People In Small Towns Still Leaving Cars Unlocked and Getting Robbed

[Duk123]

Originally Posted by ognend

I think it is called a "crime of opportunity". If you leave a door open and someone walks in and steals something, it is not treated the same as someone tearing your door down or tinkering with the lock to obtain access. The latter has intent and is a more serious crime.

OD

Okay I'm not a lawyer but as property crimes go this doesn't sound right. My understand of it is this the seriousness of a property crime is based on value of the items taken and the value of the damaged property. But if we go with what you're saying IF and that's a big IF the thief is caught the person who kicked in a door to rob your house will recieve a spanking and a slap on the wrist while the person who robbed the unlocked house will only recieve the slap on the wrist. Sorry I am joking with you I just don't have alot of faith in the criminal justice system.
Anyway my whole point from my first post in this thread is that if you keep nothing in your car of any real value to me it makes more sense to leave you doors unlocked otherwise the criminal is going to do more damage to you vehicle finding out that there's nothing there than if you had left the door unlocked in the first place.
Now don't get me wrong when we are somewhere such as a store and we can't remove our valuables we lock the doors but when the car is in front of our home we make sure to take the gps or the ipods out.

[tigre79]

Originally Posted by ognend

I think it is called a "crime of opportunity". If you leave a door open and someone walks in and steals something, it is not treated the same as someone tearing your door down or tinkering with the lock to obtain access. The latter has intent and is a more serious crime.

Walking into a house that isn't yours doesn't imply intent? What, do people accidentally steal things just because the door wasn't locked?

There was a spate of burglaries here back in January, when we had some people from out of town here for emergency show shoveling jobs. They hit I think 20 houses in two days, and the police took it very seriously, as they would any burglary. There wasn't even any mention in the several stories in our local paper or in the Anchorage paper about whether any of the doors were locked or unlocked. That's the thing about towns small enough, and safe enough, where it's reasonable to leave your doors unlocked: there's so little crime that the cops are going to take it seriously when something like that happens, regardless of whether your door was locked or not. Maybe in a city they'd just think you were an idiot and put your complaint in the round file, and maybe they'd be right, but around here walking into someone's house uninvited is a pretty big deal and criminals aren't treated like they're just misguided souls led astray by temptation.

[flyonpa]

Early 80's Was in a small town in Colorado, on a 1yr job assignment. I never locked the pickup (Company 'car') , and most of the time I left the keys in, (Often running). Only time I took keys (never locked it) was if I was out of town, or at night. The guy I replaced there came out of his home one morning and found the truck gone. Was found two hours later parked at the high school, My understanding was the student the 'borrowed' the truck missed the bus, and My guess it was handles with in the school/family cause I never heard of any charges being filed.


The local Sherriff/deputies also seem to know who went with what car. So if they saw some in a car that was not there's they would check it out.

[redwolf fan]

Originally Posted by flyonpa

Early 80's Was in a small town in Colorado, on a 1yr job assignment. I never locked the pickup (Company 'car') , and most of the time I left the keys in, (Often running). Only time I took keys (never locked it) was if I was out of town, or at night. The guy I replaced there came out of his home one morning and found the truck gone. Was found two hours later parked at the high school, My understanding was the student the 'borrowed' the truck missed the bus, and My guess it was handles with in the school/family cause I never heard of any charges being filed.


The local Sherriff/deputies also seem to know who went with what car. So if they saw some in a car that was not there's they would check it out.

Seems folks in that Colorado town don't bother teaching their kids the courtesy of ...........ASKING............before taking something that is not theirs.

[SCGranny]

Folks around here leave the keys in the ignition, the doors on their cars as well as their houses unlocked, in case someone needs to move their vehicle or get in to their house.

Just before we moved here, a neighbor had their car in their open garage, unlocked, keys in the ignition. They woke up Sunday morning to go to church, and the car was gone. For three days we had the local deputy flying over the whole area, searching for the car; everyone figured it was teens or even adults playing a joke. It was found a state away, parked in a mall parking lot, out of gas. No one ever found out who took it or why; they were lucky it wasn't found wrecked or damaged. Apparently someone REALLY needed to get to Cheyenne. Population of our town - 145. Not 145,000, just 145.

They laugh at us around here because we still lock our doors and don't leave the keys in the ignition. My attitude here is the same I have everywhere - I may know and trust YOU, but the weirdo strolling by - I don't.

[itsMeFred]

Yeah, like the guy headed home from the bar who tried to "borrow" my husband's old work pickup.
My neighbors would never have done such a thing. For that matter, this guy, from a neighboring town, probably wouldn't have either...had he been sober.