Comments on: The assumption that all doors are locked

By: Anonymous Dude

Anonymous Dude — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:04:24 +0000

When I was in school, I would walk down the halls and try to open every locker. When I found one that was unlocked, I’d take anything valuable that I found. I was always surprised how many people would not bother to lock them, but would leave money inside. I never graduated to robbing houses, but I think the same approach would work.

By: Matt Thompson

Matt Thompson — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:40:33 +0000

Just piling on: My little neighborhood newsletter had an item recently on the fact that the most common denominator in local burglaries was leaving doors and windows unlocked. I’ve been extra-vigilant ever since, even though my block never seems to show up on the crime map, even for larceny. (There was once apparently a major, middle-of-the-night pot bust right outside my house, though.)

By: Robin Sloan

Robin Sloan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:48:33 +0000

That’s fair, as evidenced by the comments here. I’m actually very surprised to hear them. I’ve lived in some scummy/shady places in both St. Petersburg and San Francisco and never felt like my place was being cased. So either I was a) lucky or b) wrong.

However, I will say that one of my biggest pet peeves (it’s bigger than a pet peeve; a wild peeve?) is the approach to the world that says: People are out to cheat me, to rob me. Give ‘em an inch and they’ll take everything. Hobbes in the city. I think it’s false and corrosive.

And I like your invocation of Jane Jacobs up above, Matt. I think most people actually want to help protect you — so we just have to set ourselves up to make that more possible.

By: Matt Katz

Matt Katz — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:41:09 +0000

That is precisely the Jane Jacobs argument, right in the beginning of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”.

On a small scale, it is the reason you should invite people in your apartment building to your parties and get to know them. They are a great line of defense.

By: Matt Katz

Matt Katz — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:34:16 +0000

The world isn’t full of only nice people and at least some of them live in Brooklyn, where I keep my stuff.
People steal our packages all the time on the off chance that something good is in them. They push doorbells on the building until someone buzzes them in, then they go to all the doors that didn’t answer and jiggle handles.

There are differences between places, differences in culture, security, and various norms.

Your statement seems like someone who is tech-literate, has smart friends, and one day thinks “How do spammers make any money since no one ever responds to spam?”

By: Tim Maly

Tim Maly — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:02:05 +0000

Like the Tim who works here, I really like the vision of locking one’s door as a kind of collective act. And there seems to be some truth to that in the world of crimes. Lots of people have alarm systems or at least the appearance of alarm systems and maybe you get to know that certain neighbourhoods aren’t worth the bother of trying to steal from.

But unlike a vaccination where the community benefits from me being vaccinated, there’s a sense in which security measures are kind of a way of saying “look, go steal from someone else”. If a lot of the crimes are crimes of opportunity, then locking your door makes sense because maybe they find someone whose door isn’t locked, so they go steal from there. If everyone’s door is locked, then they wander around the houses to see who left their windows open. Etc.

By: Tim Maly

Tim Maly — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:58:09 +0000

The dorm example is an interesting one, because that’s a situation where it’s actually legitimately believable that someone would take the time to learn to pick locks and then open your door and do some prank.

By: Tim Maly

Tim Maly — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:56:10 +0000

I also would really like to see reactions to street view broken down by the demographics you mention. That would be a really interesting set of data.

By: Robin Sloan

Robin Sloan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:35:46 +0000

This makes me think of the Jane Jacobs-ian argument that the safest kind of street is the kind that has people around all the time — mixed-use zoning as security scheme.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:35:02 +0000

I still like the idea that the systemic effect of ALL doors being locked is the real deterrent.

Also note that theft is not the only outcome. Someone could enter your home and wait for you to return. Or they could rearrange or tamper with your stuff to mess with you. (This is particularly a danger in college dorms.)