81–90 of 117 posts
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They've done studies on the effect of increasing penalties on crime, and it's virtually nil.
In islamic countries with sharia law, nobody steals, since you risk loosing a hand. Not that I recommend that approach, but I'd be careful with such statements.
Really? Do you have any evidence to back up that claim?
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Didn't actually read the article, did you? "And the decline in thefts has freed up the 85 detectives and supervisors of New York’s auto crime division to focus on stopping organized car theft rings, the sorts of operations that actually have the ability to make coded keys for newer cars."
So those 85 detectives and supervisors, formerly working on auto crime, now work on auto crime -- a subset of auto crime to be precise. The grandparent's comment has merit. Government has stayed exactly the same size.
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Well, with modern car immobilisers you can't bypass them or break them, because they're built right into the ECU that runs the spark plugs and whatnot. There's not really an equivalent for that in bicycles - a vital electronic component that, if removed, makes the bike unusable. Sure, you can get a bike tracker on ebay, but if trackers were making a significant dent in bicycle theft, thieves would just look for them…
What about something like Microdots which can be applied to the frame and other parts? They seem to be common in places to deter theft of cars and other items http://www.mydatatags.com/
The economics are extremely simple: There is a significant market for "don't ask, don't tell [if they're stolen]" bicycles. The same probably exists for cars which is why it took immobilizers (not frame/engine serial numbers) to curb theft.
A further complication makes a bicycle immobilizer impractical: It is trivial and not even very conspicuous to carry a bicycle quite far, or stick it in a car. That allows you to remove the bicycle to a private location where you can remove or destroy the immobilizer - if you could do the same with a car, I'm sure immobilizers would be less effective.
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What about something like Microdots which can be applied to the frame and other parts? They seem to be common in places to deter theft of cars and other items http://www.mydatatags.com/
From http://www.mydatatags.com/how-it-works/how-microdots-work > Step 4 > Recover Your Property > If the police or a good Samaritan find your lost or stolen assets marked with our microtag technology and contacts MyDataTags, we will inform you and give you their contact information so you can recover your personal property. So it's a serial number that nobody will notice (1mm black dot) or be able to read (I would as…
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I live in Slovenia which is commonly considered east EU. Guess what, bikes get stolen here as well (not sure I know any cyclist who hasn't had one stolen at some point). And your 90% estimate is as offensive as wrong.
To put things into perspective, maybe he's right in saying that bikes get moved over the border to facilitate the resale. Your stolen bikes probably end up here in Germany. It's the EU single market. :) On general principle Germany tends to export more than it imports, not sure if that also applies to stolen goods. ;) I doubt the thieves go to so much trouble, though, I expect my bikes that got stolen -- happened a f…
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They've done studies on the effect of increasing penalties on crime, and it's virtually nil.
In islamic countries with sharia law, nobody steals, since you risk loosing a hand. Not that I recommend that approach, but I'd be careful with such statements.
If that was the case they would not be whipping, beheading, stoning, maiming and executing people in these countries. (spoiler:they are doing all of these things).
It's like saying because of the death penalty there are no murders in states that enforce the death penalty. When in actual fact it looks like it poses no deterrent at all.
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I understand the motivation behind what you're suggesting but I don't think jail time is a fair deterrent. I think (this is anecdata from some bike theft victims, including myself) that there are folks who steal bikes to ride them, potentially for transportation to work/school, and those who steal bikes to sell them elsewhere. We should find a way to deter both groups but putting someone in jail for a $300 (let's say…
I had a bike stolen from me, when someone broke into my back yard(breaking down the gate), sawed off the railing the bike was attached to and took the bike together with the railing(the bike was attached with a Kryptonite lock, which I guess was a lot harder to break than the railing itself). Yeah you're right, the crime was not violent, and the bike was worth 2x the minimum wage where I come from, which is not a lot…
I wish bicycle theft was tackled in a similar fashion. A combination of factors seems to be at play here: Photo ID required to sell the car and technological hurdles that are too hard to overcome for small criminals. With embedded computer chips being so cheap nowadays, surely it should be possible to embed some sort of tracking system in bicycle frames.
It would not surprise me at all if something similar was at play here with bicycles. If every bicycle had to be micro-doted (or chipped etc) and registered and bicycles were subject to spot checks, bicycle theft would fall hugely, but where is the incentive?
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If you want to reduce bicycle theft in the US, the solution is simple: drastically increase the penalties for perpetrators. Get caught stealing a bike? One year in jail. Adjust until the level of theft is where you want it to be. Stealing a bike is not just taking $300 or whatever from the owner. It's robbing that cyclist and would-be cyclists of the confidence to use their preferred mode of transportation, and deter…
I understand the motivation behind what you're suggesting but I don't think jail time is a fair deterrent. I think (this is anecdata from some bike theft victims, including myself) that there are folks who steal bikes to ride them, potentially for transportation to work/school, and those who steal bikes to sell them elsewhere. We should find a way to deter both groups but putting someone in jail for a $300 (let's say…
Crime occurs when penalties make it more profitable to commit the crime than not. The cost to society is paying to prosecute, reform, or lockup, people who do not adhere to the standards of the society they live in.
How about community service, at minimum wage until the work equals the value of what was stolen even if even the items were recovered? It will cost society money to manage it but it keeps the person off the street for part of the day and might teach them something useful, like being polite in a polite society