WRITTEN ON September 24th, 2005 BY Anthony J Evans AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, What do we want?

Local police officials have little incentive to make a record of petty crime. There’s scant chance the criminals will be caught, and their reluctance to pursue the matter leaves the victims frustration.

WIBBI: Citizens can file their own reports?

About 10 years ago, I was on holiday on the South-West coast of France and my family woke one morning to find that towels, t-shirts and other clothing had been stolen from our washing line. Granted, it’s unwise to leave valuables outdoors overnight, but the thieves had entered a secure backyard, and had stolen expensive items.

We contacted local police to report the theft, and they told us that there’d be no chance of recovery. In fact, they saw no point in even taking down a list of what was stolen, and thought our charge was a waste of their time.

This past summer, we were back in the same town and experienced the same thing: in the night people had climbed over the padlocked gate and stolen over $100 worth of clothing. Frustrated that we’d be so foolish to let it happen again, but angry that it did, we again expected the police to take action. Even posters that remind tourists of the chance of theft would be helpful, but of course any holiday resort would be unlikely to publicise their crime problems.

So little chance of reclaiming the goods, and zero chance of returning them should they be found, since the police refused to take any record of the theft. For them, the cost of paperwork exceeded any expected benefit of solving the crime.

WIBBI: Citizens could report their own instances of petty crime?

The individual police officer clearly has no incentive to take action, but the person who’s suffered from crime does. We would have been quite willing to fill in the forms necessary to register the theft on a database, so that informaiton would be available to ascertain a pattern of crime, and return recovered goods to victims.
The unwillingness of local police to make a claim inhibits ability to claim on insurance, and so:

WIBB: Citizens who register crime have an option for that crime to be investigated by police should an insurance claim need to be made?

I envisage an electronic database, on the local government website where citizens are free to report petty crime, or other disturbances that are costly for police to respond to in person. Although false claims may be made (and they are anyway), at least an engagement between citizens and police will assure us that we’re not helpless in the face of victimhood.