[c22]

Probably, but this is what he does after the police talk to him as well.

And really, we want it this way, because the alternative is that the police rough him up or arrest him on basically random hearsay.

The only other thing the police could do is connect multiple calls to one area and increase the presence of random cruisers there for a while in which case the perp will just move to an entirely different area.

This same result can be achieved if each of those concerned citizen callers simply approached the guy and said "Hey, get the fuck out of here!"

Some level of policing is probably necessary for crimes more serious than car-prowling but at a certain point we need to accept what we can and can't change about the world and try to implement policies that reduce the overall societal harm.

I think we could probably save a lot of police resources by adopting a societal focus on civil interpersonal conflict resolution and working to build a society where fewer and fewer individuals consider car-prowling to be a reasonable pursuit.

[tptacek]

(man standing up in the town hall meeting meme)

I am fine with the idea of people stealing stuff from cars spending the night in lockup.

This is what I mean by how message-boardy this logic is. Ordinary people call the police when this kind of thing happens.

[butter999]

At this point this is just a "no true Scotsman." Any counterexample you're offered, you decide doesn't count. I don't know why you're entrenched in this position, but I don't think you're willing to engage with it in a manner compatible with curious conversation. I think you're personally invested in this community and it's guidelines, so I think that's something worth pointing out to you.

[tptacek]

I would rebut that by saying you're the one making an extraordinary claim, and I don't think it's out-of-bounds for me to note that.

[butter999]

That's pretty weak tea. A retort, not a rebuttal. Since you aren't interested in engaging with the substance of my comment, I'll not engage any further with yours.