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Which is why the "Batman solution" as described in the article may actually be the best way of dealing with this problem. Individual citizens who care about the
by archgoon 11y ago
Which is why the "Batman solution" as described in the article may actually be the best way of dealing with this problem. Individual citizens who care about the problem can investigate the issue, and once they've gotten the meetup setup, the police can be called in to complete the arrest.
This way, the community are the ones initiating police action, rather than the police themselves (which, as you point out, bad incentives can then result in an unhealthy relationship between the community and police).
- alkonaut 11y agoExactly - and tracking down stolen bikes online is time consuming and thus expensive work that is better done by volonteers than by police. That money can be spent on other activities. The problem is that it is probably rare that police is even willing to spend 30 minutes on traveling to a known location for a stolen bike. Seattle (maybe the US in general I don't know) seems like a good place in this regard if he isn't laughed at when trying to get a police officer to come talk to a bike thief.
- BobCat 11y agoNonsense. Putting one bike thief in prison can save the public hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. He steals a $1k bike every other day = $182k/yr So even if a cop only tracked down 1 thief per month, he's paying his own salary back many times.