Confessions of a security guy

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

I was going to turn this into a rant about all the crazy things the police have been up to recently. But I decided to save that for later. Here's a few thoughts about racism instead.

I recently filed a report on insulting behaviour, as well as for petty theft, against one of our regulars - likely the most criminally active elderly woman in the country. I've arrested her countless times before all across town, and usually she doesn't say much at all - but this time, she was apparently in a bad enough mood to make more than a couple of offensive statements regarding the shade of my skin. The police officers who arrived at the scene were also in a good enough mood to crank the charges up to molestation, which is a much more severe crime. Now, formally speaking, I actually am white. I have in my possession a copy of my birth certificate, of which I also keep a photo in my phone. Basically, what it certifies is that having been born right at the end of a military dictatorship, in a country with a history of racial segregation (as well as miscegenation, of course) arguably more severe than even the US, I actually qualify as a white guy. I also told the aforementioned arrestee this very fact, to which she responded that I "wasn't white in her eyes". I can't really say that I'm surprised, but I truly am surprised sometimes at how people can't just open their eyes and see what's right in front of them.

These days, whenever I'm asking for something in a store, or ordering something at a restaurant, I usually have to repeat myself, sometimes two or three times. It doesn't matter if I'm buying clothes in a hipster-infested inner city neighborhood, or ordering shawarma out somewhere in a random suburban ghetto - people always seem to have a hard time hearing what I say. You'd think that this has something to do with me speaking too quickly or having a slurred speech pattern of some sort, if it wasn't for two simple facts - one; I never have this problem with people who know me, and two; I never have this problem when talking on the phone - not even when I'm talking to a complete stranger for the first time ever.

The simple explanation to this phenomenon, is that when people see me, they expect me to sound like Achmed the Dead terrorist whenever I'm talking, or someone who regularly gets the crap beaten out of him by Jack Bauer in defense of freedom and democracy. When I don't, they simply can't believe or fathom what they're actually hearing me say.
Adding to this is the fact that I regularly get mistaken for a professional thief myself - even in stores where I've worked for years. It's especially prevalent around May and June, when most stores hire new, younger employees to compensate for the regular staff going on vacation. The strange thing however, is that this wasn't nearly as common before 2011 as it is now. And more often than not, it's blonde girls around 20 that seem to be the most suspicious of me...despite the fact that I've always put in effort to dress and carry myself in a completely different manner than most guys from the Middle East and North Africa do around here.
(Which includes two of my four former bosses, I might add.)

What my job boils down to a lot of the time is being prejudiced as all hell about other people based on looks alone. But I really do believe that I've managed fairly well to shape my prejudice into something of a precision tool.

Whenever you tell people that you feel Pac and Biggie to be two of the most overrated rappers of all time, there are usually two possible outcomes. One is that people will pick a fight with you. The second goes somewhere along the lines of "yeah, well, maybe Pac wasn't the most talented rapper out there, but he possessed an unique ability to describe 'the pain', you know, the anguish of being a victim of institutionalized racism all your life and having to live as a thug to make ends meet and being screwed over for life by the system and Dear Mama and blah blah blah blah..." Well, even if that were true I'd still call him overrated, but I can definitely agree on the idea of "the pain".

Take, for instance, the previous resident of the apartment which I now inhabit. Despite him being a black man from Baltimore with an almost uncanny resemblance to a young OJ Simpson, there is no way in hell I would ever have scoped him out for more than a second if I had ever encountered him while on the job.
Everything about him just exudes kindness and harmony in a way that is quite rare to see these days, even among people born into far more well-off families than he was. Happy and content people don't steal stuff - that much I feel like I can state with certainty, what with something like 5 000 arrests under my belt. But once you've learned to recognize "the pain", you're able to identify it in people from all conceivable walks of life. It manifests differently in people of different ethnicities and/or social classes, but at the core it remains the same - though I'm not always so sure if it's due to them feeling that society owes them something, or the other way around - that they feel that they don't owe society anything.

I like to think that this would be a completely different world, if people in general took the time out to actually observe others before passing judgement on them. It's the small details that enable you to tell apart the true manipulative psychopath from the fundamentally decent guy who was dealt a bad hand by life. As it is, however, it seems that this digitalized age has made it increasingly difficult for people sitting behind their screens all day to actually see the discrepancy between what people say they are, and what they really are. "I'm a good person", the bad person says. And everyone else just says "Ok! Who's hungry? I'm making pork sliders!"

Or as En Vogue once put it, "before you can read me you've got to learn how to see me."

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

On a daily basis, the way many incidents are handled is somewhat of a grey area. Generally speaking, if you ask people who have an ID with them, they'll willingly produce it and show it to you. Thing is, I'd wager that most people feel obligated to show their ID, even though they're not legally required to do so until the police arrive. I'll also willingly admit that myself and most people I know take advantage of this fact, but every now and then you'll encounter people who refuse to show their ID. This is perfectly fine, but also means that the police have to come to the scene.
Now, the law explicitly states that a person apprehended is to be handed over to the police as soon as possible. However, a referral from the Council On Legislation dated 2005 also states that there exists no legal obstacle preventing someone from having arrested a person to release said person without the police having to arrive to the scene. The reasoning behind this is that since we don't have the same density of police personnel compared to, let's say, the US, the time it takes for the police to arrive might very well become unreasonably long, compared to the relative minor seriousness of the crime. However - and I was unaware of this for quite some time - apparently, calling the police and informing them that you've apprehended a person ALSO constitutes them being "handed over". At that point, the police may very well decide that they currently don't have the manpower to come to the scene in a reasonable amount of time. Should that be the case, the standard procedure - if the suspect has a valid ID - is to read the person's name, date of birth and personal identity number to the operator, at which point the person may be released if he/she isn't wanted for other crimes. Technically, you're also supposed to ask for the name and service number of the police officer authorizing the release of the person, but a lot of people don't bother doing that anymore, and nobody really seems to mind.

There also used to be a specialized number guards were told to call in cases such as these - to be honest I'm not certain if it's in use anymore, and it was only meant to be used within city limits - where a suspect with a valid ID who confessed to the crime could interrogated over the phone, and as such the investigation would be finalized then and there. The method wasn't without it's problems, however - to begin with, there were two administrative sections, the southside and downtown district, who quite often attempted to pass the issue over to one another as soon as you called either one. And that's assuming anyone bothered to answer to begin with, which wasn't always the case. On top of that, this also required the person responsible for the apprehension to divulge his/her name, address, phone number and personal ID number within earshot of the person apprehended. You can probably imagine how I felt when I realized that the last person on which I used this method was the leader of a militant left-wing organisation...

Now, as to what all this has to do with the police:

I won't cover all the specific details here, but in august of 2014, the police union and the central police authority agreed on a new guaranteed minimum salary for newly hired police officers. For the few months that the agreement was upheld, I can say that I've rarely encountered happier police before or after. But of course, the deal was scrapped before long, which has lead to the current situation where rookie police quite often earn more than most people with eight to ten years on the force, and as you might imagine, quite a lot of police officers are, mildly put, unhappy about the situation.

For me personally, the whole thing culminated in two separate incidents in July of 2014. I brought in this guy who attempted to walk right out with a big pack of ice cream hidden underneath his t-shirt - naturally, he was high as a kite, to the point where he was unable to stand up straight for more than a few seconds. The police showed up, and for some reason, one of the officers was PO-ed at me for not having been able to reach me on the phone. I told him that I gave the operator the number to the landline of the store, since it's located partially underground and there's virtually no cell phone coverage whatsoever, but he was still pissed at not having been able to reach me. Why? Well, because, he said, if they'd managed to get in contact with me, I could just have read them name and number of his ID and sent him on his way. This was where I started getting more than a little puzzled.
"But you just checked him yourself and he didn't have any ID, did he?" I responded.
"No, but if he would have, we wouldn't have had to come here in the first place".
"And," I said, "the guy's totally smacked, I can't just send people high on drugs away".
"That's not for you to decide, is it? We're the ones who decide whether or not we're going to show up or not, let's get that thing straight!"
This was where I noticed the whole conversation was heading sideways, so I opted to get out and back to work as soon as possible. Finally, I said:
" Ok, let's say the guy would have had any kind of ID on him and not have been this high. Were you under the impression that I was unaware of the fact that I could have dealt with it on the phone under those circumstances?"
" Well it sure seems that way!"
"Ok, you were wrong. Have a nice day" I said, handing over the report and started walking out. But that's when the cop started getting REALLY furious.
"IS THERE A F-ING PROBLEM HERE!?" he all but shouted at me. "Not in the least", I responded. "I just think you're behaving a bit strangely. My directives are to have a police squad come to the scene if the suspect lacks ID, is a minor, has his permanent residency in another country, has been violent, openly denies the theft, is high or inebriated or has any weapons or drugs on his person. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to work."

But I didn't go back to work. Instead, I went out and called up their station chief. I said that "squad car number so-and-so just showed up to pick up a person that I'd apprehended, and they told me that if a person has a valid ID on him, it doesn't matter if he is high as all hell on every conceivable opium derivative, I can still just read his ID to the operator, send him on his way and hand in a written report later. Is this all right with you?" The answer I received was akin to jell-o being nailed to a wall - he basically said that it was all right, but that I "should be careful about it" - whatever the hell that means.

As a regular guard, my apprehending someone is, as I've mentioned before, what you would refer to in English as a citizen's arrest. Upon doing so, I'm allowed to utilize paragraph 19, section 1 of the police act in searching the suspect for weapons - meaning weapons and dangerous objects *ONLY*. I am not, however, allowed to forcefully procure a suspect's ID card or passport for the purpose of establishing said person's identity. This begs the question - just how am I supposed to have a heroin addict bring forth his ID card, if he/she at the same time is doped up to the point of not being able to stand up properly? Especially if that ID is lying in a pocket or compartment full of syringes? Not to mention the fact that as a guard, and not a peace officer, I have no legal means of physically removing the person from the premises, should the need arise - which I would say is quite likely to occur with someone barely able to walk on his/her own.

Fast forward a week and a half - I bring in this Georgian dude who'd just stuffed his backpack full of coffee, as they're prone to do every now and then. Guess who shows up? That's right, same PO-ed cop as last time. He immediately walks up to me and says he wants to have a chat with me, to which I respond that I suggest we both do what we're paid to do instead. He outright refuses and says that we're gonna sort a few things out first.
(I realize that at that point I should basically have told him to shut up and do his job or I would report him for professional misconduct, but you're always cleverer in hindsight, right?)
Naturally, he's more than a bit annoyed at me having called up one of his bosses. But I persist in telling him that if a person is high on drugs, I'm going to make sure that a patrol car arrives at the scene (for reasons mentioned above) and that there's absolutely nothing he can do about it. That's the point where, suddenly, his colleague chimes in and says "are you trying to pat us on our head or something!? We're your supervisors, you're responsible to us when you've made an arrest, WE decide when and if we're going to show up!" "No, you're not", I respond, "because firstly I'm not a peace officer so you can't order me around like you're able to with them, and second, I'm fully allowed to release a person I've apprehended at my own behest, there's a referral by the Council of Legislation that confirms this, check out their webpage and type in the search words 'shoplifting' and you'll find it". At this point, the original cop somehow manages to turn the whole thing into a kind of passive-aggressive tirade about how he "from the goodness of his heart" meant to inform me of the fact that a suspect may very well be released without the police having to show up at all - something he was completely unaware of during the eight years he worked as a guard himself. This is where I lose it.

"Oh, you worked as a guard? Well, that explains pretty much everything as far as I'm concerned! See, nine times out of ten, guards who become cops start hating their former colleagues, case in point - that Asian ***** whom as far as I could tell pretty much everyone over at Securitas couldn't stand. She showed up and berated me for being too rough on a kid, to which I did nothing but grab his arm and tell him we wanted to talk with him, not to mention the fact that they brought a friggin' K9 unit for backup! On top of that, she refused to follow me to the office and insisted on interrogating me in full view of the public in a hardware store where roughly 30-40 percent of the customers are gang members and career criminals! So yeah, I don't find it strange whatsoever that you're obviously more interested in trying to put me down than doing what you actually signed up for!"

The two easiest ways to tell that people are lying to you are as follows - one is that they go "huh? What?" when you ask them something. Two is that they look slightly upwards and to the left - i.e. your right - when talking to you. And that is exactly the direction where this police officer is looking when he tells me that he isn't aware of any of that, and that he believes that he's more capable of understanding our work situation due to his past experiences.

I called up his station chief once more when they'd left and told him what had transpired. Next time I met him, he left me well enough alone. Though for some reason, he also lied to my colleague about the rain having ceased that day.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

What is this gibberish?

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

It's also happened a few times that people with experience of working within either the British or American system of justice have assumed that the legal standards to which they're accustomed apply to my own current condition as well. I can understand perfectly well that when you've spent a considerable amount of time operating within a given framework, you don't always respond well to being presented with scenarios in which what you previously thought to be applicable, no longer is.

:|

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

A wise man once said, if you aren't confused, you don't understand the problem.

Several years ago, I wrote on another forum that me and most of my colleagues don't want the police's job (everyone I know of who did has succeeded in attaining it), and they don't want ours. My own reasoning behind that was that we earn more, work better hours, have more employment opportunities available if we cease being able to get along with our bosses, and aren't legally required to intervene in our spare time. I surmised that the police, on the other hand, prefer to be in the employment of the state rather than evil, profit-driven companies, as well being able to tackle more than just street-level crime.
Instead, this was interpreted as bragging on my part. Four days ago, an article was published containing an interview with a local police chief, who went on to state the following: "They're forced to do the real dirty work in areas no one, not even us, want to visit. We'd like to do more for them but we have neither resources nor the support of our bosses." "...the well-meaning, anti-racist oriented civilians, who intervene without knowing either the background or the larger picture of what's really happened, still have some respect for the police. Peace officers, guards and undercover loss prevention personnel - the ones who truly are standing in the frontlines - are basically just meat to these people."

Now, I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for me. As I've told my boss every time he's neglected to provide the debriefing opportunities the police take for granted, at the end of the day we're all adults and we've willfully put ourselves in this position.
Besides, I've been around long enough to know which fights to choose and which ones to avoid - or rather prevent.
What I would prefer, however, is that people take the time out to get at least some semblance of understanding of the issue at hand before they start passing judgement.

See, the aforementioned police chief, whilst coming across as fairly sympathetic, made the same error countless others before him had done - he failed at being able to tell guards and peace officers apart. He also seemed to be under the impression that people in loss prevention are not guards per se, since he made a reference to the tragic occurrence thirteen years ago, when one person was stabbed to death and two others were severely wounded as they attempted to apprehend a drugged up shoplifter. The man who was murdered was, in fact, a peace officer, and this incident was the starting point of the debate suggesting that guards, and not only peace officers, should be allowed to carry expandable batons (neither fixed nor expandable batons were allowed at the place where the incident occurred, since the store owners wanted it that way - another problem you don't have when you're in the state's employment). While the differences between guards and peace officers may seem negligible to some, they are not, and failing to recognize this fact can actually have dire results for everyone involved.

As a peace officer, you're basically required to do whatever the police tell you to do. If, for instance, you're working the door of a nightclub, and about one or two blocks away, a massive brawl breaks loose, the police are fully in their right to order you to come over there and assist them for as long as they need you to - and there's absolutely nothing the club owner can do about it. Granted, they're more likely to call for more of their own, but it is theoretically possible.
On the other hand, if you're a regular guard walking the street about to head inside an office complex to make sure all the doors are locked, and the police ask you to come along and assist them - you can basically stick out your tongue at them, and there's nothing they can do about it. This, however, is a type of legal double-edged sword.
A while ago, a peace officer was indicted for assault as he'd repeatedly struck a resisting suspect over the arms with his expandable baton, for the purpose of "softening him up", as he put it, so as to facilitate putting handcuffs on him. The peace officer, through his defense lawyer (another thing that separates our legal system from that of the US is that you can have exactly whichever lawyer you want, and the fees are all standardized) stated that the police had instructed him to do exactly that, and they even called up the officer who had been his instructor to act as a witness. Said instructor confirmed this - that is indeed what he had taught the class to do. The prosecutor then asked where the legal basis for this could be found, and the instructor basically said "well, I don't know, but it seemed perfectly reasonable to me!"

In the end, the peace officer was acquitted, for the simple reason that while the actions that he'd undertaken had no basis in legality, he as a peace officer is obligated to follow the instructions of the police, and was thus found lacking in intent to commit a wrongful assault. Had this man been a regular guard, however, he would have been unable to refer to the police, since he would not be legally required to follow their instructions, not to mention not having been trained by them.

I tend to run into the same problem, only the other way around, and usually it's when there are children involved.

A guy who came here as a refugee from Colombia when he was little, and who went on to become a policeman, was recently given a sort of "Hero of The Year" award, mainly because he'd managed to become a role model of sorts for at-risk youth. It's the same old story as always; "ethnic" police officers - as well as guards, in some instances - are always brought forth as a means of getting through to the "racialized" - as the sociology mafia would put it - ghetto kids in a way that other police can't. (Given my own complexion, some believe I should be a master at this myself - thing is, I was raised by intellectual, globe-trotting middle class parents who had me read books and consider everyone my equal. This tends to shine through and put me at a disadvantage, especially when I come into contact with people from ME/NA countries - although to be fair my best friend in grade school was French-Moroccan.) This very concern for kids, however, could have gone on to land me or one of my colleagues in serious trouble.

Last autumn, I brought in this eleven year old boy for the usual petty theft, called the police, and this same Colombian guy showed up. He sees the kid, and immediately asks me to have a word with him outside. I knew exactly what he was going to say - he intended to berate me for not simply taking the stuff back and sending the boy on his way. Sure enough, he asked me if there hadn't been any other way for me to have handled the situation. Now sure, I could have told him to put back or pay for the stuff in his backpack before he'd left the store, but there would have been nothing preventing him from going home to his parents, telling them that he was accused of theft whilst still in the store, and the parents then heading off to the nearest newspaper and/or the anti-discrimination authorities to make a big deal out of it - a very real possibility which is greatly exacerbated if the family turns out to have a Romani surname, for obvious reasons. I also said this to the policeman in question, who answered "but you wouldn't have accused him of anything?" Well, no, but since when are tabloids concerned with what actually happened, especially if there would be no documentation of the incident to be found?
Still, this is all above and beyond the legal issues.

When you apprehend children - that is, individuals under the age of 15 - you're not utilizing the rights provided to you in the Code of Judicial Procedure, but rather what's known as the Youthful Offenders Act. This act is _very_ specific on one point, and that is that NO forceful measures may be utilized against minors apart from those mentioned within, and there is no mention of reclaiming stolen goods to be found there. Many people mistakenly believe that what's written in the penal code regarding self-defense is what governs the right to reclaim stolen property:

"A right to act in self-defence exists against... a person who violently or by the threat of violence or in some other way obstructs the repossession of property when caught in the act."

However, this only provides you with an excemption from criminal responsibility regarding the use of force under said circumstances. The actual legal support for the reclaiming of stolen property is found in a kind of amendment to the penal code, but this amendment is not mentioned at all in the Youful Offenders Act. What this means is that it is impossible to verifiably state whether or not it would be legal for anyone, a guard, peace officer or anyone else, to forcefully reclaim stolen goods taken from a minor, primarily because a legal precedent has never been set. If that were to happen, it would likely be on the grounds of a guard, or perhaps store owner, being charged with unlawful coercion against said minor, and personally I have no wish to be the defendant in the trial in which the matter would be investigated. But above and beyond all this is the fact that the County Administrative Board, which is the governing authority for regular guards, have explicitly forbidden this course of action. I personally called up their chief lawyers, who went on to tell me the following: if it were to come to their attention that guards have used any kinds of coercive measures against minors without contacting the police, or for that matter, outside the boundaries of a legal apprehension, they would _immediately_ withdraw the work authorization for said guard, and quite likely, the whole security company as well.
And yet here we have yet another policeman who, presumably out of some kind of misguided intention to prevent kids from becoming "traumatized" by being arrested, is suggesting that we follow that exact course of action, rather than that which happens to be the only legal method available to us.

 

[Tgace]

Shrine of the Mall Ninja

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

 

[ballen0351]

Shrine of the Mall Ninja

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

Thats Amazing. I was training a rookie a few years ago and I noticed duct tape on his boot. I asked him about it and he was taping a boot knife to his leg. I asked what else he was hiding under his uniform and he had another knife taped to his vest, knee pads, a gardeners kneeling pad between his vest and body "To absorb impacts" 5 hand cuff keys hidden on him in case hes taken hostage. He didnt last long. His final straw was on a domestic the woman said he husband put her in an arm bar. He didnt understand what she ment and asked to see her arm and then proceeded almost snap her arm before I could stop him.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Shrine of the Mall Ninja

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

I remember this one. Cool!

 

[Bill Mattocks]

And I repeat, what the actual crud is this gibberish?

 

[ballen0351]

And I repeat, what the actual crud is this gibberish?

Its the greatest thread EVER

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Its the greatest thread EVER

About what, I have no idea.

 

[ballen0351]

About what, I have no idea.

I dont either but its great fun

 

[ballen0351]

a very real possibility which is greatly exacerbated if the family turns out to have a Romani surname, for obvious reasons

This was my Fav part for obvious reasons...

 

[Jenna]

and the parents then heading off to the nearest newspaper and/or the anti-discrimination authorities to make a big deal out of it - a very real possibility which is greatly exacerbated if the family turns out to have a Romani surname, for obvious reasons.

To me there are certain racial undertones in your comment and so I would be very interested indeed to know specifically what are those "obvious reasons" you have referred to here and what exactly are you implying from it.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

And I repeat, what the actual crud is this gibberish?

If you're honestly interested, read the first post in the thread and start act like a grownup.

To me there are certain racial undertones in your comment and so I would be very interested indeed to know specifically what are those "obvious reasons" you have referred to here and what exactly are you implying from it.

Basically the point is that one of the side effects of intersectionality is that the most disadvantaged person is always assumed to be in the right. But it's a complex situation that differs quite a bit from what I'm guessing most of you reading this are used to.

If a guard files a report of a hate crime for having been called white trash by a person from the Middle East, the police are likely to drop the charges because the guard in question is blonde and light-skinned - even if he also happens to be of Romani descent, which was the reason for reporting the crime in the first place.
If a person says he's going to smash my face in if the police don't arrive soon, the charges will be dropped, but if he says that he's going to smash my face in because I'm an effing spick when I'm off duty, I get paid approximately 750 USD for the trouble.
If it's discovered that the police have been keeping secret lists and registries over suspected and/or convicted criminals as well as their families, all of whom have happened to be Romani, all hell breaks loose.
But if a black man and his infant son are thrown off a bridge after having been called the N word, and the perpetrators happen to be part of a Kurdish family no one dares to testify against, there's not a single word said about it being a hate crime.

All in all, it's a huge and complicated mess.

 

[seasoned]

ATTENTION ALL USERS:

Please, keep the conversation polite and respectful.

Martial Talk Senior Moderator
Wes Yager
(seasoned)

 

[Tgace]

Shrine of the Mall Ninja

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

Gecko45 writes:

quote: Originally posted by SPECOPS:

Stay safe Gecko45! I got your back brother!You see, some people here understand the risks we security officers undergo to protect you people, would we exist if our jobs were useless??? I tell you that we are undervalued for our beneficial effect on society at large, for the urban and suburban shopping centers see %80 of the armed violence in this nation, and why don’t the cops take care of it, because they are a bunch of wusses, and they are not man enough to put up with the danger and stress. You all who are makeing fun of me have never been threatened by jailed drug dealers, serial killers, and shoplifters, or fired at by high powered rifles so excuse me if I decide to have good weapons to protect and defend myself without all of you makeing fun of my choice, and they way I do my job!

Rock on my LP brothers....Rock On.


Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Imagine a tennis match in which the referee regularly interrupts the game in order to mock one or both of the players, or to give them instructions on how to serve and perform backhand strikes. Sometimes, he takes away their rackets and instructs them to throw the ball over the net instead. Finally, he sends both players into the showers in order to accept the cheers of the audience for himself. Both players have long since realised that what really matters aren't the actual rules, but the referee's own interpretation of said rules - which tends to follow the same line of thought as the art of medicine in the Middle Ages; a whole lot of guesses and opinions, and very little fact.

This pretty much describes the current relationship between the security business and the police.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

There was a time, long ago - around the same time as Stillmatic dropped - when I too was the kind of person who believed that it's always society that is to blame for people committing crimes.
I realised however after not too long a time that things aren't quite that simple. It's more of case-to-case basis. This one's society's fault, this one's his/her own, that one is his/her own and over here we've got a combination...etc.

It may be slightly cynical of me, but I've come to realise over the years that a lot of the legal predicaments people tend to find themselves in are, at the end of the day, comprised of one bad decision stapled on top of countless other bad decisions. As I've said earlier, I've been accused before of not having a conscience, due to my apprehending destitute single mothers stealing diapers and whatnot.

That's not how things tend to go down in reality.

I remember the little dude with baggy pants and spiky hair with the cider cans, obviously feeling like he's being neglected amongst his siblings. I can understand that much. What I can't understand is why five years later, he celebrates graduating from high school by attempting to stab both his parents to death, allegedly because of a marijuana-induced psychotic episode.
I remember the little boy who needed duct tape for his skateboard but apparently was short on money. Less than ten years later, he's one of the major drug traffickers in the area and was recently handed a 3,5 year sentence.
I remember the first guy I apprehended, a seventeen-year old high school dropout with a single mom. Shortly thereafter, he was featured in a newspaper article on how he's managed to turn his life around after a construction company took him in. Apparently he chose to display his gratitude by means of assault, rape, robbery and possession.

I also think that we can - and should - maintain the discussion about why so many of these people are listed as "no pork" on the food cards in jail, why so many of them have Polish, Georgian, Mongolian and Roma names, why so many of them return with the predictability of the sunrise, why so many of them reside in the same areas, and why so many people far better off in terms of material standards maintain the knee-jerk reaction to come to their defense, however heinous their crimes.
Also, we can - and should - debate what these constant arrests are actually good for in the long run, why the police have become so INSANELY inconsistent in their handling of the situation, as well as to what extent store owners and staff are part of the problem (because believe me, they are, in more ways than one).

 

[Tez3]