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I try to ride part of this trail when ever the weather is good.



https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/berks...5c9f4a0c7.html

Moe Zhoost

We had a number of robberies and assaults on our local rails-to-trails path a number of years ago. The City, in coordination with the police dept, set up a citizen's trail watch program that consisted of volunteers who routinely traveled the path. These volunteers acted as observers and would report not only criminal activity but also other safety related issues back to the city. This program seems to have worked since the number of incidents has dropped.

Milton Keynes

Would have been ironic if one of the trail watch volunteers got robbed...

'02 nrs 

"I guess there was a little bit of a struggle over the bike and then he was shot," Kuriger said." Don't hear much about self defense these days but its time for martial arts to be more main stream,no? hope he survives.

Paul Barnard

I wouldn't recommend bringing martial arts to a gun fight.

'02 nrs 

all depends on the training.

BikeLite

I bike with Steven Seagal.

CB HI

Do you bring the film crew along as well, so all the kung fu works out the right way?

StanSeven

Cleaned up thread to remove gun talk.

rydabent, you posted this forum doesn’t allow gun talk then immediately said an old lady almost blew off the head of an intruder. How could you start out that way and then jump into gun discussions?

The reason it’s not allowed is gun discussions quickly degenerate into intense arguments. Let’s keep this a cycling forum

freeranger

I remember, several years ago, while riding a rail-trail (ironically-in PA), my wife and I noticed 2 males on bikes which didn't fit them at all, riding a short distance behind, but not overtaking, an attractive female runner. We turned around and followed the 2 on bikes. We stayed far enough behind, but close enough so they knew we were there. We rode along behind them until the runner got into her car on a lot along the way. Bad intentions?-we'll never know, but we do know the runner ended up safe. You just never know. I would imagine now that most ride with a cell phone-so if something looks out of place, it can be reported, should you see it coming.

Pop N Wood

When I lived in LA it was there was a newspaper story of some poor guy who got accosted on a city bike path in broad daylight by a gang of bike thieves. Even though he gave up his super expensive bike without a struggle, the crooks shot him in the heart for no reason. The guy survived, but was left messed up for life.

I stuck to the more populated beach paths for that reason.

The world just doesn't make any sense sometimes.

rydabent

If caught the thugs that shot the guy should be in jail for at least 50 years as a warning to others.

cficole

Distance is critical. Also, would seem hard to do much of anything straddling a bike, weaponless.

trailangel

We don't need firearm-talk to get some intense forum debate. All you need is to mention movie star and alleged ****** and woman beater Steven Seagal.....

CliffordK

Glad to hear that the victim is "stable" and responding to questions. A bike can be replaced, even a very expensive one. A life can't.

Unfortunately the isolation that makes off-street bike paths pleasant also makes the potentially dangerous. Cities will occasionally come through and clean out homeless encampments, but income disparity can cause serious issues.

rydabent

Just reporting the news and what happened afterward for the better. I have no use for criminals what so ever.

Paul Barnard

Statistically speaking, they likely could have still been in jail for previous violent offenses were it not for leniency in our penal system.

jon c. 

Is that the same lenient penal system that sees the nation incarcerate more of her citizens than any other country?

CB HI

Correct, seems chopping off a hand or head works much better. Or they might not just report the real numbers like China, North Korea, etc. Re-education camps seem to be magical places.

rydabent

If you commit a crime, you should be in jail. In this case it was "one of our own" that was shot.

eja_ bottecchia

The new District Attorney for LA County has never met a criminal that he doesn’t just love. The two thugs would get a hearty handshake from the new DA and free courtside tickets to cheer LeBron and the Lakers.

Word!

eja_ bottecchia

Come to California and watch our “tough” penal system in action.

Such a joke.

Yes, there are people incarcerated; but as Baretta was quoted as saying, “if you can’t do the time don’t do the crime.”

And don’t even talk about “dropping” crime rates. In California, the only state that I professionally acquainted with, the way that the Legislature made crime rates look like they are dropping was by taking crimes off the books and eliminating jail sentences and lowering probation times.

To make even more fun, the well-educated voters in LA County (the most populous county in California) just elected a DA who is hell bent in playing kumbaya with criminals.

Fun times.

Trevtassie

Weird thing is it turns out you don't need a "tough on crime" justice system to reduce crime rates. It's much cheaper and nicer to have a decent social security system and social medicine system so that the people who fall through the cracks don't need to rob people to survive, and the whackos get treatment. Cheaper, because jailing people is very expensive, both in terms of the upfront cost and the cost of the lost productivity of those jailed. And nicer, because being able to wander around without being on the alert for weapon toting desperadoes is relaxing.
But it seems that certain people just can't see that being nice actually is economically effective on a societal level, having a decent social system actually makes the pie bigger for everyone, not just the rich. Unfortunately the dog eat dog ideology is being spread around the world by the rich, they are a little unhinged, if it was anything other than money that they were collecting people would think that they are insane and lock them up. Somehow they've managed to convince average people that they alsovhave a chance to become hoaders too, if only the rules were relaxed even more, even though all the evidence points to the contrary.

jon c. 

California is spending something on the order of $15 billion a year on the corrections system. And that doesn't count the front end costs of enforcement and trials. From what I understand of the budget situation in California, you really can't afford to spend more. But if you want to lock up more people for longer periods, you'll certainly need to. I doubt that will sell as a ballot proposition.

And how effective has this approach been? By your own assessment, the efficacy is questionable.

I hate crime as much as the next person. And I recoil in horror when I see the seemingly short sentences often served for heinous crimes. But to me that is evidence that the current system isn't serving the needs of society. If we aren't able to incarcerate the most dangerous criminals for appropriate sentences due in part to overcrowding, something has to change.

When I hear complaints that our system is "too lenient" I think we have to recognize that what we are now doing really isn't working. It's insanely expensive and the end results don't really seem to be benefiting society in the best possible way. Perhaps more crimes should be taken off the books. Maybe we're locking up too many of the wrong people for the wrong reasons. As our colleague from the antipodes suggests, we might consider reallocating more resources to try to alleviate the conditions that lead to increased crime.

The bottom line in my view is that we don't have any more money to allocate to the current system, so we either have to accept it as is or find a better path. And I think there's room for improvement in our approach.

eja_ bottecchia

So what’s your proposed solution. It is easy to criticize the system. It is a lot harder to come up with solutions that work.

BTW, a HUGE chunk of that budget is in the form of correction officer salaries and pensions. They have an incredibly powerful union.

Other states run their prison system for far less money.