That's sad to hear, but I think he's right to realize that it's going to be really hard to deal with losses when the auto theft community gets wind of their business.
I am always amazed by the efficiency and technological prowess that the kids I grew up with who steal cars apply to their trade (even if I wish they were involved in a better trade).
One kid I grew up with now has a ring of six guys working for him, paying good benefits and matching retirement accounts, where all they do are steal Honda Civics. Just that model. I swear he's implemented Kaizen into his workflow.
Not to be overly prudish, but as someone that has had a car stolen -- not recently, but when I was right out of high school, completely broke and using it to get to work (where there wasn't any public transportation option) -- I'd really encourage you to turn in your friend. You may think it's not your problem, but you're complicit in those crimes and acting very unethically.
I can see how it can be a difficult situation for him to turn in his friend, but it's only because he's detached from the situation.
m0nastic: Just think of the people who have their cars stolen, and tell yourself that every time they steal a car and you don't turn him in then you've essentially helped screw that person over. That person could be someone just like nostromo.
Imagine young nostromo, coming to you for help. What would you do? Who would you side with? Every time they steal a car it's the same situation, except the victim may not personally know you so they won't come asking you for help.
I had one of my old cars semi-stolen. Luckily I took a few precautions and had a hidden fuel pump kill switch wired up(since the Integra was a very high target for thieves).
So they only got 20 feet away before the car died on them.
Wiring one up is real easy, takes like 20 minutes, all you have to do is pull the rear seats out, cut the wire and extend the wire to the switch.
I apologise for being a lil off topic but I do have a question for you. Before I ask that question, let me tell you a story.
When I was growing up, I knew this girl who works part time at a cinema. Her job is basically to clean up the place after everyone has left once the movie has ended. While cleaning up the place, 7 out of 10 times, she will find something someone has left behind and out of that 7 times, probably 2 items will be valuable (wallet, mobile phones, jewellery, etc). Instead of returning it to their respective owners, she ALWAYS pocket anything that is valuable with the excuse of finders keepers.
When I found out about what she does, I had a moral dilemma. I knew she probably did it because she (to make a long story short), had a very unfortunate and underprivileged life so she just found a quick and easy (albeit illegal) way to supplement her pay. Yet at the same time, I knew what she was doing was wrong and I contemplated telling the authorities about her but couldn't bring myself to do it because she trusted me enough (i've always helped her in dire times) to tell me about it.
Now, here is my question. Do you ever feel that you should report your friend knowing he is breaking the law? Do you find yourself in a moral dilemma knowing that you know a person committing a crime but you have not (i assumed) turn him in?
So, where I grew up, everybody was a criminal. I don't mean that hyperbolically either. Everyone in my family (mostly bottom-of-the-barrel criminals, but a few actual bad-ass criminals), every other kid who lived in my neighborhood. All criminals.
My older brother ran away from home when he was 15, partially to get away from all of that. I stayed until I was 17, but left for much the same reason.
If I felt obliged to report everyone in my history who has broken the law (or made it a habit of breaking the law), I would have quite possibly spent thousands of dollars on phone calls to the police.
I removed myself from the moral dilemma by going far away from all of that and not going back. I've been a boring nerd for the past twelve years.
Perhaps I'm assuming, but it seems you don't know much about the life of the poor.
If they could afford to move from the projects where these gangs operate, don't you think they would in a heartbeat? The foot soldier in a gang is not making a lot of money - far from it. But your mom just got laid off, rent needs to be paid and your baby sister needs to be fed. So you do what you have to do.
I'm a big believer in personal responsibility, and was as big a supporter of Randian thought as one could be without ever reading any of her book. But as I grew up and got exposed to The Real World, I realized that many times we are the victims of circumstances which seem to conspire against us.
So it's not always easy to just up and move to another side of the country.
Would they? Recall that gangs are partially a matter of self-defense. You join a gang because otherwise rival gangs try to hurt or kill you. You join to defend your family. At least that's the story they spin. Once you buy into the story, it becomes even harder to convince yourself that it's a good idea to leave.
I do not claim to know your past. But I know my parents were also poor, and the difference between them and the other kids who were poor around them who never moved up was in their parenting and their education. They ended up in a situation where they could pull out because of that education, and they ended up with certain mindsets that stemmed from the parenting they received. If you don't have one or, often, both of those, you're basically hosed. Not completely, mind you, but the jump needed to pull yourself out of poverty becomes massively bigger. And if you're immersed in a culture where violence is the norm and gangs are the only way to gain serious social acceptance at a young age, you've got even more working against you.
I'm really not sure why you're bringing greed into this. Most of the members in gangs are in no way rich. The leaders might be (and even that is not necessarily the case), but the members are not.
1) It's more likely to get killed if you have criminal gang member in your family. So yes, mom and baby sister are better off without such "help".
2) Why do you equate greed with being rich? These are orthogonal concepts.
3) Yes, it's hard to make right decision when you grew up submerged into bad culture. Fortunately good culture is available too. Even more - bad culture is at disadvantage due to schools, popular mass culture, law enforcement and mutual gang killings.
So in the end the decision of quitting the gang is a matter of personal choice.
"In search of respect" by Philip Bourgois is an interesting book, particularly on the reality of how much money there is in the drug trade, and about gang life.
Safety, for one. As for moving, family and lack of a link to anywhere else. Starting a new life isn't as easy as you seem to think it is. Nor, for that matter, is moving. Particularly if you don't necessarily have any good marketable skills.
I would guess that former gang member should be able to flip burgers, mop the floor and collect trash from the streets.
That's a good start.
Yes, that might not pay as much as criminal activity, but that's definitely enough to survive.
As for safety - why is it not safe to quit a gang? Why would remaining gang members care about former gang member who disappeared in unknown direction and does not cause any trouble?
Well, for one thing, because they can tattle. For another, because they are crazy. Last but not least, when you've been in a gang since you were 10 or 12 or 14, psychologically speaking, you can't just go “a'ight, I'm out. Peace!” and untie yourself emotionally from the mentality of always having the backs of your fellow gang members.
I ask honestly, but do you have any idea what you're talking about here? Here are two reference articles, one on empathizing with people in situations that are completely outside of your realm of experience:
’If you really want to understand slaves, slave masters, poor black kids, poor white kids, rich people of colors, whoever, it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity. The first rule is this--You are not extraordinary. It's all fine and good to declare that you would have freed your slaves. But it's much more interesting to assume that you wouldn't and then ask "Why?"‘
And one on getting out of gangs and the psychological pull they still have even after you've decided to get gone:
‘"They'll say, 'What's wrong with you, sissy? What's wrong with you, faggot?' Misery loves company. They don't want to see you succeed because they're still in misery. 'He's doing good? F––– that fool.' A lot of kids fall away. They sabotage their success."’
New place does not have to be better. It could be even worse. That could be part of the price of quitting criminal activity.
The point of moving to new place is to eliminate all the ties with old life and gang members.
But I guess even that is not necessary. I'm not expert on quitting gangs, but would assume that most gangs would not really force gang member on staying in the gang against the will of quitting gang member. If gang member is lacking determination - he might be useless of even dangerous as an active member of the gang. So the most practical approach should be mutual thinking: "good riddance".
"New place does not have to be better. It could be even worse. That could be part of the price of quitting criminal activity."
Great. So you move to some other depressed community, which will have all of what you were trying to escape. Only now you have no support network, nobody who's got your back. Guess what that's a recipe for?
Good to know you got yourself out of the situation. Funnily enough, I did exactly that too; I left it as it is and eventually moved on from where I grew up and lost contact with my friend.
Still, I've always felt a tingle of guilt every time someone looses something valuable at the cinema. It always reminded me that if everyone runs away from a problem, nobody will solve the issue. Being slightly older (and maybe wiser) now, what I should have done is try to find a way to convince her to stop stealing.
If you have kept up with this particular friend so that you know his current situation, then you have not removed yourself from the moral dilemma. Glad you got out, and there may be other reasons not to turn someone in, but this is a bad excuse.
I should be clear, I haven't seen any of these people in many many years. The situation I've explained was how things were set up when I last had any contact with Colin. I haven't heard anything since, so I assume things are progressing more or less the same.
The 1995 Honda Civic is the most stolen car in America. At least, it topped the list when I last looked into it as a result of my brother in law having his 1995 Honda Civic stolen from the third floor of a casino parking garage in Las Vegas. This was on Christmas, and his car was full of the presents that he and his family had received that year. They were covered with a blanket and it's unlikely that the thieves knew what they were getting, but they got quite the "bonus" from that job. We watched the security camera footage as the thieves walked up to the car and got into it and drove off within 60 seconds. The thieves were not caught and the shell of the car was found a week later abandoned on the side of a road. There was a lesson for my brother in law to not load his presents into his car until he's actually going out the door to begin his eight hour drive back to Reno, but it was a very expensive and very heartbreaking lesson to learn.
Please, if anyone knows someone who is willing to do this to another human being, make it stop. You have the power to prevent a loved one's Christmas from becoming a nightmare, use it. Please?
Eight hours, five minutes accordibg to Google Maps. Of course when my brother-in-law drives it turns into a nine hour drive, and my sister-in-law finishes in seven hours, but then her speedometer doesn't work.
So, there are artificial constraints to the scalability of an operation like his.
For starters, all territory is split up among the different crews who run them. That they do this democratically and unanimously without anyone muscling in on surrounding territory is something I've never quite figured out; but it's been working for forty years.
That limitation on potential territory makes you maximize your resources in the geographic areas you control. You get to the point where you know the best neighborhoods for your guys to work based on time-of-day, holidays, local sports schedules, which neighborhoods are composed of people who primarily have others over for the holidays, vs. which neighborhoods primarily go somewhere else to celebrate, etc.
So there is a pretty small limit to how large an operation like that gets, but he's able to pay for his house, send his kids all to private school, and ensure they all can go to any college they want.
It's a decent "lifestyle business", minus the fact that it's a terrible thing to do to people, and unbelievably dangerous.
> all territory is split up among the different crews
That's probably not that much due to negotiation, but because smarter team tips off police about criminal activity of competing team, and competing team ends up in jail.
I would guess that more aggressive team is more likely to end up in jail, which causes natural evolution toward less greedy teams.
Still, stealing is a stupid choice for people capable of running efficient organization.
Next step is several years in jail and close monitoring of the future crime activities.
The real problem is the ridiculously lax penalties for car theft in many jurisdictions. In the Seattle, WA area, you basically don't even see the inside of a cell until your third or fourth conviction. (One news article I found at http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=200... contains a quote to the effect that a thief would have to be caught stealing up to seven cars before being punished with prison time.)
Given the lack of interest in auto theft on the part of the legislature, it's not surprising that such crimes don't arouse much interest on the part of law enforcement. As a result there are plenty of large metro areas where an organized auto theft ring could be quite profitable.
I don't want to comment on all criminal business. I'm against murder, rape, kidnap and many other crimes.
In my opinion prostitution and theft fall in the gray area.
Risk-Reward balance in theft is probably the same as in every other risky business. The difference is barrier to entry is so low. That makes all the difference.
Alright, I'll just say this, because I don't want to look like a guy who takes moral high-ground on issues. I got my bike stolen, few years before, I was broke at that time, in a job that doesn't pay at all. I was not crazy about the thief at all. My insurance company paid me after a year, which I used to buy my first web server, which led to me starting my web design business.
I try not to put material possessions above human beings, I lost my bike. But, I don't want to put the thief in jail, and steal years of his lifetime.
Let me be clear, anything that involves bulling or physical abuse is clear crime to me.
One thing that theft and prostitution have in common are, they both have near zero barrier to entry. I sometimes argue with friends, that starting a internet company is the only near zero barrier to entry market. But, me and my friends take for granted, computers and internet connections paid by month and the knowledge that comes with it. For folks with no real skills that may land them on a job. Its natural to look for ways, to get some money, without putting in a lot of money.
I say material theft is in the gray area, because of all the white-collar crimes that are happening all the time, and people doing it are getting away with it. There are interesting studies about, how all bank robberies and auto-thefts constitute to a tiny portion of theft when compared to people stealing office supplies.
I don't support bank heists, dacoity on trains or white-collar crime/corruption.
All I'm saying is all crimes happen because, people who are doing it doesn't have enough social equity to be a good member of the society. Old people here in India used to say, English medicines treat symptoms not the disease. Punishing theft is somewhat like that, unless we uplift the communities that involve in crime, we can never stop crimes.
So if we determine that the main cause of stealing is thrill of highjacking the car and lack of empathy to car owner then the solution would be ... rewiring their brain?
Are you joking about the matching contributions to a retirement account part? If not I would be really curious to see how that works in that context. Not that I'm expecting a textbook on the subject or anything.
Colin (the aforementioned kid I grew up with) figured it was easier to attract good talent and keep them happy if he treated his operation like a professional job.
So, he employs his team through an auto-repair shop, where they're full-time employees with full benefits and he sets them up with a 401k (that he matches up to some percentage of, I don't know the number). That's pretty much unheard of among actual mechanics, never mind car thieves.
And he gets to cherry-pick his team, and they like the stability and "legitimate"-ness of the operation.
He's been doing it for a while, so his numbers must make it a good decision financially (he has elaborate spreadsheets of every facet of his business).
The most "boss" I ever got to look to impress a girl was in college when a friend of mine went out to Boston on a Friday and ended up at the end of the night having her car stolen. She calls me all upset, and I think, "Maybe I can see if Colin can get her car back."
So I call her an hour later and let her know that if she goes to a specific T-station parking lot, her car will be there. She calls me later and lets me know that, it is, indeed there, and there's a case of beer in the passenger seat with a note saying "Sorry".
Nerdy, adolescent me felt like a puffer fish that had puffed itself up.
If you know about Colin, then probably some other people know about him too. So when his business would start to scale (greed is inevitable) and would cause serious problems to society, somebody would sell Colin out.
401k's of mechanics could be used to pay off victim's compensation (so the mechanics could stay out of jail).
Do you actually need tech? I have locked myself out of several cars. It rarely takes me more than a few minutes to get back in, even if the best tool I've got is a tree branch.
I am always amazed by the efficiency and technological prowess that the kids I grew up with who steal cars apply to their trade (even if I wish they were involved in a better trade).
One kid I grew up with now has a ring of six guys working for him, paying good benefits and matching retirement accounts, where all they do are steal Honda Civics. Just that model. I swear he's implemented Kaizen into his workflow.