New attempt by the police to prevent petty thefts

[jmur5074]

Stillwater Police have a new program to educated citizens on how to keep their property from becoming the target of criminals. Stillwater over the last two years has been dealing with a spike in petty crimes, specifically thefts from garages and cars. The criminals are opportunistic and normally won't even break a window to get in, instead they're looking for open doors and easy targets.



Stillwater Police Use Tag Program to Help Citizens Prevent Crime | KSTP TV - Minneapolis and St. Paul



It seems like it'd be a good idea...



But if I were a criminal I'd just keep my eye out for the yellow tags. On top of that, I really don't think the police need to go to these levels to protect people, basically from their own laziness/ignorance.

[Cidp24]

We did it for a while with some light blue tags, usually placed in a manner so that they were not easy to see from a distance to keep the thieves from looking for them. It was not publicized for the same reason. No noticeable change in sheep behavior was observed.

[Xiphos]

What "new" program is this? "Lock your crap up. Quit leaving your car keys in the car. Quit leaving valuables in your car." Maybe I can get a grant for my revolutionary program to prevent theft.

[Broke Hoss]

I've been known to ring the doorbell of houses at 0200 to inform the resident that the garage door was open and that victim assisted theft is our most common report taken.

[Buttercup]

What "new" program is this? "Lock your crap up. Quit leaving your car keys in the car. Quit leaving valuables in your car." Maybe I can get a grant for my revolutionary program to prevent theft.

I have never understood why people leave their car doors unlocked.

[Odd]

Curiously enough between 1928 and 1932 the law required you to leave your car unlocked if you parked in a public space in London. At the time it was common practice to simply move someone's car if it was in the way, and London's traffic/parking congestion predates the car.

Less than a hundred years later and how we view an unlocked car now...are we making progress? I often wonder.

Anyhow, Xipho's runaway car video (SPOILER - watch the video first) lead me to wonder just who came up with those steering column locks in the first place. They've been nothing but a nuisance for me in this life and so I went exploring to find the history of them and came across this study with that bit of trivia in the abstract.