Mail theft is a federal crime, why is the Sheriff involved.
Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
21–30 of 141 posts
Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
#22I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…
I think it's because policing in general is not at the standard it once was. Currently police are only rewarded for "big busts", but it's the smaller crimes that make all the difference to the individual.
In the UK for example, only something like 4% of burglaries get investigated at all. We're talking about the police not turning up at all. A neighbour down the street had a car stolen from their drive, under no less than four very high resolution cameras, and the police refused to even watch it or receive a link to it.
At best now, you can get a 'crime reference number', which then automatically times out when they fail to investigate it. The general response from police with theft is "claim it on your insurance" or "speak to the seller". It has never been a better time to commit a crime.
Having your items stolen after buying them with your highly taxed income is like a new tax being applied. I think we are edging towards societal collapse in the West. Nothing works correctly any more, and we still pay high taxes for the service.
Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
#23I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…
> I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch.
> And it's only a handful of people engaged in this low level crime. Arrest a few. And if they have a dozen prior arrests, like many of them do, keep them in jail for a while.
The USA easily has the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world, and yet Americans like this say crime is out of control, and say the police and prosecutors are not putting enough people away. Their solution to this high level of crime is yet more incarceration.
Finland and Norway have a much lower rate of incarceration, and much nicer prisons, yet less crime. In fact, people don't even lock their bicycles up in Norway outside of Oslo. If you want to lower crime, ask a Finn or Norwegian how they did it. Americans just double down on what has failed them over the past half century.
Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
#24> stolen out of her mailbox at the Los Alamos Post Office All the P.O. mailboxes I've ever seen have locks. What's going on? Was the thief actually a USPS employee?
Just do a search for "The Lock Picking Lawyer," you'll have loads of fun seeing what he can do, sometimes with the most minimal of tools (like a thin strip of metal cut from a soda can).
Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
#25I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…
I think it heavily depends on what local district attorneys policies are. Police may not see a point in taking a risk by apprehending someone just for them to be released hours later anyway. Not a huge fan of US police departments in general but this isn't necessarily all on them.
> apprehending someone just for them to be released hours later
Should this not be the expectation for low-level/nonviolent offenses, under the presumption of innocence?
Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
#26I never lived in a country where the delivery guy just leaves your shit out in the open. Why is this common in the US, when in most "safe" EU countries, people would never trust such a practice? Seems like an anti-consumer practice enforced by industry on the consumer. No, packages should not be stolen from people's porch. But realistically, it's very hard to stop this crime of opportunity.
in this case, it was stolen from her post office box, a small locker with a key. and fwiw, I've never had a package stolen, but we also live in a good area, and the packages are out in the open. Sometimes they will be set behind a railing. We came home from a vacation once to like 15 packages piled up
Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
#27I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…
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Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it heavily depends on what local district attorneys policies are. Police may not see a point in taking a risk by apprehending someone just for them to be released hours later anyway. Not a huge fan of US police departments in general but this isn't necessarily all on them.
I can see how this would be the natural response to a situation where the DA refuses to prosecute crime. That said, simply giving in to lawlessness is clearly not the answer, and I doubt many cops find this to be a preferable path. It just validates the DA's backwards worldview! How are you going to replace them when the elections roll around, and they're able to argue "I'm not refusing to prosecute anyone! Just look…
> DA refuses to prosecute crime
Have there been any actual documented instances of this? I see it cited a lot, but rarely any specific names of DAs or cases attached to it, and it feels like an easy excuse for police to not even attempt to do their jobs.
Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
#29I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…
> I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. > And it's only a handful of people engaged in this low level crime. Arrest a few. And if they have a dozen prior arrests, like many of them do, keep them in jail for a while. The USA easily has the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world, and yet Americans like this say…
> Their solution to this high level of crime is yet more incarceration.
True, more incarceration doesn't seem to fix anything. However less incarceration also does not fix anything (see downtown San Francisco).
> Finland and Norway have a much lower rate of incarceration
Finland and Norway are effectively monocultures. They don't have the same social issues we do. Look at any 1st world monoculture and you see the same low incarceration rate. Japan, Korea, Iceland, etc.
Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief
#30> stolen out of her mailbox at the Los Alamos Post Office All the P.O. mailboxes I've ever seen have locks. What's going on? Was the thief actually a USPS employee?
The "key" which opens the entire PO Box "front" is extremely easy to obtain; and if you don't have one, a crowbar/lockpicks [used just once] will simultaneously open entire ~250 box panels.