It's easier to steal anonymously than if you can connect the object with a person (like crimes of violence, I think, which is why one should confront one's attackers, forbid). When I was twenty, I found a wallet in a bar. I took the $20 cash, but mailed the wallet back to the owner the next day. Not claiming virtue by any means, but I hope it got back to him before he went through cancel/replace shit. Opportunity. Need. I dunno. I just remember a VALUE/TAKE impulse that I wasn't able to control at the time. To justify myself, this was my only stealing episode, and it could have been worse for the guy, if someone wanted to run his credit cards. I'm sorry you've been a victim lately, sakura. It's wrong and it sucks.

Seriously, how many meth deals can you make with a hot cell phone before it gets disconnected?

Seriously, how many meth deals can you make with a hot cell phone before it gets disconnected?

Sadly, if the answer is > 0 then it is probably worth it.

There was a crazy vacation when I was about 14. As the family travelled about we kept finding things. A very nice down sleeping bag that flew off a car ahead of us (we tried to chase it down but failed), a very nice space blanket (no idea where it came from), and finally a wallet belonging to an Air Force sergeant, which was floating in a river (the wallet, not the sergeant).

I dried out the wallet and mailed it to the guy who was desperate to get his military ID back. I think he sent some minor reward but that was no motivation.

Truthfully, some people are raised with ethical standards and others are not. I don't think it gets more complicated than that.

Why, when I offer a reward worth more than a replacement from the store, would a person not be willing to return it?

Shame would be one reason. Another would be that the thief would see it as inherently confrontational.

I don't know for certain. I've stolen only two things in my life. To this day, I feel dreadful about both incidents.

People steal for different reasons. Some are emotional, some are practical. Some are contingent, some are permanent. When people don't steal and they could, it's because they perceive the cost of stealing (social, personal, potential consequences, guilt) to be greater than the benefit they gain by the stealing. The equation can work out differently for different things at different times for different people.

It does really suck - I once had a guitar stolen, one I really loved and which was bought for me by a collection from my friends - and it's still one of the shittiest things that ever happened to me. Some teenagers stole it - this was at a folk festival - and they basically ransacked the camps right before dawn and got 4 or 5 different guitars. They probably all ended up hocked for cash. In that case, their reasons were probably easy pickin's, desire for cash, desire to feel like a badass during a boring summer in Pennsylvania. The reasons are never complicated, but the equation in the head of the person who steals is just different from the one in your own head about the value of the same object and the downside they might experience.

I think these things get fenced pretty quickly. You need a drug fix, so you steal some stuff, go straight round to the fence and sell it for a few bucks, get high.

From the Bent Society criminology blog:

One thing is known though, and that is that most stolen goods are sold. They are not stolen by a hidden army of thieving and hoarding property fetishists and kleptomaniacs. The hard reality is that most goods stolen from houses and cars, or from businesses such as shops, are sold within half an hour of the theft.

He reckons that a better way to cut crime would be to target the fences, not just the thieves.

That seems smart.

I had every mix tape I ever made stolen out of my car back in the mid-80's. That was back when mix tapes meant hours spent with my Nakamichi deck and a turntable. I'm thinking it was probably karma for the presstype and markers I stole from the university bookstore several years prior.

Still...

every.
fucking.
mix.
tape.