The Great British Theft Epidemic

[Paracelsus]

Had a scrote trying all the doors/car doors on the street last night, I believe he managed to nab a car a few streets down. Loads of cameras, but they don't give a toss as wearing masks.
Actually had two police visits about it already, which was a pleasant surprise considering how stretched the force (GMP) is.

The only solution in a country like the UK with so many scrotes about and lacking the shame culture of e.g. Japan is more police and tougher sentencing. There are enough working age men around that every neighbourhood should be able to have a patrol 24/7/365, just need to make the Police a more attractive and well-paid role. Alternatively a proper neighbourhood watch would achieve much of the same effect - if people got entire streets involved you'd only have to do a night shift every once in a few weeks or something...but in most locations where people don't know neighbours beyond a few doors this isn't very feasible and would be a huge cultural shift. I have visited a small town where this kind of thing is done, though.

Keyless entry cars is a stupid solution to a problem that never existed, that problem will go away if people just stop buying them.

 

[Mr Badger]

Rwanda.. we've paid for it may as well use it

The fabled magic land of Rwanda. Is there any political problem that it can't solve?

 

[Resident]

Do you know any police?
I know an inspector, he says they spend basically no time on that stuff, their numbers are only just starting to recover to where they were, let alone to have moved to the level they should have based on the population change
He says the main reason you see so few police is they are basically filling in all the gaps from the other services, so mental health, problem getting an ambulance to someone etc.

They make ridiculous resource management decisions in my town.

Two days ago. Van breaks down in L2 of a dual. It's on a hill facing down, there's a 20ft wide grass central reservation. But instead of just rolling the vehicle onto the CR safely out of the way, they sat an officer with a patrol car behind it, with blues on, for FOUR hours whilst recovery arrived.

 

[alexakasloth]

One of the businesses in town had their land rover stolen in the middle of the day from their forecourt. It was a bright blue one so not exactly inconspicuous!

 

[Uther]

At one time you got a clip round the ear by the shopkeeper, another one from the police and a third from your dad for being a pillock.

If you clip one round the ear now they'll probably stick a screwdriver in you.

 

[redeye]

Do you know any police?
I know an inspector, he says they spend basically no time on that stuff, their numbers are only just starting to recover to where they were, let alone to have moved to the level they should have based on the population change
He says the main reason you see so few police is they are basically filling in all the gaps from the other services, so mental health, problem getting an ambulance to someone etc.

Yep that's what I hear too, and anyone who actually knows what they are talking about as well.

It's all very well the government now saying they've got an extra 24k Police, but they cut 30,000 over the last 10 years, closed huge numbers of Police stations and as you have correctly said, don't spend anywhere near enough time doing Police work because other services are so stripped to the bone. And how many Police that they lost were experienced vs new recruits.

 

[sidimmu]

Not sure if this is every where else. I don’t know what’s going on.

retail theft got downgraded in the US, hence why everyone is running in, grabbing $$$ of product then going to a illegal market to flip it all.
Mark Rober covered it in one of his latest porch pirate videos.

Loads of cameras, but they don't give a toss as wearing masks.

NO face = NO case to these scumbags. Backed by the CPS.

 

[Rroff]

They make ridiculous resource management decisions in my town.

Two days ago. Van breaks down in L2 of a dual. It's on a hill facing down, there's a 20ft wide grass central reservation. But instead of just rolling the vehicle onto the CR safely out of the way, they sat an officer with a patrol car behind it, with blues on, for FOUR hours whilst recovery arrived.

Having dealt with this a bit at work - recovery services probably said they'd be there in "30 minutes"... cue 3 hours later... depending on circumstances and availability of other agencies, etc. the police presence might be necessary for safety during recovery, even if the vehicle was on the CR, so easier just to have them remain at the scene than try and coordinate with recovery.

EDIT: Also if an automatic van - rolling them can actually be non-trivial even with use of the shift lock release - we've had it before where the driver at the scene wasn't able to easily do it, though I think they were panicking a bit and not following instructions properly. Some drivers not used to an automatic might not even know the procedure.

 

[cheesefest]

With keyless cars, when not in use, put keys into a metal container or the other side of your home.to the car.

 

[cheesefest]

Shop lifting is mainly for drugs. They go for several packs of steaks, bottles of JD, posh face cream.

We only put out one pack of each of the face creams, eye serum etc over £20 on the shelves at work. After some ***** cleaned the shelves of this at work and all Boots, Superdrug, Wilko (when it was in business) and supermarkets within 5 mile radius.

A shelf of posh face cream is £4k

 

[Uther]

Here it's mainly vans that are getting done over, it's a regular occurance for cars to drive around in the early hours looking for works vans containing tools etc. They get caught on door cams but just don't care.

 

[G-MAN2004]

I saw a video recently of two very young teenage lads going around a busy high street cutting bike locks with a grinder and just casually riding off. Everyone just walked by as if nothing was happening.

 

[StriderX]

Shop lifting is mainly for drugs. They go for several packs of steaks, bottles of JD, posh face cream.

We only put out one pack of each of the face creams, eye serum etc over £20 on the shelves at work. After some ***** cleaned the shelves of this at work and all Boots, Superdrug, Wilko (when it was in business) and supermarkets within 5 mile radius.

A shelf of posh face cream is £4k

They're doing everyone a favor considering those beauty products just dry out your skin forcing you to keep coming back.

 

[malachi]

Where do we go from here?

I can tell you where I went, to another country and I am not returning back to the UK anytime soon.

Last week my friend spent 5mins in a shop to get some drinks for his kids. During those 5mins, someone broke into his van and stole all his tools.

Lost out of 3 days worth of work

 

[Werewolf]

They make ridiculous resource management decisions in my town.

Two days ago. Van breaks down in L2 of a dual. It's on a hill facing down, there's a 20ft wide grass central reservation. But instead of just rolling the vehicle onto the CR safely out of the way, they sat an officer with a patrol car behind it, with blues on, for FOUR hours whilst recovery arrived.

That may sound stupid to you, but you can be fairly certain they've done that in the past and it's caused an issue.
Besides anything else if it's rolled onto a central reservation that's potentially a bigger risk when recovery happens, as you've now got two vehicles (minimum) with people working around them in the fast lane with cars approaching at up to 100mph whilst they may be running into issues with things like the van (and recovery vehicle) now getting stuck in the soft earth*..
And until then a vehicle that is parked in a position where people don't expect it, potentially causing other drivers to react to the unexpected in unpredictable ways.

And when the recovery vehicle does arrive you now potentially need a police car anyway to give protection to the recovery operator whilst they pull the vehicle off the central reservation.

There are reasons you're meant to try and make your way into the off side and wait away from the road if at all possible as that's the safest place for all involved, and easiest/safest to recover from.


*Around my way there are a lot of grass patches on the sides of the dual carriage ways that you can see the damage done by cars and vans that have broken down getting stuck when they've pulled over.

 

[Rroff]

With keyless cars, when not in use, put keys into a metal container or the other side of your home.to the car.

Problem is some people intentionally hang their car keys up near the front door with the notion that it better someone comes and takes the car/keys than the risk of physical violence, but then that creates a bit of a vicious circle that makes it easier to do the crime, which makes it more likely to happen :s

*Around my way there are a lot of grass patches on the sides of the dual carriage ways that you can see the damage done by cars and vans that have broken down getting stuck when they've pulled over.

Not such a problem this time of year but also the risk of fire - not happened to us but one we've had an advisory for in the past where a broken down van was stopped on the central reservation while the exhaust was very hot causing the vegetation to catch light, resulting in the van burning down.

 

[413x]

Stop buying **** online and go out more.

Shoplifting is largely gang crime now. Not for people starving in the street. Needs serious policing yes.

Don't buy a keyless car.

Sorted.

I like it online. It's cheaper, easier, safer.
There are too many pros to list.

 

[Andrew_McP]

Social media, both within (relatively) wealthy nations and globally, means everyone on the planet knows what they haven't got... and where to get it... and how to get it. So the only limits on theft now will be our willingness to punish crime. And I say this as yer typical lefty Guardianista for the first 50 years of my life. I'm now old and senile and worried about the fragility of "society"... where society means a common framework of decency we agree to uphold in order to be free. It requires the vast majority to play fair, to give the authorities chances to deal with the rest.

We currently ask the Police to be social workers as well as law enforcers. This is unsustainable. Illegality will expand to fill any enforcement vacuum. Tough choices lie ahead, and they'll be resisted every step of the way, until things get bad enough that there are no choices left.

Merry Christmas! <insert Santa stealing presents and leaving by the chimney .gif here>

 

[GGizmo]

When the number of people don't like the society they live in then it's everyone for themselves.

When dumb idiots are promoted for doing simple tasks was the start of the problems..

My home village is away from the bigger towns and until recently crime was nearly none existent because everyone still knew each other by name.

But in the last decade things have gone downhill big time. My house backyard had regular theft attempts, to the point I was sat waiting for them. Parts of the village are known for crime hotshots, mainly near the train station.

Now I believe that Boots, and similar shops, regularly have empty shelves because people are going in and scooping up a shelf at a time. Nobody stops them, and I think unofficially if the theft is under £200 the cops aren't interested.

 

[sidimmu]

That may sound stupid to you, but you can be fairly certain they've done that in the past and it's caused an issue.

100% true, I remember a gf's nan breaking down, pulled on to grass/wet soggy mud on side of dual carriage way, got stuck.
3 hours later recovery truck comes (as its not in a lane, they can take their time as police or highway patrols wont mark it as a priority), gets stuck in the same spot. Needs to wait for something bigger to come pull that out. Ended up shutting a lane on the dual carriage way for about 8 hours.