On Fri, 8 Sep 2000, Ralph Walter wrote:

> Louisiana Idiot: A man walked into a Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the
> counter and asked for change.  When the clerk opened the cash drawer,
> the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which
> the clerk promptly provided.  The man took the cash from the clerk and
> fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter.  The total amount of cash he
> got from the drawer?  Fifteen dollars. [If someone points a gun at you
> and gives you money, is a crime committed?]

Yes!  Pointing a gun at someone (implicitly threatening deadly force) is
assault.

There's a larger politico-sociological point to be made about the crime
stories in that message.

Dumb crook stories are a dime a dozen.  They happen all the time.  You
could probably spend all your recreational time reading little stories
like the ones quoted (all nicely sourced, like AP wire stories) and never
run out of them.

I can even think of similar events from my own experience.  For example,
some Detroit friends of mine arrived home in time to find their couch
halfway out the door, being carried by two crooks.  The outraged wife
ordered them to put the couch back in the living room, AND THEY DID.

Lots of people have a romantic image of criminals as being ruthless,
intelligent men with unlimited options.  Since they disregard society's
rules, it's imagined that they can have whatever they want.  I assume
there is a good deal of envy in this picture, since it is typically
presented to buttress the argument that there's no point passing laws to
control people for whom laws are supposed to be irrelevant.

But anyone involved in criminology or criminal justice can tell you that
this image is a complete fantasy.  Somewhere, sometime, there may have
been a few people like that, Al Capone maybe, but if they have much
influence in today's world, that fact has eluded those whose job it is to
notice.

In real life, the typical person who commits a robbery or a burglary (not
to mention many other crimes) is young, poor, stupid, desperate,
drug-addled, and in a hurry.  It is no surprise that they generate reams
of stories like the one quoted above.

I point this out not to say that the crooks shouldn't be punished. Since
the police can't be everywhere at once, even one such miscreant can commit
many easy, stupid crimes and do tremendous damage before being caught.
Many of them end up being casually brutal in ways that shock us into
demanding retribution.

However, retribution is not our sole instrument here.

For example: NYC police started catching people who jumped over subway
turnstiles without paying (a minor crime).  A lot of those caught turned
out to be on their way to committing serious crimes.  Pretty soon, fewer
people bothered to try jumping turnstiles -- and NYC's rate of more
serious crimes also dropped.

In other words, the cost of a subway token (including standing in line,
conducting a transaction, etc.) is a significant barrier to at least some
street criminals.

---
Lawrence Kestenbaum, [log in to unmask]
The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com