On crime in the COVID era
So I've been thinking lately about crime. Of course, there are many varieties of crime, and this is a big topic of discussion as the left rallies to the self-own of "Defund The Police." As we contemplate the many varieties of crime, one may think back to the famous line from Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd," shamelessly stolen by that overrated hack, Bob Dylan.
Interestingly enough, when those of the white collar persuasion have done their best to screw me over, they have generally favored ballpoint pens, whereas I am an honest, hipster douchebag who likes fountain pens as a weirdo affectation. And yes, I am watching their pens, and judging them for their pens, and I judge you for your pens. Hipster douchebag, like I said.
Moving on. Many varieties of crime, from white collar crime to street crime. Let's talk about violent street crime today. I am prompted by the various alerts I get through Case Western Reserve University about violent crime on or near campus. As you may or may not know, Case Western Reserve University is located spittin' distance from one of the more dangerous areas in the country-- East Cleveland. Criminals also don't seem to make the decision to steer clear of campus just because parents shell out numbers fast approaching six figures per year to pay the vastly inflated salaries of deanlets and deanlings, as Ben Ginsberg calls them. So, when street crimes happen in the neighborhood, we get alerts. White collar crimes, and the kinds of things Woody was talkin' 'bout? Nope. Nothin'. Street crime? Alerts.
I started thinking about this morning's post when I got one of the more recent crime alerts about a carjacking on campus. Part of my response was, OK, yeah, this is still happening. It's Case Western Reserve University. Violent crimes happen. It's not a safe place. This is a known thing. I attended a small college in a small college town, where we were safe wandering around not just in small groups, but alone late at night. It was cool. My first professorship was at Oberlin. Same deal. CWRU? No. It's just not safe at CWRU, and that's a known thing, even if they don't put that on the brochures, particularly when they are telling you the price tag.
Here's a tip for y'all. Carry a dummy wallet with some useless cards and a couple of bucks. Also, an old, dead-'n-wiped phone. If you get mugged, hand that stuff over without a fuss. Once a mugger gets your wallet and phone, he'll take off, none the wiser. Free tip.
That, though, won't help you with a carjacking, which was the prompt for this morning's post. So, I get the email alert saying, "hey, y'all. 'Nother carjacking. 'Nother day at CWRU. What'r'ya gonna do? Later, y'all" That's pretty much a direct quote, or at least, a close paraphrase. OK, a little bit of artistic license, but you get the point. In all seriousness, these kinds of things are very difficult on the victims, and we should have real sympathy for those who have been attacked in this way. If there were something I could do for them, I would do it. If you haven't noticed, humor is just how I deal with this stuff, and obviously, you're still reading, so if you don't dig this stuff... why are you still reading?
In tenure veritas. Academic freedom.
At a certain point, though, my reaction to being inundated with these emails is just, yeah, 'nother day, 'nother CWRU violent crime, 'cuz that's the kind of place I work.
Sing it, Woody!
And then, I got to thinking.
Hey! These assholes aren't engaging in proper social distancing! At least some of them wear masks. If they get caught, they can tell the judge they were being medically considerate. Particularly if they wore gloves too. "No, your honor! That wasn't to prevent fingerprints! We were trying to stop the spread of the coronavirus!"
So, yeah, crime is still a thing, and not just ballpoint-on-fountain pen crime. (Maybe to see the modern fountain pen criminals, I'd have to be high enough up for them to be the kind of douchebags to use Montblanc Meisterstucks.) And this got me thinking about workers in the modern economy.
Consider the "essential employee." In the context of modern dialog, the term has come to mean, interestingly enough, people like those working in grocery stores. Think back to March, when coronavirus cases started spiking, and the country shut down in order to "flatten the curve." You know who wasn't allowed to self-isolate? "Essential employees." You know, like the people working in grocery stores. Sure, there was also the category of people who could work from home, like, well... professors who created zoom classes, but that's not where I'm going here, obviously. My point is that coronavirus started to spread rapidly and exponentially, as viruses are wont to do, but for a certain category of people, they just couldn't do what was medically advised because of their role in the economy.
Back in March, a bunch of us went to warehouse stores, stocked up, and started using up more bandwidth on our home internet connections than we ever had in the past because we had the benefit of being able to work from home. A bunch more lost their jobs, and stayed home. And then, there was the category of people who had the capacity and indeed, necessity to continue working in spite of the increased medical risks. Those "essential workers."
Now, not very many people would call violent criminals "essential workers." Nor would we call white collar criminals "essential workers." Whether or not we consult Dick here is not the point. The point is about what happens as the nature of "the economy" changes. Note the quotation marks.
When COVID hit, essential workers of many varieties couldn't go into lockdown. Grocery store workers have been a particularly visible example. Yet, as the economy starts to reopen, economic decisions become more complex. Your individual risk of contracting coronavirus will depend on the extent to which you can socially distance in any given work environment, along with your health. Your mortality risk, should you contract coronavirus, will depend on many factors, particularly your age and health. Consider someone with a high risk of contracting coronavirus in a specific work environment, and high individual risk factors. Such a person would prefer to continue remaining in some level of social distancing. Yet, there is also a point, economically, at which this becomes unsustainable, and pressure comes to bear to put such people back into the workforce. We are seeing this play out, politically.
You see where I'm going with this, right?
What about the criminals? Won't someone please think of the criminals! Their rational calculation is actually rather similar. Health-wise, the risk of going out and mugging someone or carjacking someone is actually rather similar to the risk of any other "career" activity that involves violating the rules of social distancing. Yet, if your "income" depends on such things... what's a socioeconomic parasite to do?
This, I suppose, is the difference between white collar crime and violent street crime. One can be done while abiding social distancing. One cannot. The socioeconomic parasite who carjacks you on CWRU's campus is both taking a risk to his own personal safety in the COVID era because his career choice is one in which social distancing is impossible, and he also puts you at risk, not just because he's a violent criminal, but for that same lack of social distancing.
The very different parasite who robs you with a pen, fountain or otherwise, can probably do so while abiding CDC guidelines on social distancing. In principle, you might find yourself stuck in a room with that chitinous exoskeleton, and it might attempt to invade your six-foot social barrier to hand you its Meisterstuck, or more likely, a crappy ballpoint, but so much of that kind of crime (or at least, "crime") can happen via snail and electronic mail that this scenario is probably unnecessary. Even if you can't avoid this scenario, though, you can probably maintain six feet just by carrying your own damned pen. And stop asking to borrow mine. That would violate the six feet thing. I'm not loaning out my pens anymore. Not for a long time.
I don't know if there's any great insight here, but I find it interesting to note that criminals must make similar calculations to any worker in the modern economy regarding social distancing. Street criminals have income streams dependent on going out and interacting in a way that is not dissimilar to "essential workers," up to and including PPE. White collar criminals... well, this country has never taken white collar crime very seriously anyway.
Is it the collars or the melanin content? Hmmm. Not sure about that. Either way, they're gonna rob you, and the cops sure ain't gonna shoot 'em in the back or strangle them to death.
If you are worried about getting mugged, remember my advice. Dummy wallet, dead phone.
If someone is trying to rob you with a fountain pen, best get yourself your own fountain pen. Kind of digging the Pilot Custom 823 broad nib these days. Swords are so 15th Century.
Now, as through this world I rambled
I seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
Some with a fountain pen.
Interestingly enough, when those of the white collar persuasion have done their best to screw me over, they have generally favored ballpoint pens, whereas I am an honest, hipster douchebag who likes fountain pens as a weirdo affectation. And yes, I am watching their pens, and judging them for their pens, and I judge you for your pens. Hipster douchebag, like I said.
Moving on. Many varieties of crime, from white collar crime to street crime. Let's talk about violent street crime today. I am prompted by the various alerts I get through Case Western Reserve University about violent crime on or near campus. As you may or may not know, Case Western Reserve University is located spittin' distance from one of the more dangerous areas in the country-- East Cleveland. Criminals also don't seem to make the decision to steer clear of campus just because parents shell out numbers fast approaching six figures per year to pay the vastly inflated salaries of deanlets and deanlings, as Ben Ginsberg calls them. So, when street crimes happen in the neighborhood, we get alerts. White collar crimes, and the kinds of things Woody was talkin' 'bout? Nope. Nothin'. Street crime? Alerts.
I started thinking about this morning's post when I got one of the more recent crime alerts about a carjacking on campus. Part of my response was, OK, yeah, this is still happening. It's Case Western Reserve University. Violent crimes happen. It's not a safe place. This is a known thing. I attended a small college in a small college town, where we were safe wandering around not just in small groups, but alone late at night. It was cool. My first professorship was at Oberlin. Same deal. CWRU? No. It's just not safe at CWRU, and that's a known thing, even if they don't put that on the brochures, particularly when they are telling you the price tag.
Here's a tip for y'all. Carry a dummy wallet with some useless cards and a couple of bucks. Also, an old, dead-'n-wiped phone. If you get mugged, hand that stuff over without a fuss. Once a mugger gets your wallet and phone, he'll take off, none the wiser. Free tip.
That, though, won't help you with a carjacking, which was the prompt for this morning's post. So, I get the email alert saying, "hey, y'all. 'Nother carjacking. 'Nother day at CWRU. What'r'ya gonna do? Later, y'all" That's pretty much a direct quote, or at least, a close paraphrase. OK, a little bit of artistic license, but you get the point. In all seriousness, these kinds of things are very difficult on the victims, and we should have real sympathy for those who have been attacked in this way. If there were something I could do for them, I would do it. If you haven't noticed, humor is just how I deal with this stuff, and obviously, you're still reading, so if you don't dig this stuff... why are you still reading?
In tenure veritas. Academic freedom.
At a certain point, though, my reaction to being inundated with these emails is just, yeah, 'nother day, 'nother CWRU violent crime, 'cuz that's the kind of place I work.
Sing it, Woody!
And then, I got to thinking.
Hey! These assholes aren't engaging in proper social distancing! At least some of them wear masks. If they get caught, they can tell the judge they were being medically considerate. Particularly if they wore gloves too. "No, your honor! That wasn't to prevent fingerprints! We were trying to stop the spread of the coronavirus!"
So, yeah, crime is still a thing, and not just ballpoint-on-fountain pen crime. (Maybe to see the modern fountain pen criminals, I'd have to be high enough up for them to be the kind of douchebags to use Montblanc Meisterstucks.) And this got me thinking about workers in the modern economy.
Consider the "essential employee." In the context of modern dialog, the term has come to mean, interestingly enough, people like those working in grocery stores. Think back to March, when coronavirus cases started spiking, and the country shut down in order to "flatten the curve." You know who wasn't allowed to self-isolate? "Essential employees." You know, like the people working in grocery stores. Sure, there was also the category of people who could work from home, like, well... professors who created zoom classes, but that's not where I'm going here, obviously. My point is that coronavirus started to spread rapidly and exponentially, as viruses are wont to do, but for a certain category of people, they just couldn't do what was medically advised because of their role in the economy.
Back in March, a bunch of us went to warehouse stores, stocked up, and started using up more bandwidth on our home internet connections than we ever had in the past because we had the benefit of being able to work from home. A bunch more lost their jobs, and stayed home. And then, there was the category of people who had the capacity and indeed, necessity to continue working in spite of the increased medical risks. Those "essential workers."
Now, not very many people would call violent criminals "essential workers." Nor would we call white collar criminals "essential workers." Whether or not we consult Dick here is not the point. The point is about what happens as the nature of "the economy" changes. Note the quotation marks.
When COVID hit, essential workers of many varieties couldn't go into lockdown. Grocery store workers have been a particularly visible example. Yet, as the economy starts to reopen, economic decisions become more complex. Your individual risk of contracting coronavirus will depend on the extent to which you can socially distance in any given work environment, along with your health. Your mortality risk, should you contract coronavirus, will depend on many factors, particularly your age and health. Consider someone with a high risk of contracting coronavirus in a specific work environment, and high individual risk factors. Such a person would prefer to continue remaining in some level of social distancing. Yet, there is also a point, economically, at which this becomes unsustainable, and pressure comes to bear to put such people back into the workforce. We are seeing this play out, politically.
You see where I'm going with this, right?
What about the criminals? Won't someone please think of the criminals! Their rational calculation is actually rather similar. Health-wise, the risk of going out and mugging someone or carjacking someone is actually rather similar to the risk of any other "career" activity that involves violating the rules of social distancing. Yet, if your "income" depends on such things... what's a socioeconomic parasite to do?
This, I suppose, is the difference between white collar crime and violent street crime. One can be done while abiding social distancing. One cannot. The socioeconomic parasite who carjacks you on CWRU's campus is both taking a risk to his own personal safety in the COVID era because his career choice is one in which social distancing is impossible, and he also puts you at risk, not just because he's a violent criminal, but for that same lack of social distancing.
The very different parasite who robs you with a pen, fountain or otherwise, can probably do so while abiding CDC guidelines on social distancing. In principle, you might find yourself stuck in a room with that chitinous exoskeleton, and it might attempt to invade your six-foot social barrier to hand you its Meisterstuck, or more likely, a crappy ballpoint, but so much of that kind of crime (or at least, "crime") can happen via snail and electronic mail that this scenario is probably unnecessary. Even if you can't avoid this scenario, though, you can probably maintain six feet just by carrying your own damned pen. And stop asking to borrow mine. That would violate the six feet thing. I'm not loaning out my pens anymore. Not for a long time.
I don't know if there's any great insight here, but I find it interesting to note that criminals must make similar calculations to any worker in the modern economy regarding social distancing. Street criminals have income streams dependent on going out and interacting in a way that is not dissimilar to "essential workers," up to and including PPE. White collar criminals... well, this country has never taken white collar crime very seriously anyway.
Is it the collars or the melanin content? Hmmm. Not sure about that. Either way, they're gonna rob you, and the cops sure ain't gonna shoot 'em in the back or strangle them to death.
If you are worried about getting mugged, remember my advice. Dummy wallet, dead phone.
If someone is trying to rob you with a fountain pen, best get yourself your own fountain pen. Kind of digging the Pilot Custom 823 broad nib these days. Swords are so 15th Century.
First, most of that "street crime" would be committee outdoors (hence, "street"), and is thus, relatively safe. It's not the distance; it's the viral load.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I think most "street crime" is not committed by "criminals" as you imagine them, but by people who do that thing only some of the time. Many "drug dealers" are actually also retail workers. You know the saying "crime doesn't pay?" It's generally accurate. There are professional criminals, yes. Burglars tend towards that. But much of "street crime" is done by opportunistic amateurs.
Think about those carjackings. It's a BAD way to go about stealing a car. By definition, it has a witness. That witness might activate their OnStar or LoJack. The professional would know that they steal a Honda Accord off the street; many escape routes, easy to sell the car for parts, easy to look for eyewitnesses beforehand, car is unlikely to be reported missing for at least a few minutes if not hours, etc.
Whether crime is one's only source of income, or a secondary source is not really my point, though. The economics are similar, and actually, this rather strengthens one of my points.
DeleteMany retail jobs went away. That actually increases economic pressure to go out and look for what would have been a secondary source of income. Whether mugging or carjacking is smart is separate from whether or not it happens, and whether or not it is a primary income source is separate from its economic tradeoffs. I don't see these as fundamental challenges to my argument. If a person whose income stream is dependent, whether partially or fully, on engaging in social activities that don't recognize social distancing, there is something similar to essential workers. Moreover, the essential workers in grocery stores have the same issue you note! Many don't work full time solely at grocery stores. That, too, has rarely been a sole, full-time income source. I just don't see this as a challenge to the connection I was drawing.
You do, however, raise a better point about the fact that the interactions are outdoors. The six foot rule is primarily an indoor rule, but note the following. Getting someone's wallet and phone requires closing the distance much more, as does the carjacking process. How close you can get outdoors is not entirely clear, but once you are engaged in these kinds of activities, you are either directly in physical contact, or close enough to it, and at that point, I think that the benefits of moving to the outdoor setting are probably nullified.
The burglar, however, is really respecting your health and safety, I guess, unless he goes around and coughs on everything, but then again, some of the recent studies have suggested that contracting the virus from surfaces is more difficult than early reports indicated. So, I guess we should hate burglars the least. They're natural social distancers.