here recently). Let someone simply walk away from the court after being convicted of an armed robbery, and they'll eventually murder an innocent (again - happened here recently).
It can take years to undo this. We started moving in the right direction - cracked down on crime, brought the crime rates down, which started bringing down the incarceration rate. But then people got impatient and wanted undo everything, with many big promises that never materialized. Now crime rates are up, and we're probably going to end up with more incarceration.
Many other countries have lower incarceration stats. But in my experience, the people in those countries are often shocked when they learn that in nice neighborhoods of the U.S., large groups of men can walk into a store in the middle of the day, openly fill up bags of stolen merchandise in front of everyone, and simply walk out with no consequences. The base level of crime that's accepted in many places in the U.S. is simply much higher than in many other countries.
What? No. This is not remotely a universal American viewpoint -- especially the government being "on the side of the criminals etc." What would that even mean?
It would look, and maybe this is sheer coincidence, very much like our present situation
I imagine that people would gesture at stories like this:
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/suspect...
> Police arrested one of two gun-wielding people caught on camera during a double shooting at a crowded holiday celebration this past weekend in south St. Louis, but the 33-year-old woman was released Wednesday afternoon after the prosecutor’s office refused charges against her.
> The suspect’s release drew public ire, but Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner’s office declined to further explain.
Here's Alvin Bragg, talking about no longer charging certain crimes at all:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/us/alvin-bragg-manhattan-dist...
Here's George Gascon doing the same in LA:
https://abc7.com/george-gascon-los-angeles-district-attorney...
If you prefer specific cases, here are some lawyers who were facing domestic terrorism charges for firebombing a police car. They had already plead guilty. They were given a new, lesser plea deal:
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/06/05/new-york-attorneys-acc...
I can find a lot more individual cases. For example, the Zimminskis who may only have been prosecuted because Binger was called to account for that during trial. They managed to get arrested for multiple other crimes, including a kidnapping, while on bail.
2.) The U.S. is not a monolith, so looking at the prison population of the United States as a whole doesn’t tell you about what’s going on in an individual state or city.
3.) The number of people incarcerated has a long tail. In the U.S. in particular, many people received long sentences during the years following the ‘94 crime bill. Little if any effort is being made to commute these despite policies centered on new incarceration changing.
4.) In the places where reduced incarceration is being tried in the U.S. it’s important to recognize that it’s being tried effectively in a vacuum. In many other places which are able to sustain low incarceration rates, there are a lot of social programs that help make that possible, and also programs to help people rehabilitate after a conviction. The U.S. has little if any of that. Where reduced incarceration is being tried, it’s usually not replaced with something that’s more effective.
So yes, while drugs should be deillegalized and those crimes expunged, this is only but a first step on a long road to repairing the severe damage that was done to actual law and order by the very people fallaciously rallying behind "law and order" in the 80's and 90's.
>a totalitarian state controlled by a political police force that secretly supervises the citizens' activities
Can you explain how the US is all of those things?
don't know about amd.... * slaps knee *
Basically every step of the way, whenever some sort of reform comes up they fight it tooth and nail while simultaneously grabbing every bit of extra power that they can.
These powers include things like surveillance and literal highway robbery in the form of civil forfeiture. In the way of surveillance, they can now purchase peoples data and there are companies selling services to police which analyze and track citizens movements without a warrant. Combine this with a story I saw on HN earlier today about a company purchasing live footage feeds from citizen surveillance cameras for cops to, again without a warrant, use at will.
But wait, there's more!
There are also electronic communications surveillance programs such as prism (NSA) and hemisphere (DEA) combined with the magic of parallel construction to obfuscate the fact that any surveillance was even used to spy on citizens illegally.
Cops basically get to do whatever they want without any sort of punishment when they do harm to citizens, which they do regularly including murdering innocent ones. Perhaps you've heard of the LASD gangs that terrorize the communities they're supposed to be protecting? It's well documented and has been going on for years, it still is.
Prosecutors and judges generally side with the cops because they need them to do their jobs, they have undue influence not only over prosecution but also legislation in the form of strikes and union lobbying.
Police unions are probably the only union I think should be dismantled, all other unions for workers are great but police unions are actively harmful to society.
There is a lot that can be done about the quality of policing in this country but we are really far off a police state. We are simply a state with an incompetent perpetually afraid power hungry police, likely due to the prevalence of guns. It's tragic as is.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Maybe you aren't the target now but who's to say you won't be in the future? Consider your perspective versus those who live in predominantly Black communities
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
Of course there are different degrees, and throwing out these characterizations in a thread about even more totalitarian societies would be inappropriate whataboutism. But as domestic societal critique they do have some truth.
Ultimately the reason we consider some things natural rights isn't to create some prescriptive model that we imagine as the shape an enlightened society will take. Rather it's due to the inevitable ugliness when government attempts to legislate into individual autonomy, and people react en masse. And the results of the "drug war" have most certainly been quite ugly!
Drug Offenses are nearly half the prison population [1]. So the prison population can decrease by significant amounts without releasing any violent criminals.
[1]: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...
this is not true. your data is federal only. most prisoners are at state prisons. drug offense is about 1/5 of total.
source https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html
And is imprisoning people who are smuggling/distributing hard and potentially very dangerous drugs really that controversial?
i was just stating the fact that the initial number posted was wrong/incomplete.
It can ruin the victims life just as much as non-lethal violence (taking away a person's source of income, or transport required to keep a job, or wrecking a business they've spent many years building), but many take the 'it's only property, it's probably insured!' attitude.
And many at least see stealing from 'big nasty corporations' as relatively OK. But if people keep stealing from businesses until they close down or relocate and there's no easy shoplifting targets, will the thieves stop, or will they move on to stealing from homes?
I wonder why insurance is so high...
The problem isn’t just insurance. It’s that prosecution is insanely slow and is far more harmful to society than the actual crime.
I doubt the victims see it that way. If we just let people steal, it can turn into a runaway chain reaction due to a lack of consequences.
If people work for my living and see someone just steal for theirs with absolutely no consequence, what they learn is that social dysfunction is optimal, and that doing otherwise is being a chump.
Now, I do agree in a parallel way, but with a different solution. If we fix structural problems preventing people from being, or having hope of being, productive members of society, than that can prevent some crime.
"mere hundreds of dollars"
This is incredibly insensitive. That's a lot of money to lose to many people.
Insurance increases the expected cost of loss! -- the insurer would go broke if they were charging less than that.
So yeah, sure, it can save you from the boundary effect of it instantly wreaking your life but only by putting you at a constant disadvantage to people who live in less crime prone areas or whom are wealthy enough to self insure against such loss.
People who say this don't have real jobs; not the type of jobs where they'll end up on pain killers when they retire. They have laptop jobs on the softer side of intellectual rigor.
Money is time traded from your life, health traded from your body to your employer. Stealing property is literally stealing the purpose of hours of grueling work.
The liberal position—don’t make relatively harmless stuff illegal—is one way to reduce the amount of crime.
Sure, lock up people who do violent crimes (I mean, get them out of society while we try to figure out if we can get them psychological help), but instead of doing something dystopian like tent prison cities, just let out the people who shouldn’t be there in the first place.
(All that is to say, I agree with you, just think we should focus on the part that will benefit society).
In the past year I've seen different people claim that hemp consumption, property crime, and even intimidation with a firearm were nonviolent and that their perpetrators were merely marginalized individuals who need social assistance rather than prosecution.
I think GP's point is that even property crime is not victimless: It hurts everyone, it makes society worse, and it likely hurts the people at the bottom of society disproportionately.
But I may add, then, that the reformers have the burden of showing evidence for their position: they need to demonstrate that it is possible to have a low-crime, low-prosecution, high social net city somewhere in the US. I'm beginning to suspect that they are missing some critical component which is required to make such a system work for everyone.
> ... property crime is not victimless: It hurts everyone ...
"victimless" and "hurts everyone" are both at the two extreme, opposite ends of a spectrum.
It's fairly likely some of the property crimes occurring could be somewhere in the middle.
Genuine question; is that only physically? If I like causing people pain and anguish and suffering, and my weapon of choice is words, should I also be incarcerated because I hurt people intentionally? I tend towards not giving people a free pass simply because their weapon of choice is words, but (amongst other things) the US has a reputation for being very permissive with the spoken word.
I think there is a massive difference between physical violence (and property crime) and words. What sort of words are you envisioning here?
No, you shouldn't be incarcerated for that. You would be an asshole if you intentionally caused people anguish with your words, but being an asshole is not a crime (and shouldn't be).
No, it isn't. It's the opinion of a single person, and you're taking it for granted that their comment was made in earnest and that they truly represent 'the American view' -- whatever that is.
>So those outside the US can get insights into what the US is and how it thinks from threads like this.
No, they can't. They can learn about the opinion of a single person.
Can you point me to a country with such a unified opinion that any single person can cover the opinions of the entire populous?
If not, why would you assume that such a case may exist for the United States?
And more to the point, the premise was that it is ridiculous to hold the manufacturer of stolen goods to be wholly responsible for the theft in a jurisdiction that has law enforcement -- do you disagree with that, or do you just care to make an example out of someone?
Incarcerating criminals isn't the issue, having so many criminals is the issue.
Is it because most of the violent crimes are related to drug addiction?
Salvador was overrun with gang violence, a new government came in, rounded up the gangsters and crime has gone down. On balance the population of Salvador is better off.
"'The Department of Justice conducted a thorough investigation of Alabama’s prisons for men and determined that Alabama violated and is continuing to violate the Constitution because its prisons are riddled with prisoner-on-prisoner and guard-on-prisoner violence. The violations have led to homicides, rapes, and serious injuries.'"
This is not a system that is going to successfully reintegrate people. We owe a basic level of humane treatment even to prisoners, if not for the sake of liberal values than for the pragmatic reason that violent people who are put in an environment which encourages further violence will remain violent people when they are released back into our society.
Ukraine: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/08/ukraine-four-...
Mexico: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/mexicos-federal-prisons-a-...
Spain: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-77231-8_...
Brazil: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/qa-why-is-prison-v...
And in Paradise (I mean Cuba): https://democraticspaces.com/trending/2022/3/29/prisoners-de...
Etc...
And since you linked Amnesty, here’s their report on solitary confinement at ADX Florence: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/07/usa-prisoners...
Ukraine, Mexico, and Brazil are nowhere near as highly developed as the US.
Spain is definitely closer, but Spain doesn’t execute people like the US does. Of course problems with prisons exist elsewhere.
What’s specifically appalling about the US is the juxtaposition of extreme wealth and relative freedom with widespread, institutionalized abuse and neglect of prisoners, not just to their detriment, but to the detriment of the US as a whole.
At the same time, I wish to point out most other prison systems in the world are similar or worse and suspects before they become prisoners have fewer legal rights afforded them.
That said, the catch-and-release as well as the watch-and-do-nothing approach we're seeing in some places are aggravating crime and they are not doing anyone any favors, the criminals or the victims.
This might be true but I do not think it’s true of most peer countries (Western Europe, Canada, etc). I do believe that US prisons are among the least humane of this group as well as the least effective at rehabilitation. Again, this is not to say that those other systems do not have problems, just that the severity of the worst abuses and the extent of abuse in general is worse here.
> Prisoner rehabilitation does not work, says former prisons boss
> Sir Martin Narey says focus should be on treating inmates with decency and dignity
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/29/prisoner-reh...
> So far, prison inmate rehab isn’t working
> California’s prisons are supposed to be rehabilitating inmates, not merely warehousing them, but a new report from the state auditor says it’s not effectively reducing recidivism among those released from the system.
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2019/02/so-far-prison-inma...
There is a certain political faction that has developed the habit of observing the effects of jail on criminals while ignoring the effect of criminals on the innocent. I think the parent is reacting to the disingenuousness of this position.
US views criminals a people who failed the society, while at these numbers it would be way more reasonable to see them as people failed by the society.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_offences_in_China
So it's probably fair enough to compare incarceration rates and numbers.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China#Ra...
> The exact numbers of people executed in China is classified as a state secret;
In addition to executions, China has been clamping down on entire populations, therefore, preventing future incarceration.
> Uyghur birthrate fell by almost half between 2017-2019, research finds, adding to evidence of coercive fertility policies
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/12/chinese-uyghur...
The GP comment is pushing a certain narrative that (in my view) has been ginned up by reactionary groups for their own ends.
In addition, it's wrong on the facts (insofar as it makes any fact-based claims versus just pushing buttons).
I'll go farther. I scoff most profoundly at the viewpoint of the GP post. I view people pushing it as low-information and politically naive (if they actually believe it) or evil and opportunistic (if they are just "intensifying the contradictions" for their own reactionary ends).
I lived in Vancouver in Canada, that is true there too, Seattle is the same (the CHAZ bs a couple years ago? 3rd avenue in Downtown?). Hell, in Argentina is also the same and that's south america. I think this is more a problem of places with left leaning politics which consider criminals victims of society which means that they can't be held responsible by their actions. Meanwhile, everyone else suffers.
No, everyone outside of your head can get insights into your willingness to cherrypick a single comment and extrapolate to fit your pessimistic, hyper-critical mental model.
It's also interesting how you talk about incarceration rates independently of crime rates, and act as if the US is prosecuting and incarcerating broad swathes of innocent people. For those of us who have had loved ones murdered or assaulted, or been mugged/beaten, we don't have the luxury of thinking of this in an abstract way fitting a bong rip session in a dorm room. Take off the Che Guevara t-shirt, take a walk outside, and realize that the world isn't a neat little theory straight from a professor being interviewed on Democracy Now!.
There's about half a million people in jail right now who haven't been convicted of a crime. Some of them are innocent, for sure.
How often is that, exactly?
> This tendency to lie pervades all police work, not just high-profile violence, and it has the power to ruin lives. Law enforcement officers lie so frequently—in affidavits, on post-incident paperwork, on the witness stand—that officers have coined a word for it: testilying. Judges and juries generally trust police officers, especially in the absence of footage disproving their testimony. As courts reopen and convene juries, many of the same officers now confronting protesters in the street will get back on the stand.
> Defense attorneys around the country believe the practice is ubiquitous; while that belief might seem self-serving, it is borne out by footage captured on smartphones and surveillance cameras. Yet those best positioned to crack down on testilying, police chiefs and prosecutors, have done little or nothing to stop it in most of the country. Prosecutors rely on officer testimony, true or not, to secure convictions, and merely acknowledging the problem would require the government to admit that there is almost never real punishment for police perjury.
Police and DAs, the parties who do most of the investigating of police perjury, are not exactly eager to share their internal findings for reasons we can probably guess, but the article does offer one striking anecdote:
> One NYPD officer, David Grieco—commonly known as Bullethead—has been sued at least 32 times, costing the city $343,252, for civil rights violations, including excessive force and fabrication of evidence. Yet Grieco was promoted and prosecutors continued to call him to the stand long after a slew of his victims blew the whistle on his violent and lawless behavior. Judges continued to rely on his word to lock up defendants. And Grieco’s name did not appear on Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s long-secret list of officers with known credibility problems.
Police lie during questioning as a tactic.
Selectively enforcing crimes is very common
Also, please don't use HN for ideological battle, regardless of what you're battling for or against. It looks like you've been doing that a lot, unfortunately. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
My layman belief is that this isn’t just a law and order issue. Its a cultural dysfunction.
The criminal is excused because he doesn't know any better, those that defend themselves are punished to the fullest extent because it's politically expedient to do so.
2. Comparison with China is not accurate. a) Can't trust numbers from China and b) China has a much more rigid social structure and rules and the population has been beaten in submission (e.g. make pie Tiananmen square). Imagine a visa system that prevents folks from California from migrating to Texas (we are even for allowing mass migration from outside).
Even Politifact rates such comparisons false https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/dec/16/matthew-co...
It is better looking at a local level. And here China exceeds the US. https://apnews.com/article/china-prisons-uyghurs-religion-0d...
3) If this is really not a problem with Baltimore (as you imply), other locations with Kias and Hyundias should also be suing them. As far as I know, they are also sold in China but don't have these issues.
California has 39mil inhabitants, currently has 97k in prison.
Germany has 83mil inhabitants, currently 56k in prison.
Most Americans are only presented with increasing incarceration rates as the only realistically viable way of solving most social ills. As such, there are many flavors and colors of “increase the incarceration rate” across the political spectrum, and lots of people will pick a boogeyman (drug addicts, thieves, etc.) to justify it. For those that don’t pick a boogeyman their support of increasing the incarceration rate is tied to something entirely unrelated (e.g. “My guy that supports mass incarceration is so much better than your guy that supports mass incarceration! Look at his track record on {social issue}!”)
The fact that this is the view shared by the majority is reflected in the barely-fluctuating incarceration rate and military-sized “crime fighting” budgets. It is also a fact that is reflected in who Americans continue to elect and which policies we vote to enact.
- don't understand the origin of crime
- own stock in those private companies that run prisons (capitalism at its worse)
The US is ofcourse rich enough to do it but that would require scrapping every single tax cut since Reagan. Which would inconvenience those in the upper strata of society.
This is an apple & orange measure. Starting from first principles, that is how people behave in society, we can at least temper superficial reading of bare metrics.
Human beings self police under surveillance. This is the entire point of setting up surveillance states. US in contrast tends more towards police state: show of force to partition society in distinct 'social climates', directly informed by economic means.
So, yes, a police state will attempt to partition, even to the extremity of incarceration, and a surveillance state (which is a super-set of police-state) applies psychological force and thus has a much reduced subset that it will deem 'problematic'. Ideally, a state like China will like to approach the limit of having every 'citizen' well trained and well behaved, as domesticated humans.
Our problem over here is (given a generous disposition) that we struggle with reconciling freedom and order without resorting to brainwashing the population, or (less generously) that structural characteristic of our system where "freedom" is bound with at times grotesque wealth disparities naturally creates social hostility, and the economic incentives of a criminal life.
The problem with the USA’s prison system is that it doesn’t focus on rehabilitation at all and instead focuses on punishment. We get the exact results expected of such a system, which is a lot of repeat business.
There were very few long term prisoners in medieval society, not because of a progressive outlook but because most crimes were punished with some form of torture, execution, or both. Also, many things were crimes that now are thought of as basic human rights. You can have small prison population if your are willing to truly brutalize your population.
China performs about half of the execution in the world every year, is known to torture dissidents, and I doubt it reports those being re-educated as prisoners. I would hardly consider that more just than America.
A society can also have a small inmate population and be unjust because enforcement is rare, or selective either due to corrupt or ineffective law enforcement. Additionally if acts of vigilantism are common in a society you can have also have less prisoners since "justice" is found in the streets.
I think there are reasonable critiques of the American prisons, criminal justice system, and especially for profit prisons, but there are also much worse alternatives. The system we have really is an imperfect attempt in need of adjustment and not a deliberate attempt at cruelty. The cruelty is a bug not the feature.
The more crime, the more criminals. The more criminals, the more prisoners.
The tired trope that the US incarcerates so many non-violent criminals is just that, a trope. It's not based in reality. You could let out every single non-trafficking drug offense today and you wouldn't make a noticeable dent in the prison population at all. Drop that down to all non-violent offenses and it's not much better. At this point it's an outright lie when people bring this topic up, it's not simply being misinformed any longer.
The fact is US society is far more violent than many others it's compared to. There are many reasons that should be addressed, but we certainly do not have a problem of over incarceration of habitually violent criminals. Quite the opposite in fact. A very small percentage of people are responsible for the vast majority of the crime, and as a society we simply stopped caring bout their victims and let them roam free after dozens of interactions with law enforcement.
Then you have someone who is generally a decent citizen who makes a mistake and gets the entire book thrown at them - since they have something to lose and it's not politically dangerous.
This is a problem in the US. Hand-waving it away as saying American's simply want to jail everyone is silly. Live in some of these urban neighborhoods and tell me with a straight face you don't want more people in prison. You will be astounded at the people left to simply walk the streets and terrorize others. Literally everyone in the community knows who they are but nothing at all is done about it.
Speaking of tired tropes...
> Live in some of these urban neighborhoods and tell me with a straight face you don't want more people in prison.
Since you asked, I've lived in Dallas, Baltimore and the Detroit metro. I can tell you with a straight face I don't want more people in prison.
>You will be astounded at the people left to simply walk the streets and terrorize others.
It's more like you will be astounded at how dramatized this is, you will not be terrorized walking down the street.
> It's not based in reality. You could let out every single non-trafficking drug offense today and you wouldn't make a noticeable dent in the prison population at all. Drop that down to all non-violent offenses and it's not much better. At this point it's an outright lie when people bring this topic up, it's not simply being misinformed any longer.
Source?
Homicide and incarceration rates per 100k people:
In other words, China incarcerates 3x as many people per homicide as the USA, and the USA homicide rate is 12.8x that of China. Homicide is used instead of/as a proxy for violent crime, because it is largely immune to bias by overpolicing or racism, which are the usual excuses to dismiss statistics. Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
Maybe they should implement car burkas?
If so then Baltimore may have a reasonable case. If not then it’s a Baltimore problem.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/05/09/stolen-...
> The city of Baltimore has filed a federal lawsuit against car manufacturers Kia and Hyundai, joining a number of cities who say the companies created a public nuisance by making cars that can be easily stolen.
later on:
> Cleveland, St. Louis and Seattle are among the other cities that started suing the the car companies earlier this year.
I feel like this whole thread has a lot of odd takes stirred up by people's suppositions of what happens particularly in "Baltimore".
Kia/Hyundai need to fix their security flaw.
Baltimore may not be a large market, but there are also several other cities suing, and at least 18 state attorney generals have gotten involved. That's a much larger market than Baltimore.