Police Wrap - 27 August

Thumper, if you look more deeply you’ll find that ‘zero-tolerance’ only works in cases where there’s a massive (and very expensive) increase in police resources.

It also comes at a huge human cost of a number of petty offenders being criminalised and institutionalised.

In places where they’ve increased the policing resources without recourse to ‘zero-tolerance’ crime figures also improve by similar margins.

Which would appear to indicate that zero tolerance isn’t much of a solution to anything.

Me I’d rather pay for my petrol in advance than pay for an extra 1,000 police in Canberra with nothing better to do with their time than hassle kids.

We had our car stolen once. It was a Sunday night. When we went to catch a bus home we soon found out why. One exorbitant taxi fare later, I had to wonder: “Why don’t they fix the buses?”

I have personally contributed to the GetUp Fuelwatch ad because I think it makes sense to implement real solutions to the problem of petrol prices, let alone the benefits to our planet.

Often addressing root causes will be the best means of prevention.

re #1,

where did it start, i wonder?

I should also add that anything the petrol stations do will be passed on to us, the consumer.

So we lose all round due to drive offs.

Catch them, fine then 100% of what they stole.

Thumper: You sort of almost just made it to the point I was going to make.

Anything the petrol stations do will be passed onto us. However locking someone up for 5 years is not just a ridiculously unproportionate sentence, who pays for gaols? WE DO! Your original plan will pass the costs onto us as well. That also completely sucks.

So we get to your revised plan. I am a big believer in a greater emphasis in restitution over retribution (retribution of course has a big role to play). I’d suggest to you that a fine of merely what they stole would not be sufficient. If you steal $50 and the potential cost is paying $50, there’s no incentive not to do it.

So I would suggest they must pay restitution to the victim, pay the court/arrest/prosecution costs, and then if that does not provide enough of a sentence, an additional ‘naughty naughty’ fine.

or alternatively take simple steps to stop the crime happening in the first place

Afterall, it’s only a car.

Sure – compare a $30K asset to $50 worth of petrol. They’re, like, totally the same thing.

The logical extent of the other side of the arguement is to let petty crimals get away with everything.

No, it’s to have a sense of perspective (and really, you lost all claims to the logical extent of anything with the petrol = car thing). Put reasonable preventative measures in place, catch those stupid enough to be caught, and for the rest – suck it up. Every other business builds theft into their margins – I’m sure servos do as well.

I have a special entry in The Guide.

Earth: mostly harmless. See Granny

thumper; do you lock your car door or do you instead wish that the courts will protect your property? do you have home and contents insurance or just hope that anyone who does rob you will be so harshly punished they dont dare offend again? as far as i can see thats the logical extension of your argument; that people shouldn’t have to go to a small inconvience and take reasonable steps in order to protect their property.

i agree that its not exactly fair, but you know; welcome to the real world etc…

i agree with everybody suggesting a pre pay system as it works as a way of preventing the actual crime where as the mandatory sentencing idea would only work in a world where everybody was able to understand the consequences of their actions; and to be blunt because of differences in education, life expereince etc there are a significant number of people who just couldn’t manage this

Seems granny is keen for the position. 😛

I did accidentally traumatise a preschool teacher once when I turned up that first time in a black leather jacket, but aside from that I am mostly harmless.

*heh heh heh*

The next day I wore pink.

; )

I can’t believe we’re debating this. The simplest solution *by far* is to have users pay beforehand. Numberplate recognition, licence inspection, all such methods can be gamed. Cold hard cash before the fact is an inconvenience at most.

Felix the Cat said :

On a side note why are people so stupid as to pay the rip-off prices for Coke etc at the servos but whinge their brains out (and drive off) when petrol goes up a few cents a litre?

Government schools?

Grannies going bad?

Deadmandrinking said :

No, it was stocks beforehand Davo…in this thread.

Would you like to be appointed as the official torturer Davo? Teach all those bad, bad petrol thieves a lesson and an education in leather?

I would! I would! Pick me!

The courts have far more serious crimes to spend their time on

Crime is crime DMD. The slippery slope created by ignoring minor crime is well documented.

Preventing crime is exactly what I am talking about as well, but in a different way. However, no matter what, there will be a cost to the community. If measures are put in place by owners to stop drive offs be sure that they will offest that cost by charging the consumer more.

Well, I don’t see how paying before-hand will cause a massive, if any increase in costs. At base-level, it’s just doing what they usually do, only the other way around.

No, it was stocks beforehand Davo…in this thread.

Would you like to be appointed as the official torturer Davo? Teach all those bad, bad petrol thieves a lesson and an education in leather?

hahaha the dodgy side of the interwebs.

I only posted chains once, perhaps you’re reading what you want to see DMD!

Davo111 said :

Catch them, fine then 100% of what they stole.

I’d say a $1000 fine for every $100 worth of fuel stolen is appropriate. Perhaps we could think of creative ‘community’ punishments! lol

One idea is to chain the person to a pole on Northborne Ave, repeat offenders will be left there on Thursday and Saturday nights. 😉

Posters obsessions with chains and public humiliation makes me wonder whether this site attracts traffic from certain corners of this interweb…

Catch them, fine then 100% of what they stole.

I’d say a $1000 fine for every $100 worth of fuel stolen is appropriate. Perhaps we could think of creative ‘community’ punishments! lol

One idea is to chain the person to a pole on Northborne Ave, repeat offenders will be left there on Thursday and Saturday nights. 😉

Danman said :

Jimbocool – hassle city – population anyone using teh servo.

Automatic NumberPlate Recognition is teh way to go – scan entering cars – also retractable road spikes on all entries/exits….

Surefire disincentive

Yeah good idea. Or the governemnt could deploy black hawk helicopters at each outlet to chase down theifs.

Yeah these are much better solutions than having customers pay at the pump.

No, I’m arguing that preventing crime in the first place is a better way to deal with it, Thumper. Especially if it costs less than punishing someone. The courts have far more serious crimes to spend their time on.

You want to pay for police time, court time and then living expenses for six months for someone who takes $50 worth of gas over preventative measures that stops them stealing it in the first place? Wow.

We’re not talking about punching someone in the head. Irrelevant.

We’re talking about crime, Thumper – crime and how easy people think it is to get away with it…

They’ll have nothing to get away with if they can’t actually commit the crime now, can they?

But you’re gambling all of this on the instance they get caught. It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if alot of people were getting caught for this stuff, would it?

Yes argument. Welcome to Riot-Act.

6 months behind bars if you got caught. You could also potentially receive that for punching someone in the head (especially if they hit their head on something hard afterward), but a lot of people do that.

True, Davo. But the way petrol prices are going, it might be an advantage to calculate how much you’re actually going to put in beforehand so you can budget.

Thumper, it has been proven time and time again that harsher penalties only make more determined criminals. Also, with the petrol crisis being what it is, it’s likely more people will be prepared to offend regardless of the penalty to make ends meet.

If you want these people to stop committing crimes, preventative measures need to be put in place – since after all, a crime prevented is better than a crime punished. Preventative measures often mean minor sacrifices on the community’s part for the greater good. The greater good vs. luxury – who do you think should win?

Deadmandrinking said :

B) I don’t know how much harder it is. I mean, you have to go in and pay after you fill up…why not just go before?

.

Davo111 said :

… In a lot of cases you ‘fill’ to the tank is full, …

Hang on, why are we talking about making it harder for the legitimate law abiding owner/ driver to fill us a car?

Surely the real solution is that anyone caught goes to gaol for five years. No questions asked. End of story.

I’m sick of society being disadvantaged by having to cater for a small amount of miscreants.

A) You have to catch them.
B) I don’t know how much harder it is. I mean, you have to go in and pay after you fill up…why not just go before?

Maybe we need Stocks placed in the city for the petrol thieves?

My Hyundai takes about that.

Woolies/Caltex at Gungahlin? I just pull up at the pump 11pm+-. Maybe its the old Corrolla,
45 litres if I’m running on fumes.

I reckon most petrol outlets aren’t keen on “pay before you pump” as it would mean noone would go into the shop (as they’d pay at the bowser) and buy their over priced retail items.

It’s a bit like the petrol station owners complaining about “high priced credit card commissions” when they are apparently happy to spend money securing their shop against the armed theft of cash (noone bothers restaurants anymore as they don’t have any cash).

I don’t like the idea of credit card swipe prepaid system because many people pay by cash. In a lot of cases you ‘fill’ to the tank is full, and yes other people just ‘put $20 in’.

Closing pumps in the middle of the day IS a strategy against tight-arse tuesday!

caf said :

(How closely do you think the bored checkout operator is going to check the photo on the thousandth license they’ve seen that day?)

It takes all of 2 seconds to look at a photo and see if it matches the person. Remember you only need to look at the photo and a hologram, its not a nightclub – so no DOB. After working in the liquor industry – i know you can spot a fake license pretty damn quickly

Not sure about other servos but the Woolies/Caltex one at Gungahlin requires you to pay for your fuel (or at least swipe your CC) before you fill up after I think 9pm at night. You have to go and see the console operator first at the little window, you aren’t allowed inside the building.

If this system was to operate 24/7 then hardly anybody would buy the overpriced cans of Coke and packets of chips and servos would go broke trying to rely solely on profit from petrol.

On a side note why are people so stupid as to pay the rip-off prices for Coke etc at the servos but whinge their brains out (and drive off) when petrol goes up a few cents a litre?

All Danman and Davo111’s solutions would do is to create an incentive to steal numberplates and drivers licences, respectively. (How closely do you think the bored checkout operator is going to check the photo on the thousandth license they’ve seen that day?)

The technology for electronic payment before filling up has been available for years. I can remember driving into servos in Italy in 1986 and feeding thousand lira notes into the bowsers to get petrol. And the EFTPOS swipey things have been at Mobil stations for years, though I remember that not long after they were introduced they were quickly taped over. I’ve used one somewhere though in recent times.

I reckon you should hand your drivers licence through a slot in the glass. The guy immediately puts the licence in a slot* for that pump ( a bit like hotel keys + power supply). When you pay, your license is returned to you.

* the slots are in plain sight behind the counter so nobody can ‘scan’ them

Jimbocool – hassle city – population anyone using teh servo.

Automatic NumberPlate Recognition is teh way to go – scan entering cars – also retractable road spikes on all entries/exits….

Surefire disincentive

Re #2 drive offs can be simply addressed by adopting the same method used by the Americans. In the US you pay for your petrol before you fill up – you go in, give the panel operator your money and say ‘$40 on pump six'”. You go and pump your ‘gas’ and it either cuts out at $40, or if you use less than that you go back in and get your change. All pumps also have credit card facilites in them so you can just pay by card at the pump.
Given that Australian petrol stations were the original ‘driving force’ behind the takeup of eftpos, it surprises me that there isn’t a pay at the pump option here.