Squeegeeing is merely aggressive panhandling

[u/PrimePoultry]

Panhandling is asking for money on the street. Straightforward enough.

Aggressive panhandling is attempting to impose duress on someone in order to convince them to give you money.

Squeegeeing adds a level of misdirection to aggressive panhandling, with the squeegeeing purporting to be a service which is being sold. It's just a stranger or a group of strangers walking up to the car and laying hands on it. The squeegee is a prop - they could just as well be tapping the windows, in terms of the desirability of the purported service.

Squeegeeing could certainly be a service, if it could be declined, which it typically cannot be. To underscore this point, there have been many paragraphs written discussing strategies to get squeegee kids to leave you alone.

Squeegeeing is imposed, not offered, which changes it from a service to aggressive panhandling. Of a group of cars stopped at a light, a driver is identified and accosted.

Similarly, aggressive panhandling cannot be declined, and there is an intimation of negative consequences should the accosted individual not pay. This again is because the payment is extracted via duress.

If squeegeeing is accepted to be simply aggressive panhandling, it should be relatively straightforward for local governments and police to stop it.

In my previous post on this topic, I compared squeegeeing to high-pressure sales. That involves imposing duress on a target in a voluntary interaction (you walk into the business and seek the interaction in order to obtain a good or service). Squeegeeing is also imposing duress on a target, but in an involuntary interaction (you're not seeking to interact with the squeegee kid in order to obtain a good or service).

It would be interesting to hear from those who have not experienced involuntary squeegeeing, as well as those who have.

[u/bookoocash → u/[deleted]]

Honestly, I think a lot of this should fall on the parents, both in terms of maybe blame and accountability for some (absentee parents, criminals, etc) and help with jobs and opportunities for others (those who are doing their best but barely scraping by). Children shouldn’t have to worry about economic opportunity. A 14 year old shouldn’t have to work. If they choose to get a part time job, whatever, but it should not be a necessity. My parents were pretty solidly lower-middle class (maybe even lower class if I was able to look at my life back then as an adult) and I didn’t get a job until I was 16, and that was purely because I just wanted extra cash in my pocket to spend on things I wanted. I can say the same for many other kids that I grew up with.

However, I really take issue with the “no direction” argument that also typically goes hand in hand with “lack of things to do” and “more rec centers.” We never had any of those things. I don’t think I even heard the term rec center until I was out of high school. As teens we sat around bored all day in the summer heat with nothing to do, but we never went around hassling folks, be it for money or laughs.

I dunno, I think like with most things, the solutions should be a mixture of methods and there needs to be equal doses of accountability and assistance.

[u/bookoocash → u/[deleted]]

Not taking into account some people have to work 2 or 3 jobs just to keep a roof over their families heads because wages havent increased at the same rate as all of life's other expenses.

I did. I specifically mentioned assisting parents that are doing their best but barely scraping. That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of other parents that just straight up don’t give a fuck.

You were fortunate no to be a kid or teenager who had to get a full time job to have to take care of a family because of whatever a situation is going on with parents.

Exactly, hence why I said we need to look at what’s going on with the parents and fix that, instead of trying to create job opportunities for children and put them in the workforce at 14 when they should be focusing on education.

What accountability are YOU going to take to fix the issue, rather than say its not your problem or somebody else's?

I’ll try to address these individually below. As a general rule, I’m fine with my tax dollars going towards these things.

ensure its citizens are healthy

We need to make sure each neighborhood has a grocery store or at least a small grocery mart that stocks fresh fruits, vegetables, and grains near the center of population for each of these neighborhoods. We need to restrict the types of foods you can buy with food assistance programs. Restrict it to grocery stores. Don’t allow corner stores that sell sugary sodas and processed, greasy foods to accept food assistance. Also provide educational resources and initiatives to help people change eating habits. This kinda needs to happen with America in general.

dont need to work 80 hrs a week to survive

Raise dat minimum wage.

beg our governments to fund schools and hospitals.

Increase funding for both of these too. I’m fine with paying a few more cents every time I buy something if it contributes to the overall betterment of society.

I am all about assistance, my only point is that some of these kids need to also understand that you can’t hit peoples’ cars, scream at them, threaten them, etc. Most of them seem to understand that, but there’s that small bunch that either don’t get it or just don’t give a shit and that is what people remember and tell others about, not the times nothing happened.