To wonder whether laws are relevant any more?

[MrsBobtonTrent]

I saw on BBC news today that police aren't interested in a bike theft if you've left it at the station lock up for more than two hours. Same for cars parked at the station. Not unusual to leave your car or bike parked at a station while you go somewhere by train (like work?). But now no one is interested if it gets nicked. So no deterrent. Free bike anyone? I cycle to our nearest station (4 miles, no streetlights or pavements, and only 3 buses a day and taxis are like unicorns). I have returned before to find bike gone and it has been an absolute mission each time. But now the police have said "free bikes for all" this is surely going to increase? And taking a car is no better, as this is more expensive to lose and still no police deterrent.

So many things the police don't bother with anymore - epidemic of shoplifting, assault, burglary. And agan and again we see police acting in despicable ways. Crime is just accepted as normal life. So is there any point to having all these laws and rules, if we just do whatever we feel like and take whatever we want? Is there any benefit to being the mug who follows the rules? And it spreads to all aspects of life - parents not parenting, delivery people not delivering, healthcare workers avoiding patients. So cross right now.

The police are too busy arresting people for tweets to bother about thefts

I don’t think the British Transport Police are.

Ah no you're right, BPT were too busy with a court case about their policy to let men strip search female passengers if the men paid £5 for a certificate saying they feel like a woman

https://unherd.com/newsroom/british-transport-police-deserves-to-lose-trans-court-challenge/

As far as I can tell policing is now about policing ideas, not preventing or investigating actual crimes. Probably easier and safer to police feelings than go out looking for criminals tbf.

The police are underfunded and under resourced and even if they arrest people we don’t have the judicial system to cope and the prison space to house them because that also costs money

and in places they are also corrupt

Could you buy a stronger lock and put a tracker in it?

tbh, I think you may be right. I've been in three voluntary organisations where I had to leave because of criminal activity by other adults. The police are just too stretched.

Yep OP. My dad's brand new car was stolen from outside my house (CCTV everywhere - London - with one camera pointing exactly at where it was parked). Our neighbour also recorded the theft on his ring doorbell. Literally nobody in the police cared to even come out to us or take a statement. It took days for an OIC to be allocated and we were told "your car is probably already abroad and it's difficult to identify suspects from CCTV" (which the police never even bothered to obtain). Truly shocking!!

Thankfully insurance paid out.

Policing is only really effective if most citizens see the law as legitimate. It relies on the vast majority of people not commiting crimes, and people feeling collectively empowered to challenge criminals. A small minority will never toe the line, either because they can't or won't, so the police deal with that.

The problem now is a significant minority no longer see theft as a crime. They see no shame in being a thief. I saw a woman with her toddlers load a whole trolley with food, fresh flowers etc in M&S and wander out without paying. She showed no shame when caught, just eye rolled and moaned, couldn't they see she had kids with her? Underneath her level are the people who happily buy their (stolen) Sunday joint down an alley or in the pub. Or the people who get a cheap thrill from putting their butter through the self-checkout as a single banana.

Even on Mumsnet you see it. People won't admit that they steal, but they'll pile in to say that the supermarkets make loads of money so who cares; or that the poor woman's children probably have dickie tummy's and can only eat M&S food so she can't be blamed.

Basically, the part of the population willing to commit crime is growing faster than our ability to police them.

You realise OP that “the police” are chronically underfunded, overworked and increasingly acting as first-line social workers? Their policing priorities are set by the minister of justice not by themselves.

I would prefer law makers repeal the laws that compel police to investigate social media posts (within reason) and keep them looking at things like this.

Tracker is pointless. It tells me where it might be, but I can't exactly travel the country myself to hunt it down and retrieve it from god knows where (particularly as would be stranded at a train station trying to get home). And trackers tend to cost more than my bikes. People pick up tens and hundreds of bikes in one fell swoop, load them in a van and take them off for processing en masse. Similarly the locks might deter a casual thief of one bike, but these gangs aren't worried about the locks. Last November thieves removed the whole bike rack with bikes still attached - probably 30-50 bikes in broad daylight. I expect plenty of those bikes had really strong locks! I have a decent lock and take my saddle with me to discourage the casual thief.

And don't make this about me. If the rules are don't steal things, then I shouldn't have to jump through increasingly byzantine hoops to prevent other people breaking the rules. Reasonable measures should be sufficient, with the "law" and social pressure as a deterrent. Or are we back to blaming women for being raped as well?