Thursday, November 28, 2013

A Not So Very Happy Thanksgiving for Some H Street Businesses

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I got a text earlier this morning informing me that Cusbah (1128 H Street) was burglarized, & thieves attempted to break into at least two other local establishments. Let's hope the damage is minimal, & that the culprits are apprehended quickly.

19 comments:

more of the same said...

I'm sure the thieves were good boys who just fell in with a bad crowd. Fortunately, our local criminal justice system will have them back home where they belong ASAP.

happy camper said...

more of the same,

Judging by how many people in DC have felony records, I don't think being "easy on crime" is part of the problem in DC. Good to know you're keeping that false meme alive, though!

Tom said...

Happy Camper, being convicted of a felony has zero correlation with time sentenced in prison. DC's notorious leniency on crime is not a meme but a known problem exacerbated by a lack of its own prison. Officials are wont to send offenders across the country to a federal penitentiary with high transfer charges for crimes not deemed to be violent. The meme therefore is your statement; not More of the Same's

happy camper said...

tom,

If you think too few people in DC have spent time in prison, you don't know many people who were born and raised in DC. You need a bit more diversity in your circle of friends and associates.

There is no city in America where black males experience a "lenient" "justice" system. You can't be serious. SMH.

Tom said...

"Too few" or "too many" is a subjective term. What matters, and the numbers back me up, is the amount of time spent in prison in comparison to similar crimes in other states. The fact is, DC is lenient on non-violent offenders. If many native-born DC residents have been to prison, that is irrelevant if they served a length of time commensurate with their crime. Furthermore, you do not know if I was born in DC, if my friends are from DC, or if I even live in DC. Those facts are irrelevant. DC is lenient on non-violent offenders. Sorry if those facts are not inline with your particular political ideology.

Anonymous said...

I do have to agree with Happy Camper, that White and Asian criminals are often let off the hook for their crimes but Blacks and Latinos are often put into jail for the same crimes. All races have criminals, but Blacks are disproportionately incarcerated.

Tom said...

Whoa. Who's talking about race? To assume that the criminals are black is actually racist in and of itself. All I said was DC is lenient to non-violent criminals like burglars. Race has nothing to do with DC's lenient laws. In fact, one could argue since the vast majority of crimes in DC are committed by African-Americans, they disproportionately benefit from DC's lenient laws. Now, is that racist Anonymous?

Anonymous said...

My response was in agreement with Happy Camper 4:50 PM, who brought race into the discussion and broadened the topic of the discussion (no longer DC-specific).

Tom said...

Perpetrators of murder upon blacks are more likely to receive the death penalty than those who are convicted of killing whites. Racist?

more of the same said...

happy camper -- in reply to your comment from 11/29 11:50pm -- your "false meme" comment is absurd. It's true that a lot of people in DC have felony records. It's also irrelevant. I encourage you to spend some significant time with police in this town, as I have on ride-alongs, Orange Hat walks, and conversations over a beer or three. You'll get more opportunities than you'd wish for to hear officers expressing frustration at arresting the same people for the same sorts of crimes over and over and over and over, only to have the USAO decide they're too overloaded to paper the case, or a judge to decide that a just-convicted young offender would be best served by being sent home to his family to serve his "punishment". Criminal justice in DC is a joke.

Anonymous said...

Come on people, this isn't about race. Some enterprising gentlemen just took it upon themselves to redistribute the wealth.

Wait... Is assuming that they're gentlemen sexist? It's so hard to keep track any more.

Anonymous said...

Don't like harsh sentences. Do not break any laws try being a decent human being, and stop making excuses.

Anonymous said...

What were the other establishments?

Anonymous said...

The pro law and order crowd begins with asserting that being convicted of a felony has no correlation to time served (it has a huge correlation, i.e. a felony is a crime punishable by a year or more, and many have mandatory minimums of 5 years or more), follow up with suggesting we all spend more time with cops to get an objective perspective, and end with the "don't do the crime if you can't do the crime" trope, as if we should just be agnostic about sentencing and all be good law abiding citizens (great solution!).

The fact is in this country, more than 1% of our population is in prison, and the overwhelming majority of that prison population is black. We have chosen to spend our money on imprisonment (in no small part due to massive private prison lobbies) rather than helping communities in need. The rich poor gap is growing, the school gap is growing even faster, and to it's asinine to discuss prison rates without delving in to how it interplays with those issues. And rather than asking how D.C. stacks up to other states in terms of sentence length (we're fairly lenient on that metric), maybe the better question is how we stack up against the plethora of other developed nations that have nowhere near our crime rate and are far more lenient on sentencing.




Tom said...

Anonymous 11:55, you go on a liberal diatribe, yet in the end, agree with the main point of this whole thread. DC is lenient on crime. That's all we were saying. So to come full circle, it is nice for a liberal like yourself to agree with me and More of the Same. Race has nothing to do with DC's leniency (unless you conclude an majority black government goes easy on defendants who are majority black-as I do), and all the income disparity (whatever that really means), education shortfalls, etc. etc., have nothing to do with criminals being back on the street in a short period of time to commit crime again. It's a non-sequitur, but thanks for playing

Anonymous said...

I don't agree that D.C. is lenient on crime, if you read my post, it says that the better comparison is not between D.C. and other states, but between D.C. (you can include the rest of America if you want) and the rest of the industrialized world.

With reading comprehension like yours, and your brilliant insights (what does income disparity really mean? that's what you're coming at me with?), it's safe to say I am no match for you Tom.

Tom said...

Anonymous 11:36, so did you agree with your previous statement before you were against it? In your 11:00 post you said "And rather than asking how D.C. stacks up to other states in terms of sentence length (we're fairly lenient on that metric)."

Regarding your insult to my intelligence, income inequality or the wealth gap as it is also known, is a false metric. As society progresses and advances, the wealth gap should increase. Since wealth cannot be less than zero, but can increase ad infinitum, the gap must necessarily increase. In communist models the central planners reduce this gap by decreasing the prevalence of wealth accumulation. Rather than lifting everyone through redistribution (there is not enough wealth to go around, even in the US), decreasing the gap actually causes everyone to be poorer (except the elite central planners and their cronies.)

Anyway, thanks again for playing.

Anonymous said...

Tom has said the following: "being convicted of a felony has zero correlation with time sentenced in prison" and "Perpetrators of murder upon blacks are more likely to receive the death penalty than those who are convicted of killing whites" (your odds of getting the death penalty go up about 300% if you get a white).

Nobody would insult your intelligence Tom, it would be like insulting a unicorn.

Tom said...

Anonymous @ 10:31. You repeat my past statements as if they aren't true yet leave no comment to my successful challenge of yours. Whether one commits a felony or not is not the dispositive indicator of sentence length. It is whether the crime is violent or non-violent. So burglary, a felony to be sure, does not guarantee a prison sentence of any length, as More of the Same originally said. Since it was non-violent, those responsible are likely to be back on the street for the reasons More of the Same replied to in his post @ 11:47 PM. Facts are inconvenient. You are turning this into a political conversion and using personal attacks to advance your flawed, demonstrably agenda.