Metal thieves in America's cities

> But the combination of the economic ills and social malaise lingering since the pandemic and soaring demand for metals, especially for copper, has brought this street crime to new levels.

Hmmm. There's something missing from this explanation.

While I don't think these reasons are wrong, we are being gaslit about some of the knock-on effects of our sudden cultural attitude towards our justice system that happened at this time.

Young people don't want to become police anymore and police don't want to police anymore.

Copper theft is totally a thing in Europe too, in many countries.

First country I find by googling is Germany but copper thieves are stealing cables alongside railroad in France, Belgium, etc.

https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/copper-railway-theft-eur...

And it is regularly disrupting trains.

These thieves do not care for the community. They do care about fake Luis Vuitton caps (convinced they're highly stylish with their Luis Vuitton caps and Luis Vuitton manpurses) and the latest iPhone though.

Insane that we are at the level of poverty where deconstructing infrastructure makes economic sense to people. It’s insane the amount of effort and shamelessness people are willing to go through for a few hundred bucks. When you consider how high minimum wage is in LA too, it’s ridiculous they can’t find work instead of going as low as this.

Last month while cleaning out a relative’s house, I made my first trip to a metal scrap yard. I had fishing weights (lead), old copper pipes, rolls of electrical wire, broken aluminum chairs - and street signs. I assumed the scrap yard would reject the street sign since, if they would accept it, why wouldn’t people steal them routinely? To my surprise they accepted everything, asked no questions nor asked for ID, and paid cash. The incentives here are clear. Maybe it’s the point of sale that needs closer scrutiny since police can’t guard all the light poles 24/7.

"social malaise lingering since the pandemic and soaring demand for metals, especially for copper, has brought this street crime to new levels."

It's interesting that absolutely no mention of changes to policing / prosecution.

Across Los Angeles County, more than 290 fire hydrants have gone missing since January.

In my town we are having electric outages because of this (they call it "vandalism")

"Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez joined Hernandez in opposing the motions, even though he had initially supported the idea. He asked his colleagues to understand that the thefts might be committed by people living in poverty who are pushed into acts of desperation."

A note that the costs to report, schedule, supply, staff and roll a govt truck to do a fire hydrant or street light are not cheap. The poor person will get some money from wiring, but the city will be spending 10x - 100x that to get the infrastructure fixed up - so not sure allowing theft as a result of the pandemic or poverty is the most efficient way to address poverty? Insulated coper wire is about $1.50 per pound to recycle at a metal buyer.

I replace my HVAC system last month. I did it myself (yes, this can be done with some research!).

I took the old one to a metal scrap yard, inside unit and outside. They made me go back home and cut some stuff apart for "top dollar" (which wasn't worth it really but I did it anyway).

Very surprised at what I received. I had over 200 pounds of "tin" (they called it) which was basically scrap steel. That fetched around $10 at $.04 a pound. The aluminum radiators fetched $.37 a pound coming to nearly $20. The old copper refrigerant lines however fetched around $3.50 a pound (nearly $60) and they were a small part of the whole system weight-wise, but most of the money. The owner got visibly excited when he saw the copper lines so I assume it's pretty profitable on that end too.

Overall I got close to $100 which wasn't worth the work, but it needed to be disposed of anyway. It was also "interesting" as I'd never been in a scrap yard before. Lots of shady looking folks coming in (some on bicycles) while I was there.

The disparity in metals pricing was surprising, with copper being worth more and aluminum way less then I'd thought. Also interesting was it was pretty close to a 10X ratio for each metal. Copper = 10X aluminum. Aluminum = 10X steel.

It's roughly similar to what happened after the fall of the Soviet Union. Power lines were routinely stolen for scrap.

When there is massive inequality (or rampant drug abuse) and inadequate law enforcement, people on the fringes cannibalize essential infrastructure and sacred spaces. Meanwhile, the very rich take advantage of the situation to gain more power and benefits.

It is things like this that make me occasionally think we are in the modern version of the library of Alexandria.

We have the peak of technology and knowledge and yet the core base of the society is rotting away, alas we know how it ended last time. Perhaps we to go the way of the neoplatonists?

Prosecute the scrap metal yards more harshly, have a "police book" like used car lots and pawn shops. Document the person selling, get a photo of the same with the persons face, etc, etc.

Only allow maximum amounts of metal to be recycled unless said person has a registered business, per day/week/whatever. Regulate it.

There isn't an incentive if you can't sell it. As a commentator indicated below people were scrapping fire hydrants. Wouldn't this be a huge red flag??

"Oh yeah, I see you have 5 hydrants here to sell. I can't think of where these could have possibly have come from."

Looking at crime in general around cities and not just metal theft, I think that it's the result of a mismatch of incentives and disincentives.

If you are in poverty in America and want to get help, it's pretty easy to get. You can get food stamps to buy food, to go a shelter or section 8 for housing, we have welfare and many other programs to take care of folks who ask for it.

But each of those programs has rules, you can't buy booze with your food stamps and you can't bring drugs into a shelter for example. Some people don't like this tradeoff so they resort to theft, whether breaking into a car or stealing the copper wiring out of a lightpole.

And that is where the issue is, while we are pouring tons and tons of resources into the inventive, we as a society are neglecting the fact that you also need disincentives. We need to make sure that we show people that we have incentives to get them back on their feet, get them healthy and get them fed but we also need to show equal disincentives if they choose to break the law.

Scrap recyclers should be required to keep a log of who they're buying scrap from, so there's a paper trail to identify patterns with. Some states require scrap yards to do that with catalytic converters, for the same reason.

Sackler family is likely the most responsible for this.

You can say “just sort out who is doing this!” and you can say “what has happened to the world that it’s come to this!” And the answer to both is the same:

Drugs.

You’re stealing copper wiring because you’re an addict. You’re not getting a minimum wage job because you’re an addict. You live in poverty because you’re an addict.

Comments lamenting the state of society are as useful as kicking dirt. Either build better bridges or make better medicine.

Now one of you smart people comment something useful in this thread about tech that can cure dependency issues!

quick look at my usual place shows them paying $0.15/lb for clean lead, 3cents less for batteries; and up to $2.20lb for clean copper.

At the peak in 2007, lead was worth at least 1/3rd more.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lead

... so i dunno about "soaring demand for metals", cuz the market doesn't seem to show that.

copper is higher than the 2011 peak, but not that much more.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper

I’ll never understand promoting the hysterical media driven vilification of crimes of poverty.

Its really grating to see headlines phrased this way, implying extreme outcomes. To someone not living in a city, it paints an immediate picture of dystopia. It pushes the rural-city divide further - the last thing we need more of.

Be nice if the cities had police, and if they had prosecutors willing to put people in jail for property theft.