> most police departments won't pay the slightest bit of attention to your reports

Its sort of a combination of two reasons.

First in many cities, police departments are underfunded. And so running around looking for your stolen phone or whatever minor item is low on their to-do list compared to say, stopping the local drug-gangs from shooting their brains out.

Second, for minor thefts most insurance companies just need a quick box-tick "police crime report number" before paying out. So if the police know they can get you off their backs just by quickly giving you a report number, well....

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Schmerika 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> compared to say, stopping the local drug-gangs from shoting their brains out

I'm guessing people have that impression from TV, but it doesn't seem to match reality.

> the data suggests that officers spend relatively little time responding to major violent crimes: 4%, 3.7% and 4.1% in the three locations, respectively.

- https://www.freethink.com/society/how-police-spend-their-tim...

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ryandrake 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Which raises the obvious question: If they're not responding to either violent crimes or nonviolent crimes, what are they doing all day?

	▲	jq-r an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Just like that excellent Yes Minister episode about hospitals - I imagine they have more then enough internal busywork so they have no time for their customers. Which the older am I the more this seems true.
	▲	reaperducer 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		If they're not responding to either violent crimes or nonviolent crimes, what are they doing all day? According to a police administrator I once knew, filling out all the endless paperwork that makes the studies possible so people can complain about what little time cops spend fighting crime.

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ghaff 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And it's probably under your deductible anyway. And replacing various cards is your deal with your credit card etc. companies. Relatively few of us carry around a lot of cash.