Poll: An unlocked car is stolen, who is to blame?

[Story]

The thing about crime though, is that the vast majority of crimes occur simply because the opportunity presents itself rather than because the person committing the crime really wants to commit a crime.

That was part of his argument too that people will take any opportunity for personal gain if one is presented even at the expense of other people.
The only counter argument I could come up with is I wouldn't do it. Which is true I wouldn't, but I can't speak for others and neither can he.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The thing about crime though, is that the vast majority of crimes occur simply because the opportunity presents itself rather than because the person committing the crime really wants to commit a crime.

That was part of his argument too that people will take any opportunity for personal gain even if one is presented even at the expense of other people.
The only counter argument I could come up with is I wouldn't do it. Which is true I wouldn't, but I can't speak for others and neither can he.

Well there's 2 kinds of criminals, rational criminals and irrational criminals.

Rational criminals are people who operate on a risk-reward ratio. Basically they'll commit a crime if the risk of getting caught is smaller than the potential reward. This ratio is different for different people, but the vast majority of people, criminals and non-criminals operate on it. As such, if you make it riskier to commit a crime it'll be less likely that a crime will be committed.

As far as stealing a car goes - if you lock your car the criminal has to spend time either jimmying the car door open, or they have to smash the car window. Both of these things may bring attention to them, much more attention than simply opening an unlocked car door. For many criminals this is enough of a deterrent to keep them from breaking into a locked car, because the risk of being caught increases.

Irrational criminals are criminals who do not consider the ratio of risk to reward, and who commit crimes due to a lack of self control. Irrational crimes are very difficult to prevent because it is very difficult to predict what lengths an irrational person will go to, and what kind of preventative measures will be effective. If a person isn't thinking about their chances of getting caught then you can't effectively prevent them from committing a crime.

Rape is by its nature an irrational crime. There's no real risk to reward ratio because rape doesn't have an actual reward, since rape tends to be less about sex and more about control. Since rape is an irrational crime its one which you can't approach with a mentality of rational deterrents. As such stealing a car and committing a rape are two incomparable crimes.

Basically, you're thinking about the nature of crime incorrectly.

 

[Zen Bard]

The thief is to blame for committing the crime. The owner is to blame for being careless.

Reminds me of an old Arab proverb: "Trust in God, but tie up your camel."

 

[pookie101]

as others have pointed out that leaving your car unlocked makes you a silly muppet who has increased your chances of it getting stolen but in the end its the thief who is to blame..

to blame the owner smacks of that internet fad of victim blaming.. you left it unlocked? your fault.. you locked it up but didnt put it in a locked garage? clearly your fault. you didnt put it at a vault at the bottom of the ocean guarded by sharks with lasers on their heads? oh you were asking for it

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

The person who stole the car.

Unless they made it blatantly obvious the car could be easily stolen.

Even then it's still the thief's fault. Just that the owner is asking for a slap by police for wasting their time when they have literally anything else that is more important than responding to your non-excusable reason for complaining about your idiocy. I will advocate the police should get to give you a glove slap for wasting their time and the taxpayer's money.

Either that or charge them with the cost of processing their complaint...

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

-snip-

I'm a little alarmed by the fact that you so quickly went to rape as an example. I'm not looking for an argument on that one, just letting you know.

I wasn't the one who started the rape talk, the OP mentioned it which is why I included it.

So...this is about people stealing cars? It's not actually about blaming rape victims? Huh.

That made me laugh, but humor aside. Yeah I promise it is what it is.
I actually brought up subject of rape with him too and he already expressed a strong opinion on the matter; that blaming the victim is inexcusable because usually the blaming reasons are subjective.

In the car example, he exposits that the person should be blamed if there is an obvious and objective preventive measure to avoid the incident. I claim that incident shouldn't happen in the first place because the thief had malicious intent and was actually the direct cause not really the failure locking of the car.

To be fair, in my opinion both are examples of victim blaming. I wasn't willing to dive deeper into the subject of rape with him that night.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I wasn't the one who started the rape talk, the OP mentioned it which is why I included it.

You're right. My mistake. We cool?

NAH WE AIN'T COOL, NOW I NEED TO YELL AT YOU TO ESTABLISH DOMINANCE FUCKING ALPHA MALE STYLE!

Crimes of passion are a dark reminder that at the end of the day we're all just apes wearing shoes. Crimes of passion are when you get drunk and beat the dude your girlfriend was cheating on you with. When someone enrages you to the point that you just have to strike them. When you're so afraid that you shoot the wrong guy. These are not premeditated. They are states of intense emotional distress. Ever see someone having a panic attack? Similar concept, broader range of emotions and responses.

Crimes of compulsion are those notorious cases like Son of Sam, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. People who for whatever reason have been afflicted with violent compulsions. The ability to hold it off is like flexing a muscle for some of them. When the New York police chief finally sat down to meet Son of Sam, he left saying, "I wanted to hate him, but there's nothing there. He's a vegetable."

Crimes of passion and crimes of compulsion are both irrational types of crimes. Crimes of passion, again, have no potential reward, and they are basically driven by a compulsion, but rather than the compulsion being the completion of the crime, the compulsion with crimes of passion is the restoration of respect, or the compulsion to show dominance. Crimes of passion tend to occur in response to a perceived slight. The wife that cheated on you needs to be killed because of the disrespect shown. The guy who spilled a drink on you needs to be punched in the face for disrespecting you, etc. There's never any benefit to those crimes, they're carried out due to uncontrollable rage.

YEAH YEAH YEAH

Now we cool.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

There is a vast gulf of difference between freaking out in panic and hurting someone by accident and having a compulsion to steal shit. Seriously, think about how fucking complex the human brain is. Do you really think a binary is good enough to cover all criminal behavior?

No, I don't, but this isn't a criminal justice class and I'm not about to start quoting excepts from Mark Warr, Derek Cornish, or Ronald Clark.

This binary is good enough to explain on a forum why the crimes of rape and car theft are incomparable, and why "victim blaming" in one case (the deterrence of a rational crimes) could be reasonable response, whereas in another case (the deterrence of an irrational crime) it is entirely unreasonable.

I'm in no way saying that you're wrong, we can spend many pages analyzing the causes of crime to a granular level, but further sub-division doesn't really help convey the basics of what I'm talking about and would only serve to muddle the issue.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

If theft is the normal state of affairs and the owner is aware of it, the owner. If theft is a bizarre accident which almost never happens, the thief.


The key question is "how likely is it for an unlocked car to be stolen". If, despite knowing the likelihood is very high, you allow your car to be unlocked out of some mistaken sense of arbitrary human morality of "stealing is wrong" then you are an idiot who doesn't realize the limited scope of social contract when in a world that doesn't have mind control.


It's kinda like why letting your kids walk to school by themselves in broad daylight is fine but letting them walk at night in the middle of a red light district would likely net you in jail for child abandonment/endangerment. The same laws apply in both stretches of road but it's not quiiiite that simple.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Society is to blame, for not having an adequate support network and education system that would have both eliminated the need for stealing vehicles and properly taught everyone to not steal vehicles even if they are unlocked. The theft of an unlocked car is a symptom of a toxic, rotting system, mired in corrupt and ineffective law that invites thieves to prey on the inattentive or unwary. The only solution to this is to BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND, WITH THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITING IN GLORIOUS RESISTANCE AS THEY REBUILD A BETTER SYSTEM, A SYSTEM WHERE NO MORE UNLOCKED CARS ARE STOLEN! VIVA LA RESISTANCE!! VIVA LA UNLOCKED CARS!!!

*cough* or, uhh, you know, the thief is to blame for stealing shit, even if said shit was poorly secured.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

If you leave your car unlocked on purpose and you know it's a high risk area, you're kind of an idiot, I guess. Sure the thief is to blame, but you also made a stupid decision and created an opportunity. Though in reality, I think what would happen is an opportunistic thief would steal whatever you left inside the car, and not the car itself.

I think people have different perspectives depending on where they live, though. I live in a very violent city so if you did that here, people would say you're a dumbass, and you would probably agree with them.

 

[K12]

Making a crime easier to commit doesn't change who is to blame for the crime being committed.


I think what people consistently do when considering blame is to wrongly conflate it with cause and then assign blame based on counterfactual statements.

In other words, stating that "if you hadn't left your car unlocked, it would not have been stolen" might be true but that doesn't entail that "you are to blame for your car being stolen".

 

[MrFalconfly]

Making a crime easier to commit doesn't change who is to blame for the crime being committed.


I think what people consistently do when considering blame is to wrongly conflate it with cause and then assign blame based on counterfactual statements.

In other words, stating that "if you hadn't left your car unlocked, it would not have been stolen" might be true but that doesn't entail that "you are to blame for your car being stolen".

This is why I answered "Partly at fault, silly goose".

I mean he is partly at fault, but it's the very small part which earns him a bit of harmless ridicule (and the grievance of having his car stolen), while the criminal blame should all fall on the thief (and I hope just for karmas sake that he gets a lawyer that shouts "STOP BREAKING THE LAW ASSHOLE").

 

[jademunky]

The thief is still entirely to blame. Me being an idiot and making the thief's job easier is not a legally mitigating circumstance.

 

[the December King]

I believe at one point in the movie the Lady Eboshi proudly boasts that "This is how you kill a god", a statement that at the very least smacks of egotism and pride. And to nature, her actions were quite evil. But there was more going on than that. That the characters in the film weren't all so black and white was one of the more charming features of the piece to me.

A thief takes what isn't theirs. It doesn't matter if it is unlocked, unmanned, etc. The victim can be seen as careless, foolish, naive, sure- but they didn't commit a crime. That's my take, anyways.

It's been awhile since I saw the movie, but when she said that, wasn't it to embolden her men and mock their notion that the creature in their path was a God in the first place? Kind of like an atheist spitting on a cross and inviting God to strike him down? I think she just thought her men were being ridiculous for believing they were standing before a god.

That sounds about right, yeah- it's been a while for me as well. It still doesn't make her very sympathetic in my eyes, mind you.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Isn't hotwiring a modern car almost impossible nowadays? If the owner leaves the door open AND the keys inside then that I'd call asking for it. Otherwise no, but it's an unnecessary risk they're taking.

Really? Asking for it?

Ok, let's take a small mom and pop store and this store doesn't have any fancy security tags and detection devices. Does that mean they are asking for shoplifting?

Let's say I leave my lawn mower in my yard, it's a push mower so no key but I do have a fence. That fence latches but there is no lock. I am asking for my lawn mower to be stolen?

How can people think like this?

 

[WeepingAngels]

If theft is the normal state of affairs and the owner is aware of it, the owner. If theft is a bizarre accident which almost never happens, the thief.


The key question is "how likely is it for an unlocked car to be stolen". If, despite knowing the likelihood is very high, you allow your car to be unlocked out of some mistaken sense of arbitrary human morality of "stealing is wrong" then you are an idiot who doesn't realize the limited scope of social contract when in a world that doesn't have mind control.


It's kinda like why letting your kids walk to school by themselves in broad daylight is fine but letting them walk at night in the middle of a red light district would likely net you in jail for child abandonment/endangerment. The same laws apply in both stretches of road but it's not quiiiite that simple.

It's like when we blame parents for letting their daughters go to college knowing the high college rape numbers...oh wait