That's Odd

Credit: See-ming Lee ??? SML / photo on flickr

Police in Leicestershire, England, refused to fully investigate burglaries in homes with odd-numbered street addresses for three months. They say the move was a cost-cutting measure that had no impact on crime rates or public satisfaction. Officials are now reviewing the experiment and say they may roll it out to the entire West Midlands area.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

If it's anything like U.S. law enforcement, they'll still have plenty of time to make all the "drugs" arrests they want. And also if it's anything like across the pond, they're useless at investigating pretty much anything else. (The only reason to call police here after a break-in is because most insurance claims require a report be filed with authorities.) Give the victim access to their CCTV recordings and let them investigate it themselves.

[Radioactive]

does that go for odd number assaults & murders too?

[Phlogistan]

Interesting experiment... They could have cut costs even more by just firing the odd number of Officials...

[LarryA]

They say the move was a cost-cutting measure that had no impact on crime rates or public satisfaction.

Because the first couldn't get any higher, and the second couldn't get any lower.

Give the victim access to their CCTV recordings and let them investigate it themselves.

"This is England. You don't need to protect yourself. That's what the police are for."

[Robert]

Maybe I'm the only one here who thinks that was a good idea. Why not do research to find out which police methods are cost-effective? That's what this was: a controlled study to see which expenditures could be cut. It's easy to make fun of it, but how else would you determine in practice whether a particular facet of an otherwise legit gov't activity was worthwhile?

[crufus]

Instead of the even/odd scheme, they could have used a random number generator or a coin flip. At least burglars would not be able to predict which break-ins would be investigated.

[Chocolate Starfish ( . )]

I assume that had crime rates gone up they would have switched to not investigating even numbered addresses.

[gah87]

Property values are plummeting on one side of the street.