Wow, I have to say it's a bit crazy that you have to go through all this effort in what I think of as quite a safe city. I was recently in London for a week of meetings and someone said be careful about having your phone out in case someone snatches it but I thought they were being hyperbolic.
Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime? I guess people think they can get away with it, but it feels like one of those creeping issues that might seem small at first but deters important activity (tourism, business relocation, etc.) longterm if not addressed.
> Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime?
Many reasons.
1. UK prisons are already overflowing. Even violent criminals like rapists and murderers are only serving half of their sentences. When there were riots recently the government had to let many criminals go early just to make room for rioters. There is basically no room for petty criminals. The police know this which is why they don't even bother arresting petty criminals since they will just be let go free anyway.
2. U.K. police has been underfunded for decades at this point. There were severe cuts under the earlier Tory regime and now under the Labour regime it continues to be underfunded with the police chief suggesting to cut the number of police forces from 43 to 12. At this point the police basically do not care about any property crime since they prioritize violent crimes (rightly in my opinion).
3. British legal system and British society in general has trends that favor increase in crime e.g. loosening of social controls (loss of social stigmas etc) increased movement, freedom of movement (people move around more freely instead of staying in the same village their entire lifetime) lack of tracking, lack of interest in tracking (e.g. London has about same number of CCTV cameras as China yet Chinese government is able to use its camera to track criminals much more effectively than the British).
Could also talk about changes in society (loss of social capital aka Bowling Alone), increased immigration, changes in parenting (single parents etc) but those are topics of discussion for different time.
They routinely get away with it, it's a cottage industry of sorts. See [1].
> Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime? I guess people think they can get away with it, but it feels like one of those creeping issues that might seem small at first but deters important activity (tourism, business relocation, etc.) longterm if not addressed.
Because the police don't care, and these crimes are generally impossible to solve.
There are stories of people finding their stolen bicycles, motorbikes or cars, and when informing the police they're told to 'steal it back'.
The phones thieves are generally youths riding around the city on electric bikes, fully balaclava'd up. There's little chance of catching them. Even if they were caught nothing would happen to them.
London has apparently gone to shit since I lived there 5 years ago.
> Because the police don't care, and these crimes are generally impossible to solve.
Because they don't care is correct. These crimes are actually trivial to solve. The devices are tracked, there is a clear money trail, people are doing this routinely as a business.
As you said people routinely track their stolen property and nothing is done about it.
They don't care because it's "petty" crime. And they will "get to it after they solve all the murders."
Yes. The police have the ability to find and arrest the perpetrators pretty quickly, if they prioritise it. There was a phone theft which (unusually) turned into a stabbing/slashing a couple of years ago when the victim fought back. Perpetrators escaped on bikes before police arrived, but were arrested only 3 or 4 days later.
Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime? I guess people think they can get away with it, but it feels like one of those creeping issues that might seem small at first but deters important activity (tourism, business relocation, etc.) longterm if not addressed.