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You will surely see some people here saying that the broken windows theory has been debunked (I used to be one of them), so that's why I did not use that phrase

You will surely see some people here saying that the broken windows theory has been debunked (I used to be one of them), so that's why I did not use that phrase, but at the very least I don't think the equation for pursuing the thieves is "the phone is worth 1000 quid, the investigation is 2000, therefore it's not worth it". I think we are too heavily discounting people's lost trust in Police effectiveness that happens because of stories like that.

Oxidation 4y ago
Reminds me of listening to an engineer justify removing a $5 protection IC (after component-shortage inflation) as the thing it was protecting was $3. No, if that $3 part takes an ESD discharge, the entire $1000+ assembly is now (as far as the customer is concerned) scrap and needs to be RMA'd and replaced or repaired at our expense and the customer will, quite correctly, think it's unreliable junk from now on.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Even if it was just a $5 part protecting only a $3 part, it still makes sense to keep it. The logistics of returns and customer support for even a small percentage of returns would potentially be worth it.
  - Oxidation 4y ago
    That would need careful cost-benefit analysis. My instinct is to keep the protection or find a way to retrofit cheaper/available parts too maintain it. But then I'm not in the cheap and shonky consumer tat business.
underbrush 4y ago
The cost of handling an order of magnitude more cases is significantly expanding the service. Everyone wants excellent public police, health care or education when it affects themselves. But going from average to good to excellent public services take more and more effort. Few countries today are willing to have the long-term public commitment and taxes to make that a reality.
- poszlem 4y ago
  The issue in the UK is that the Police suffers from scope creep. The UK police force has been criticized for expanding its scope to include enforcing anti-hate crime laws and investigating "non-crime hate incidents." (hard to believe that the country that gave us Orwell came up with that phrase). This has diverted resources from more important tasks and led to the allocation of time and money towards activities such as painting their cars in rainbows and raising pride flags in public ceremonies. Whatever you think of those side-activities, I'm sure fewer people would have any problem with them if they were confident that their possessions would be recovered if stolen (and more important crimes prosecuted).
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    None of the things you are complaining about have much of an operational impact on the British police. You know what does? The wholesale destruction of the NHS and ambulance services leading to the police being the first response to mental health issues. Police are the wrong agency to deal with this, but currently in the UK, the police are pretty much always the first (often only) to deal with MH issues and get people into care/section them etc.
    - DanBC 4y ago
      > but currently in the UK, the police are pretty much always the first (often only) to deal with MH issues and get people into care/section them etc. I can't talk about Scotland, Wales, or NI. But here's the data for England: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-act-statistics-annual-figures/2020-21-annual-figures https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/sta... There were 34,000 detentions under the act. Of these, only 4,150 were detentions following a Section 135 / 136 place of safety order (the bit of the Mental Health Act that the police can use). The CQC also have their "Monitoring use of the Mental Health Act" report here: https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health-act https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health... This strengthens the point you're making. EG https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health-act/2021-2022/staff-shortages https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health... and https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health-act/2021-2022/pressures-services-patient-pathways https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health... both talking about the poor care recieved by patients as a result of the defunding of the NHS and social care systems.
valdiorn 4y ago
Sure, the investigation is worth more than a single phone, but you're pretty likely to find 50 phones. You're very, very unlikely to be robbed by someone who's doing it for the first and only time in their life. Most likely, you'll come across a gang of organized criminals, which you can now put in jail, and recover value worth tens of thousands of pounds, return it back to their owners, restore faith in "the system", and possibly uproot a major crime operation. It's such a massive fucking win I don't understand why they don't enforce it more. Pull a few officers of Twitter duty, and maybe do some real police work?

Oxidation 4y ago

Reminds me of listening to an engineer justify removing a $5 protection IC (after component-shortage inflation) as the thing it was protecting was $3. No, if that $3 part takes an ESD discharge, the entire $1000+ assembly is now (as far as the customer is concerned) scrap and needs to be RMA'd and replaced or repaired at our expense and the customer will, quite correctly, think it's unreliable junk from now on.

giantg2 4y ago
Even if it was just a $5 part protecting only a $3 part, it still makes sense to keep it. The logistics of returns and customer support for even a small percentage of returns would potentially be worth it.
- Oxidation 4y ago
  That would need careful cost-benefit analysis. My instinct is to keep the protection or find a way to retrofit cheaper/available parts too maintain it. But then I'm not in the cheap and shonky consumer tat business.

underbrush 4y ago

The cost of handling an order of magnitude more cases is significantly expanding the service. Everyone wants excellent public police, health care or education when it affects themselves. But going from average to good to excellent public services take more and more effort. Few countries today are willing to have the long-term public commitment and taxes to make that a reality.

poszlem 4y ago
The issue in the UK is that the Police suffers from scope creep. The UK police force has been criticized for expanding its scope to include enforcing anti-hate crime laws and investigating "non-crime hate incidents." (hard to believe that the country that gave us Orwell came up with that phrase). This has diverted resources from more important tasks and led to the allocation of time and money towards activities such as painting their cars in rainbows and raising pride flags in public ceremonies. Whatever you think of those side-activities, I'm sure fewer people would have any problem with them if they were confident that their possessions would be recovered if stolen (and more important crimes prosecuted).
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  None of the things you are complaining about have much of an operational impact on the British police. You know what does? The wholesale destruction of the NHS and ambulance services leading to the police being the first response to mental health issues. Police are the wrong agency to deal with this, but currently in the UK, the police are pretty much always the first (often only) to deal with MH issues and get people into care/section them etc.
  - DanBC 4y ago
    > but currently in the UK, the police are pretty much always the first (often only) to deal with MH issues and get people into care/section them etc. I can't talk about Scotland, Wales, or NI. But here's the data for England: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-act-statistics-annual-figures/2020-21-annual-figures https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/sta... There were 34,000 detentions under the act. Of these, only 4,150 were detentions following a Section 135 / 136 place of safety order (the bit of the Mental Health Act that the police can use). The CQC also have their "Monitoring use of the Mental Health Act" report here: https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health-act https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health... This strengthens the point you're making. EG https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health-act/2021-2022/staff-shortages https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health... and https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health-act/2021-2022/pressures-services-patient-pathways https://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/monitoring-mental-health... both talking about the poor care recieved by patients as a result of the defunding of the NHS and social care systems.

valdiorn 4y ago

Sure, the investigation is worth more than a single phone, but you're pretty likely to find 50 phones. You're very, very unlikely to be robbed by someone who's doing it for the first and only time in their life. Most likely, you'll come across a gang of organized criminals, which you can now put in jail, and recover value worth tens of thousands of pounds, return it back to their owners, restore faith in "the system", and possibly uproot a major crime operation. It's such a massive fucking win I don't understand why they don't enforce it more. Pull a few officers of Twitter duty, and maybe do some real police work?