Excerpt:
Cameras are everywhere around Pittsburgh Mills.
“They call them the LPRs, license plate reader cameras,” Kuhns said.
The system patches the various retailers’ surveillance cameras into the police department and they’ve been very effective when it comes to catching alleged shoplifters.
“We have a lot of people who come up there and they steal televisions, big flat screens, computers, electronic devices,” he said.
But many times, these electric eyes reveal that in some cases, what’s being stolen aren’t big ticket items at all.
I hope we can see more of this. Police realizing these people need help and get them to the organizations that provide it rather than imprison them and make the situation worse.
I post articles as is, but I hope they aren’t taken at face value. Obviously this is copraganda, most articles posted through mainstream media have shades of this bias. It’s important to read between the lines.
This is not typical of police, they are more likely to shoot you or take your children than help. If it were done, it would be much more effectively performed by trained social workers rather than police as intermediaries. It’s not their job, and not the role they are required by the capitalist system to do. If this was their purpose, they would not need guns, and they would not actually be police.
Also the implication that people stealing big-ticket items don’t actually need help (instead of being more efficient with their time) is a pretty toxic message.
Oh I’m fully aware cops are absolute scum and that the system is working as intended. I just struggle to see how I can help cause change and I find it easier to think about small, feasible short term changes.
I support that, and even if you weren’t disgusted by cops you’re welcome here. I hope I haven’t come across as trying to enforce some dogmatic orthodoxy as an admin, my intention is to provide an alternate lens on my post out of concern that no-one else has already given it.
As a threadiverse contributor, my goal is to post relevant and topical articles that inspire insightful discussion. I worry that my role as an admin puts people on a different footing when it comes to expressing their views - and that’s not what I’m trying to do here. I have strong opinions, but with the exception of fascism, I’m supportive of sharing space with a broad spectrum of political stances. Thanks for your contribution to the discussion.
It’s only sensible and forward-thinking that police would help people in ways that would deter crime. Just as police should be directing drug addicts to rehabilitation resources, they should be directing food thieves to various welfare programs and ways to legitimately get cheap food. They should rather be enforcing other crimes.
