MrGrey wrote:ouch.... did I hit a nerve or something?..... you seem rather defensive?
oh and *lol* at -karma for making a standpoint on an issue you disagree with...... go nuts, I don't care.
Not defensive, just pointing out your gross ignorance on the topic
And, ahem, *lol* like I care about forum karma.
1) high profile crime like murders and rapes are TOTALLY different to property crime and obviously get assigned case officers. You obviously know how the inner workings of how a police station operate (or have close friends who are officers) so you know that in an average station the amount of officers dedicated to property theft (both burglaries and car theft) are a small percentage of the overall manpower available (or woman power of course)
That's really not what you said at all, though. I'm glad you've said this now, however, so I can stop thinking you're tapped in the head.
3) due to the quota system (and yes, 'performance expectations' are real) I feel that yes, the police DO spend too much time chasing the easy yards simply because in the short term it looks much better on paper. By this I mean that catching 10 speeding motorists looks much better on paper than catching one burglar because you cannot measure the potential gain of stopping that one burglars crime.
Performance expectations are present in any job, what's your point? It stands to reason that if a crime is easy to deal with, it will be dealt with easily and promptly. That doesn't necessitate that more difficult (and potentially unsolvable) crimes are not dealt with, because logically they are more difficult and take time. What's your point?
Obviously catching 10 speeding motorists does not look better on paper than catching one burglar, because the public still bitches and moans without knowing a thing about the process. Everyone has an opinion, but very few bother to put much thought in before voicing it, or don't have any valid insight.
4) I feel that if you get caught breaking the law, then so be it, take your ticket/fine and learn your lesson. I did however mention that the volume of man hours spent following me around is a waste of time as I personally don't break the law (intentionally). If a police officer wants to prejudge me and think that I am a boy racer up to no good, then I am in return entitled to think that he is a police officer whose time would be better spent catching other offenders.
We can logically equate this situation with the example of a higher concentration of police patrols in a known high-crime area. Just as crime is more likely to occur in the CBD on Friday and Saturday night, it's more likely that your car, as a modified car, is not up to legal standards, and that because you're driving a modified "performance" car you are more likely to drive too fast, carelessly or dangerously.
Your statement is the logical equivalent of saying that increased weekend police patrols on Queen Street in Auckland Central are a waste of police time and would be better spent catching burglars. It's not like they're not fighting crime, and no doubt if they weren't there the complaint would just go the other way...
5) Just because getting a conviction is not easy doesn't mean it should be filed in the 'too hard' basket. I feel our justice system would be better served if we had an inquisitorial system instead of an adversarial system in our courts, but that is something for another discussion.
It's not a matter of filing in the "too hard" basket. As I pointed out earlier, police would no doubt love to proceed with more prosecutions on the chance of getting lucky successes, but they know, factually, that their case will not stand up to the Court's scrutiny. It's a matter of not wasting time and resources.
You see my point? You're demanding they not "give up" on cases because they don't think they'll manage a conviction (thus preserving resources for cases they feel they
will successfully prosecute), and yet on the other hand you're demanding they waste less resources on what you imagine to be wastes of police time in other areas.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
6) Many of us here have friends or family in the police force and my cynical opinion (and yes I do believe that is the best term used to describe my standpoint) is not a personal attack against them or their work. I do however feel that the statistics I provided show that even tho' things are getting better by tiny fractions here and there, the over all resolution rate on property thefts (car and home) are not pretty.
I don't disagree, but the logic does not follow that it is simply the police's fault. If there's very little evidence to go on, there's very little evidence to go on. Fact is, unless there is other evidence to link someone to a burglary that was not otherwise witnessed, what is there to go on? Is that the police's fault that there's not much trace of the crime beyond the disappeared items and a broken window? I don't think so.
Sometimes it really is a matter of "I'm sorry Mr. Jones, but the burglars didn't leave much trace of their work, and without any witnesses we just don't have any leads we can reasonably investigate. I hope you had insurance."
I realize that this is 'teh interwebz' were people love to argue, but that is not the intention of this post or my intention, I simply felt that I should elaborate because you considered me misinformed when in truth, I (sadly) do have a reasonably firm grasp of how things work.
I have little say in what resources the police are allocated and I realize they are running a tight ship. This however is not (in my mind) an excuse to let property crime go by the wayside.
I'm not convinced you do have a firm grasp... like I said, you seem to be wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You seem to be laying to blame at the police's door problems that are just in the nature of burglaries.
They can't just conjure evidence and leads out of nowhere
Growler wrote:I'm not too sure. In street view there is a house with an orange tile roof, and the photos show the same thing, but the house design is different.
I travel through there regularly so will check it out.
There are two orange-roofed houses in the photographs posted - one directly next door (which is the vacant lot in Satellite View) and one two houses down. Now that you mention it, the orange-roofed house directly next door doesn't seem to match the Street View image, however it may be that Street View is older than the vacant lot in Satellite View and Satellite View not up to date either, as the house does look very new.
If you look in the opposite direction however, the house directly next door matches up with the shed location, flax bush and then the sort of mint-roofed and orange-roofed houses a couple of houses down, as well as the house directly next-door on that side matching with what can be seen in Satellite View. Also the property in question doesn't have the trampoline in the yard, but has the washing line and shed in the right positions, as well as a bare-looking tree in the middle in the right position.
e-detective skillz +1 for both of us?
Agreed. I do understand both sides. But what gets me, is that a criminal can commit a crime against another human being, get caught, be reformed and everyone thinks he has done well...yet the victim (I'll use this theft as an example), loses a prized possession, is inconvenienced because he/she has to find alternate travel to go to work, has to battle with the insurance company, then has to find another car which can then increase his financial burden. His insurance premiums go up, he has to spend even more of his hard earned cash to increase security... And to top it off the victim has, in a round about way, paid for the criminal's reform! Where is the balance of justice in that.
The system cannot be all stick and no carrot, so to speak, but you're suggesting non-custodial sentences seem to be all carrot and not stick, which isn't right either. Yes, victims very often find themselves out of pocket and inconvenienced (athough often reparation is sought to offset these sorts of things). Don't forget though that the criminal has to serve a sentence as well, so there is always a punitive aspect to offset their supposedly positive reform.
even tho' they have a good avenue of investigation to start with, its simply far easier to give out tickets than catch real criminals. It not the frontline police officers fault, its because they have 'performance expectations' (their way of saying quota's) from their bosses and lets be honest, catching a joe blogs doing 56km an hour is far easier than tracking down a scumbag criminal.
