This is very doable when what you're dealing with is a Major Crime That Gets Full Institutional and Individual Attention.

What about a bike theft, a jacked car or a stolen parcel though?

There is a price to having information easily available to the law enforcement. There is a price to not having this information easily available to the law enforcement too.

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eclipticplane 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Even with Flock, police aren't solving those crimes.

	▲	zhivota 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yes, many cases of people calling the police with actual tracker data showing exactly where their stolen property is, and the response being to get laughed at and told it's not a priority.
	▲	seibelj 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]

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thewebguyd 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Doesn't matter, they should have to follow the same process.

Cops, at least where I live, don't give af about any of those crimes though. Bike gets stolen? You'll be lucky if they even show up at all, let alone do anything about it, surveillance data available or not. They largely don't even get prosecuted when caught.

	▲	declan_roberts 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's true. We're getting the worst possible outcome. Police state surveillance that tolerates nearly every level of criminality. Anarcho-tyranny.

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willis936 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If only we had an amendment in the original bill of rights that drew the line here.

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dw_arthur 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The majority of crime is committed by a relatively small number of individuals. If citizens feel crime is out of control they need to vote in politicians and judges who sentence repeat offenders to long sentences or involuntary commitment.

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Gigachad 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Long sentences are far less effective than reliable enforcement. Something that seems to be very true in practice. If you steal or vandalise something in China, there is an extremely high chance you will get caught, you won't get a massive penalty, but it will be enough to cover the damages + some.

If you for example knew that stealing had a penalty of 100% of the item value + 10% fine, with a 100% chance of getting caught, you'd never steal anything again even though the penalty is so much smaller than what it is currently in most countries. And then if you make a dumb decision as a teenager or in a lapse of judgement, it won't ruin your life.

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defen 5 hours ago | parent [-]

How does that work when you don't have enough assets to cover the cost of the thing you broke or stole?

	▲	Gigachad 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Of course you could still rack up a large penalty / jail time if you cause an incredible amount of damage quickly, but in general you'd catch people before they get that far. Catching a bike thief after the first 1-2 bikes rather than when they have stolen 100.

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plagiarist 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They can get a subpoena for that, too. The bike and the parcel are already long gone by the time police do anything. (Nor will they do anything other than file a report if you are lucky.)