By making tools used to commit crime illegal where they don't have a legitimate reason to be carried, you can charge people with that crime if they're found rat

By making tools used to commit crime illegal where they don't have a legitimate reason to be carried, you can charge people with that crime if they're found rather than having to wait for them to actually commit the crime the tools are for. Less harm done but they still get stopped, is the idea. The other idea is that if the tools themselves are illegal it's a higher barrier to entry for the people who want to get into that kind of crime so maybe some of them will never start in the first place. And it does work in some circumstances. They perhaps could have gone with clarifying or strengthening existing legislation instead of course. There's already an offence of "going equipped to steal", but it is hard to prove because you might be able to get a court to believe that you were carrying a bunch of housebreaking tools around in the middle of the night for some legitimate reason. So that's why we tend to pass laws to target tools. And yes, hardened car thieves probably won't be deterred, but it will be easier to prosecute them if they're found in suspicious circumstances and found with these now-illegal devices. It's not like criminals usually think they're going to get caught - the deterrent effect simply doesn't work on some people.