Comment by trollbridge
16 hours ago
I need to applaud the efficiency and moxie of the Zurich / Swiss police service.
In America, the UK, Canada, etc they'd tell you to fill out a report that nobody would ever read, and also advise you it's probably unsafe to go pick it up yourself.
In certain places in America. My county sheriff's office would be more than happy to have something to do that isn't picking up somebody's stray dog. I'm sure this is true for the UK and Canada too.
I called the non-emergency line for the local police department when someone went home with my wallet after I left it on a plane, tracked with an AirTag. 2 hours later an officer said they didn't have probable cause but could knock on the door and ask anyway. I think he basically offered for there to be no trouble if they gave it back, thief claimed they were "going to return it to lost and found", and sure enough I was able to go show my passport at the station and collect it the next day.
UK police is more interested in combating wrong thought
Absolutely not the case. This is just what overly online people think.
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Oh for gods sake, can we stop this nonsense mad twitter trope spreading through HN. Having been a cop in the UK, we will happily got nick a robber if they're on the move and tell us where they are, and we don't arrest people for "wrong thought" on twitter unless that happens to be repeatedly messaging your ex and telling her about how you're going to do murder them.
yes, some of my stupid colleagues will once in a blue moon arrest people for twitter nonsense, but that barely ever happens which is why it makes the news and they pretty much never get convicted.
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>I'm sure this is true for the UK
No, it isn't. The police in the UK are stretched extremely thin.
Just claim they have been mean on twitter and they will send a squad
If they had said this happened in the US I would absolutely not believe them.
That's not a common occurrence, police in Switzerland is highly passive, and the judiciary system is highly complicit with criminals (drug dealers,thieves, white collar crimes etc), and against women (rape victims can be told to close their legs better by judges).
Care to back up your outlandish claims? I live here for 15 years and all you write is completely untrue for everything I ever experienced, saw, heard or read. Or you mean some case from early 70s?
Saying "i am getting my gun and going to retrieve my stuff" guarantees that 6-8 police cars will converge on the location within minutes. Once there, they will apprehend the thief since they are there already.
Then you’re fucking comically unlucky, there’s a shooting and some old enemy offs someone at the same address and flee, minutes before the police gets there.
Some pissed off riff-raff family member decides that you look like the killer.
You’d better have a top notch lawyer in your family or prepare to spend lots of money hiring one.
If you're really concerned about that you could go to a local bar and call from there. Make sure you have the attention of the bartender while making the call. Easy alibi, the bartender won't forget something like that
I love getting diverted from the violent domestic call to turn up to a theoretical firearms call and find out it was just someone trying to be clever.
What? As someone who has worked in emergency services, with a brother-in-law who was a 911 dispatcher in a capital city for 10 years, what dispatching prioritization system puts "violence in progress" lower than "threat of violence", unless the cops are bored and just want to roll their SWAT team at the slightest provocation?
Sounds like a great way to get charged with making false statements to the police or something along those lines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_false_statements
Not at all. I had intent to do so, which is what I said, then thought about it, realized it was dangerous, and didn't.
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I don't think this is true. It's probably true that there's a pervasive belief that a hungry person probably shouldn't be punished for stealing food.
Other kinds of property crime? The costs of enforcement are high compared to the losses caused by individual cases, prioritization is understandably a difficult problem to solve.
It goes far beyond hungry people stealing bread. Look at one of those academic fraud discussions had here on HN over the past week and you'll find people saying that using AI to hallucinate an academic paper isn't a good thing but instead of judging the people who do this we should blame society itself while being understanding of the frauds. The mentality spoken above is pervasive and insidious.
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It's not a hard problem to solve, you scale the punishment for the cases you prosecute so high that it makes the expected value of stealing a suitcase negative
My experience with small police departments in the US is that they either don’t have the time or the inclination to deal with small property claims. If you’re a business they’ll be there in 10 minutes, but individuals aren’t afforded the same courtesy. Eventually, citizens realize it’s just not worth the cost or the hassle to report a crime unless it helps with an insurance claim.
My experience with large police departments in the US is that they either don’t have the time or the inclination to deal with small property claims. Some people tried to steal cars (including mine) in my neighborhood in Chicago, we had them on video and they were still in the area and the police didn't do anything. Large police departments also generally won't really do much. Though my friend in Houston did have the police investigate car break ins at his apartment complex but that might be because multiple guns were stolen from cars (so at least there are certain things that will get their attention).
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I believe there to be some merit to the notion that it is better for society if many of the generational cycles which lead to crime are broken. Sometimes that involves off-ramps from the road to incarceration.
That said, the policy can be, and certainly is, applied in imbalanced ways when justice is pursued over pragmatism.
I'm sure at some point it's cheaper to pay people to do nothing and have laws enforced, rather than indirectly paying people to do crime by letting stuff get stolen without consequences. Politically it sounds insane, but it would make for a more trusting society.
That belief is not shared by law enforcement. But all the same, they'll refuse to help you anyway.
Bullshit.