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What are some good ideas, as an individual, for decreasing street crime in highly Democratic-leaning cities, other than just moving away? Recently I have been getting more and more fed up with the failure of my local government to provide basic safety - which is, after all, reasonably speaking the most important purpose of government. I want to apologize to @2rafa for having yelled at her about this kind of stuff a year or two back. Perhaps she was simply more aware of the problem than I was at the time. At this point I am reaching near Bukele levels of willingness to crack down hard on the problem.
I am a techie, I do software. I've recently thought that well, given my concerns, maybe I should go work in law enforcement. I think that at this point I am probably too old to become a cop, but I could probably provide useful services in other ways. What stops me is that I quite simply disagree with the laws against recreational drugs on a very fundamental level. I am sure that I am not the only one. I cannot in good conscience side with the cops who enforce such fundamentally illiberal laws. On the other hand, if one has to choose the lesser of two evils, then I do, despite all my disagreements with the justice system, see the cops as being a lesser evil than street criminals, even despite the fact that they enforce the anti-drug laws that I view as fundamentally wrong. This is not something that should be seen as me praising cops, it is just that street criminals are such scum that even cops are vastly better.
My problem with the drug war is not just rooted in my libertarian-esque attitudes about the proper bounds of government. It is also rooted in me seeing that the war on drugs turns the banned drugs into a highly valuable and easily produced form of underground currency and thus directly leads to the growth of drug gangs and cartels that are, clearly, responsible for a good share of the street crime that I am seeking to curb.
Other than complaining on social media, which raises awareness but does not necessarily accomplish that much, what can one do in cities which are failing to provide basic safety? What are some actionable ideas, things that might actually help, whether it is some sort of viable plan for forming a vigilante militia or a plan for influencing local elections? I am open to suggestions. I know that statistics say that street crime is down a lot from the 1980s and early 90s, but that is small comfort for me because I have little memory of those years. What I know is that I subjectively feel that the level of street crime now is too high compared to what I would wish it to be, and I would like to do something about it. If moving away from the failed cities is the only reasonable course of action, fair enough. But is it, or can something actually be done to fight back against the problem?
By the way, given that this is The Motte, I know that people will likely read a racial angle into the issue. Which is fair, given the crime statistics that most of us are aware of. But anecdotally speaking, out of the five or so times that I have been attacked by street criminals of various sorts over the course of my life, four of the five times were a case of white men doing the attacking. So while I totally understand that statistically speaking, there is a racial discrepancy in this sort of thing, at the same time it is clear to me that we do not just have a problem with non-white people. We also have a pretty significant issue with street scum whites who act in these kinds of ways. There is a general problem with territorial idiots, drug dealer gangsters, violent insane homeless, etc...
Can you clarify what exactly you're seeking regarding safety that you're not getting now? Is this impacting your life directly, and if so, how?
Edit: looks like you added more detail in an edit, saying that you were attacked directly, so feel free to disregard. But I guess more info about those attacks might be useful. What was the context, what was the motive, what was the outcome, etc?
In my case for awhile we had mailboxes being hit frequently, sometimes more than once a week. We also had a park a few blocks away used as a free shooting range a couple of times in the early morning hours.
We live in a wealthy neighborhood in a suburb of Seattle. My home is more than a couple million bucks and it’s not the nicest one around. Our cops are actually responsive and pretty good at tracking down criminals. But felonies are adjudicated at the county level, and the criminals know that unless they murder someone it’s not going to be taken all that seriously.
Even murders aren’t taken that seriously recently. A guy got killed when he confronted car prowlers in a mall parking lot. Prosecutors asked for 14 years, the judge handed out 12.5 year sentences, which certainly means less than 12.5 years: https://komonews.com/amp/news/local/men-who-murdered-victim-during-car-burglary-at-southcenter-mall-sentenced-to-prison-murder-stealing-cars-hyundai-stolen-vehicle-surveillance-video-king-pierce-counties-washington-tukwila
Isn't vandalising mailboxes a federal offence?
I made a report to the postal service once, got back a form response, and nothing else happened. I think my report was probably better than average since I had the theft on video, though wasn't able to read the thief's license plate.
Here's the response I got in December of last year:
Alas, we are a long ways away from the days of Postal Service Badassery.
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