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Property theft can be broadly separated into two categories: opportunistic and professional. You leave your wallet on a restaurant table by accident it may wel

by jmyeet 4y ago

Property theft can be broadly separated into two categories: opportunistic and professional. You leave your wallet on a restaurant table by accident it may well get stolen opportunistically. The thief may have limited or no history of theft. An opportunity merely presented itself. It could also be teenagers stealing a car for a joyride. The second, bigger category is professional theft. Note that "professional" here is statement about skill or even organization. It's just done as a source of income. So when you see anything stolen at scale the first thing to consider is how easily is this converted into money because that's where the majority of it goes. So for stolen bikes it surprises me not at all that they stay local. I imagine an awful lot of bikes are sold privately through predictable channels (eg Craigslist, FB Marketplace, flea markets). It may not even be pawn shops because those generally have ID requirements. Higher end bikes may end up being shipped (eg [1]) because the more expensive and rarer (and thus more identifiable) a bike, the more risk in selling it locally and the harder it is to maybe find a buyer. I'm actually surprised so many people report stolen bikes. Like what does this do, really? Is there really going to be an insurance claim? If it's thousands of dollars I would totally understand but most bikes are cheap. Interestingly I once had a garage door left open. An expensive mountain bike was stolen and they didn't bother taking my cheap piece of crap bike. [1]: https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/report-reveals-pipeline-of-stolen-colorado-bikes-ending-up-in-mexico/ https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/report-reveals-pipeli...

roywashere 4y ago
I live in NL. I had many bikes stolen over the years. Once my bike got stolen in the middle of the night in the city center. I searched for my bike the next day but could not find it. I reported it to the police, but did not expect much of it. About a week later I received a phone call from the police telling me someone found my bike. Apparently this person was woken up in the middle of the night by someone trying to break open the bike lock under his bedroom window. He scared away the thief. Because the lock was damaged he put the bike in his shed. He put notes in mailboxes of all his neighbors to ask if someone was missing their bike. He got no response and thought: oh I might just tell the police; but I doubt it will help much. Well it did! I was happy I reported it stolen that time.
archi42 4y ago
Even if the police can not do a lot about it, the report will end up in some statistic. That statistic in turn might lead to more resources assigned to the issue, either directly (crack downs, recovery squads, whatever) or indirectly (programs to get people into proper jobs, help for drug addicts, whatever). This might also serve as a control for indirect measures. People often demand decision makers to make good decisions, and to look at the data. But then we need to apply that data to them.

by jmyeet 4y ago

roywashere 4y ago

I live in NL. I had many bikes stolen over the years. Once my bike got stolen in the middle of the night in the city center. I searched for my bike the next day but could not find it. I reported it to the police, but did not expect much of it. About a week later I received a phone call from the police telling me someone found my bike. Apparently this person was woken up in the middle of the night by someone trying to break open the bike lock under his bedroom window. He scared away the thief. Because the lock was damaged he put the bike in his shed. He put notes in mailboxes of all his neighbors to ask if someone was missing their bike. He got no response and thought: oh I might just tell the police; but I doubt it will help much. Well it did! I was happy I reported it stolen that time.

archi42 4y ago

Even if the police can not do a lot about it, the report will end up in some statistic. That statistic in turn might lead to more resources assigned to the issue, either directly (crack downs, recovery squads, whatever) or indirectly (programs to get people into proper jobs, help for drug addicts, whatever). This might also serve as a control for indirect measures. People often demand decision makers to make good decisions, and to look at the data. But then we need to apply that data to them.