5 ms·

Interesting to read that > In Japan, citizens are required to take lost property to the Koban (police station). From there, it is either returned or stored at

Interesting to read that > In Japan, citizens are required to take lost property to the Koban (police station). From there, it is either returned or stored at the Tokyo hub until claimed. A few years ago, I found a wallet on the ground and I took it to the police station. (The experience itself was a bit bizarre, they evidently had a "triage" system where you have to use a computer to select why you're there and get a ticket number, then sit in a waiting room until you're called - mostly with people picking up their kids from the drunk tank - this was a sunday morning). Anyway, the police officer that eventually received me told me that they don't accept lost wallets, and that basically I was on my own if I wanted to figure out how to return it. (There was stuff with the person's name but no address in the wallet).

noasaservice 5y ago
- jcims 5y ago
  My nephew is a police officer in the US. The vast majority of his day is dealing with drunks, overdoses, domestic violence, traffic violations and broken down vehicles.
  - b112 5y ago
    Yeah. Police should never get a pass for inappropriate actions or behaviour, but at the same time, I wonder how I would view the world if dealing with this stuff all the time. Police basically have to deal with people at their worst. Most confrontational. Most violent. Most emotional. I don't think I could do the job, not in a big city, without becoming jaded fast.
    - jcims 5y ago
      You also become a bit of a social pariah, especially if people in your friend group dabble in things less than legal.
  - noasaservice 5y ago
    My own anecdote: I used to attend a nearby hackerspace. One day, out behind the building, we see a desktop tower machine thrown in there. Obviously, we're curious. We power it up, and it actually boots Win98. We do a cursory look around, and see on the desktop that this is a local general practitioner's machine with LOADS of medical records. All unencrypted, naturally. I try to call an insurance company of an insurance that this doctor took. I got confusion, initially. So the next day, I took it to the police station. Transferred custody of the machine, or so I thought. Maybe 10m after that, I got a call from the security team at the insurance company, asking where the machine was and thanking me for reporting it. I told them the officer and the station I delivered it to. Turns out, that pig stole the machine, never put it into custody, and was going to keep it for himself. I found out later that the insurance company pressed charges against the pig, and finally got it back. That was an example of me trying to be ethical and upstanding, and seeing how cops really run their day to day business.
- Lascaille 5y ago
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    And where did you come from, all of 24 days ago? Really, I don't think it is up to you to tell other visitors of HN that they should go away.
    - Lascaille 5y ago
abhijat 5y ago
Which country are you talking of?
- version_five 5y ago
  This was in Canada, in a "big" city, with it's own police foce. I don't know that its representative of all police forces - this was obviously one the consultants had got to. (Though as an aside, canada doesn't have many smaller police forces anymore, smaller municipalities all outsource, e.g. to the OPP in Ontario so they may mostly have similar practices). The only other time I was at a police station was when my car was stolen 20 years ago, and it was very different, with an actual receptionist and a place you could sit down and talk to an officer.
foolfoolz 5y ago
you can put a wallet with a id in any mailbox and the post office will mail it to that id. but yes i don’t think a police station would try to identify a wallet owner from just a name if it was not carrying a material about of cash. most people will cancel their cards in a day or so, identifying an owner has very low impact vs the effort
CaliforniaKarl 5y ago
I’ve had the opposite experience. And just to be clear, I’m talking about the US. I noticed a purse left unattended at the bus stop. I saw a bus in the distance, and assumed the owner of the purse was on it. I called the main number for the nearest police station (at least, the one listed in Google Maps). Around 15 minutes later, an officer arrived, checked the purse, and found a wallet. After getting information from me (any idea whose it was, did I touch it, etc.), the officer took it to the station’s lost-and-found.

noasaservice 5y ago

jcims 5y ago
My nephew is a police officer in the US. The vast majority of his day is dealing with drunks, overdoses, domestic violence, traffic violations and broken down vehicles.
- b112 5y ago
  Yeah. Police should never get a pass for inappropriate actions or behaviour, but at the same time, I wonder how I would view the world if dealing with this stuff all the time. Police basically have to deal with people at their worst. Most confrontational. Most violent. Most emotional. I don't think I could do the job, not in a big city, without becoming jaded fast.
  - jcims 5y ago
    You also become a bit of a social pariah, especially if people in your friend group dabble in things less than legal.
- noasaservice 5y ago
  My own anecdote: I used to attend a nearby hackerspace. One day, out behind the building, we see a desktop tower machine thrown in there. Obviously, we're curious. We power it up, and it actually boots Win98. We do a cursory look around, and see on the desktop that this is a local general practitioner's machine with LOADS of medical records. All unencrypted, naturally. I try to call an insurance company of an insurance that this doctor took. I got confusion, initially. So the next day, I took it to the police station. Transferred custody of the machine, or so I thought. Maybe 10m after that, I got a call from the security team at the insurance company, asking where the machine was and thanking me for reporting it. I told them the officer and the station I delivered it to. Turns out, that pig stole the machine, never put it into custody, and was going to keep it for himself. I found out later that the insurance company pressed charges against the pig, and finally got it back. That was an example of me trying to be ethical and upstanding, and seeing how cops really run their day to day business.
Lascaille 5y ago
- jacquesm 5y ago
  And where did you come from, all of 24 days ago? Really, I don't think it is up to you to tell other visitors of HN that they should go away.
  - Lascaille 5y ago

abhijat 5y ago

Which country are you talking of?

version_five 5y ago
This was in Canada, in a "big" city, with it's own police foce. I don't know that its representative of all police forces - this was obviously one the consultants had got to. (Though as an aside, canada doesn't have many smaller police forces anymore, smaller municipalities all outsource, e.g. to the OPP in Ontario so they may mostly have similar practices). The only other time I was at a police station was when my car was stolen 20 years ago, and it was very different, with an actual receptionist and a place you could sit down and talk to an officer.

foolfoolz 5y ago

you can put a wallet with a id in any mailbox and the post office will mail it to that id. but yes i don’t think a police station would try to identify a wallet owner from just a name if it was not carrying a material about of cash. most people will cancel their cards in a day or so, identifying an owner has very low impact vs the effort

CaliforniaKarl 5y ago

I’ve had the opposite experience. And just to be clear, I’m talking about the US. I noticed a purse left unattended at the bus stop. I saw a bus in the distance, and assumed the owner of the purse was on it. I called the main number for the nearest police station (at least, the one listed in Google Maps). Around 15 minutes later, an officer arrived, checked the purse, and found a wallet. After getting information from me (any idea whose it was, did I touch it, etc.), the officer took it to the station’s lost-and-found.