A couple of years ago, a couple of prescription drug addicts stole some lawn tools and GPSes from our unfortunately unlocked garage. The local police (we live in a relatively affluent suburb) ended up coordinating with other local police departments and eventually caught the thieves. The police office I worked with thought that these same two guys were likely responsible for over a hundred similar property crimes. One is now in prison, and I'm not sure about the other guy. Unfortunately, my specific loss was not one for which they were prosecuted. Otherwise, I think I could make a claim against the 37 cents/hour (or whatever) those guys are paid in prison.
I'm told that the 80/20 rule applies to petty crime -- a handful of semi-pro thieves are responsible for a majority of the thefts. Given this, it seems that catching a few people who steal laptops, bikes, purses, etc. would actually have a significant impact on local crime levels. A problem with my particular case is that the thieves had already gotten rid of most of the stuff they had stolen, so proving in court that they had committed the crime would have been difficult. How viable of a start-up idea it would be to create "bait" laptops? The company would offer a turnkey service to law enforcement agencies. A special laptop would be provided to the police. It would appear normal at first glance but would record audio (and video?) and transmit GPS locations via a cellular connection. The police would place this laptop in an unlocked vehicle and leave. When the laptop moved, they would be notified via services provided by the start-up. From there, the police could either apprehend the thieves quickly or wait to see where they took the laptop (to get probable cause for a search warrant?). The back-end system would then produce court-ready evidence for the prosecution -- printable maps of activity, times, etc. Perhaps audio/video snippets ready to be played in court?
I did some quick Googling and could not find such a service. I wonder how one goes about selling to law enforcement agencies? Would they be able to make a purchase without 17 visits from a sales rep? Is this even a viable product? Thinking about my own community, I would love to hear about my police department working to reduce random crimes like these. There have been a couple of murders since we moved here a few years ago, but those have both been committed by family members of the victim. My greatest local crime risk is petty property theft.