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Comment by dkopi | Hacker News Reader

"The married engineer, who is in his 30s, and has been quietly tracking down stolen bikes for the last year, spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity amid increasing curiosity about his identity, motives and methodology."

I'm guessing the main reason he wants anonymity isn't from criminals, but from his family, who would obviously kill him if they knew how much danger he's putting himself into.

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A guy out stealing bikes is going to do everything they possibly can to avoid getting in a fight with someone. There is simply no profit in it for such low stakes.

You're assuming thieves are acting rationally.

They are.

They're choosing the rational response when balancing a low-risk, high-reward activity such as bicycle theft.

And yet... A friend was walking in soma watching a video on his iphone. He noticed someone peering over his shoulder; the dude grabbed the iphone and took off. My friend chased him, and this is where it gets interesting.

The thief, instead of outrunning my friend and/or just dropping the phone, punched my friend. My friend plus a bystander who saw the punch ended up chasing the thief down. SF police don't give a fuck less about a stolen iphone, but that punch? The thief is doing 2-4 years.

This isn't a good thing - even if the thief serves half that there is no scenario where that outcome is a net benefit to society. However this view of mine may be venturing too far into politics.

I think it's good that as a society we do not lock people up for years for stealing a phone.

But I would love to hear from you what we should do of the people who commit assault?

What is a woman was punched? or a minority (because they were a minority)?

Do you honestly believe that prison for assault does not deter would be assaulters?

What does 4 years in prison create? Is he going to be fixed when he comes out and never do anything bad again?

>What does 4 years in prison create?

In America? Mostly gang members and/or rape victims.

Stops him from committing more crimes, at least for 4 years

Does it? And after that?

This attitude basically concedes to accepting theft as inevitable, treating this type of crime as something that cannot be avoided.

Crime needs to be punished and deterred. An argument can be made that communities where property crime is rampant are not using effective measures to deter criminals.

Imagine how many fewer bike thefts there would be if, for example, Seattle put in place caning as a punishment, like in Singapore. This could replace long term prison sentences while also being severe enough to scare would be criminals. What's your solution to decreasing rate of thefts, if not prison?

Why is the person stealing? Treat that problem rather than just punish the action. I'm not saying that there should be no punishment, just that long sentences achieve little. I don't think many people would call the US justice system a great success, so what's the harm in trying something a little different?

I support that for nonviolent crime, but when you assault someone, we should aggressively punish. The police and DA were pretty clear: if the dude had just dropped the phone, they wouldn't have had any interest.

They are, sometimes.

Other times they're strung out and looking for a fix. A bike takes 5 minutes to steal and they know where they can pawn it for crack.

You can't assume you're dealing with rational agents. When you're actively looking for bike thieves, you're going to run into an irrational one fairly often.

Bike thieves are hardly organized criminals with weapons. Probably mostly homeless or very poor people without better ideas. It's a very low margin crime.

In British Columbia there is organized bike theft. The police caught a group of thieves who had rented a cube van and driven up to whistler from Vancouver and stolen half a dozen bikes. One of the bikes was a police "bait bike" with a tracking device. The Mounties care!

http://globalnews.ca/news/785241/bait-bike-leads-whistler-po...

Maybe not organized, but usually specialized. To steal a bike, you need a set of tools (like a modified car jack http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2014/10/your-u-lock-is-basi...) and knowledge of where to sell the parts.

I'm surprised he let them publish a photo of him at all, the sunglasses aren't going to stop people recognising him.

Plus the article mentions he's a "married engineer, who is in his 30s", a bicycling enthusiast, and six feet, four inches tall. That, combined with the photo, is a pretty thorough description.

Assuming that's true, or the photo is legit.

> "married engineer, who is in his 30s", a bicycling enthusiast, and six feet, four inches tall. That, combined with the photo, is a pretty thorough description.

Not here in Seattle, it isn't!

Luckily for him it's unlikely bike thieves are reading the guardian or, I hope, HN.

Is it really though? Sometimes I don't recognise people I see regularly because I'm only used to seeing them in specific contexts.

The photo here isn't that clear and he's wearing quite large sunglasses. If we put him in jeans, without the glasses and off a bike I'm pretty sure no one who's read the article could pick him out.

Won't help thieves recognize his online identity as a potential buyer. Once he is actually confronting them there really is not much difference between "random guy accusing me of selling a stolen bike" and "damn it's the bicycle batman, accusing me of selling a stolen bike".

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