Brickbat: Oh, You Meant Those Too?

The Telegraph reports that police in the United Kingdom have failed to solve any burglaries in almost half of the neighborhoods in England and Wales in the past three years. Last October, all of the chief constables in England and Wales promised to have an officer respond to every reported burglary. But it turns out most departments exclude burglaries in garages, sheds, and other outbuildings from that promise. Rick Muir, director of the British think tank Police Foundation, told the newspaper that in some areas burglary has effectively been decriminalized because there are no penalties for it.