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by pjc50 1732 days ago
Yes? Especially if it's a bike. Police are incredibly bad at handling low-level property crime.
4 comments

> Police are incredibly bad at handling low-level property crime.

These are somehow strange and inexplicable societal values concerning crime.

A cycle blog here in Sweden recently had an article on several really simple measures that could be taken to help curtail bike theft (which is epidemic) but neither the police, insurance companies or reselling sites were interested in their suggestions. Bikes can be worth the equivalent of thousands of dollars.

Last week I was walking into a grocery store when 4 police were arresting a guy who looked very dejected, and I asked an assistant what had happened she said he was caught stealing a piece of meat.

> societal values concerning crime.

Police do not necessarily reflect the values of wider society, they may have their own values. Ranging from anti-cyclist prejudice to simple workplace laziness - I suspect the grocery guy was caught by staff and all they had to do was take him away.

It's hardly low-level property crime:

"...food-delivery workers returning home after their shifts have been violently attacked there for their bikes: by gunmen pulling up on motorcycles, by knife-wielding thieves leaping from the recesses..."

Those are crimes that carry multi-year prison sentences.

Not in all jurisdictions.

My adopted home of Singapore seems to handle this really well.

There's always stories of people leaving there wallets and phones to reserve tables at the food court. Without any issue.

Having spent time in Singapore, plenty of crime never makes the news. Talk to some of the folks who do their National Service with the SPF.

But yes, it’s definitely a low crime jurisdiction but I don’t think enforcement has that much to do with it.

Yes, I can't tell how much is enforcement and how much is a more law abiding population.
Police are incredibly bad at handling auto-theft level of property crime.

It seems like the root issue isn’t the catching but the recatching. If you want to nearly eliminate it, punish it like Singapore does. I don’t think we have the will to do that (in fact, seem to be heading in the opposite direction), so police will continue to catch the heat for how much property crime continues to happen.