[waste_monk]

Both of those examples (regardless of whether or not you think sex work should be a criminal matter) are still people knowingly committing crimes.

It doesn't matter whether it was a bait roll of copper wire or a real roll that some person neglected to secure properly, the problem is that they had an opportunity to steal, and took it. Intent matters.

[logfromblammo]

Motive is only one third of the crime triangle. Method and opportunity are usually denied by even the least effort at security. As ancestor posts have mentioned, real people would no more leave a roll of copper wire lying around unsecured than they would leave a $100 bill under a paperweight on a city sidewalk.

The morality encoded into the justice system is not built for the benefit of the people typically getting sent to prisons. Those people may have some ethically defensible justification for having motive to commit crimes. It would not be an arguments the courts would care to entertain, of course. But the argument still remains for all those of us who are not judges. Property laws protect those who already own property, at the expense of those who do not. The enforcement of property law typically tells those who have suffered "petty" property crime to fill out a report and sod off, while those who suffered "grand" property crime get the benefit of police investigation. Ever had a bike stolen? Ever had a car stolen? If the bicycle is one's only means of transportation, and the police refuse to help, so they can investigate the theft of a car from someone that owns two, that person now has a reasonable motive to steal bicycles: society owes them one, and apparently does not consider it a crime worth investigating.

If the law does not equally benefit everyone, those who benefit least are not ethically bound to obey it. If the rules of the game stipulate that a given player cannot ever win, or even advance to second place, that player is justified in not playing the game, or in cheating. In such a situation, would it be better to be vigilant at all times, to stop everyone from cheating (including the winners), or to help the losers to cheat a little, then immediately report their cheating to the other players (eliding over the help that was given), so they can be further penalized? The latter is a dick move, and the former more desirable.

This is why you lock your bicycle to an immovable object during the day, and bring it inside at night. And this is why you secure the spool of copper wire before leaving the jobsite. And this is why you lock your car and don't store Bluetooth-broadcasting valuables in it. It is not necessary to understand why the motive exists, but only to realize that some people will have it, and are not necessarily evil because of it. Deny them the opportunity, and they will not commit that particular crime.

Bait vehicles reduce the crime to merely having the motive.

[waste_monk]

>Method and opportunity are usually denied by even the least effort at security.

At what point does it become non-opportunistic to steal something? if you have to cut a rope or chain? if you have to kick in a door to get to it?

>The morality encoded into the justice system is not built for the benefit of the people typically getting sent to prisons.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, do you want a justice system where "stealing something is OK as long as it was easy to do" is a core value?

> The enforcement of property law typically tells those who have suffered "petty" property crime to fill out a report and sod off, while those who suffered "grand" property crime get the benefit of police investigation.

This is just pragmatism. Police departments have limited budgets and the community is better served by putting those resources towards more serious crimes. Monetary value of damages is an easy metric to compare the seriousness of crimes, and to prioritise the allocation of budget towards investigations accordingly.

>that person now has a reasonable motive to steal bicycles: society owes them one, and apparently does not consider it a crime worth investigating.

This is incomprehensible thinking to me. Just because you have been wronged does not give you permission to wrong others. The person who stole the bicycle owes it to the victim (or the replacement value), not society.

>If the law does not equally benefit everyone, those who benefit least are not ethically bound to obey it.

If you don't agree with a law you can campaign to get it changed, or leave the jurisdiction where that law is in effect. You do not get a free pass for breaking the law just because you don't like it.

> It is not necessary to understand why the motive exists, but only to realize that some people will have it, and are not necessarily evil because of it.

Having a motive to steal something is not the same as acting on it and actually stealing the thing. Knowingly harming others is evil, to some degree. Obviously stealing some copper is far less of a crime than committing murder, but both are wrong.

>Deny them the opportunity, and they will not commit that particular crime.

Or they'll just go look for another opportunity. Baiting criminals proactively catches people who would commit crimes regardless.

[logfromblammo]

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." --Anatole France

I understand if criminal justice reform is not one of your political issues. It's easy to ignore what happens in the system if it is not. But I encourage you to look into it. After you do, tell me that it isn't mainly a mass of unfortunates being lined up to be kicked in the head, systematically, with the genuinely bad people--who really do need to be separated from the rest of us--as a minority of the cases.

Crime is down since 1980, yet prison populations are way up. Why is that? Who are the people getting put in the prisons? Who are the people profiting from this trend?