Car Theft Is Effectively "Decriminalized" In London

Car theft has effectively been decriminalized in London after it was revealed that less than one per cent of vehicle thefts in the capital lead to criminal charges.

“Out of the nearly 55,000 thefts from vehicles in London last year, Scotland Yard only solved 271, representing just an 0.5 per cent success rate, according to an analysis of Home Office data conducted by The Telegraph,” reports Breitbart.

“According to the broadsheet, only two major police forces faired worse than London in successfully charging car thieves, with the West Midlands and Surrey police forces only maintaining a 0.4 per cent charging rate.”

Responding to the figures, the head of the Police Foundation think tank Rick Muir said car thefts had been “effectively decriminalized” and that this had emboldened criminals to commit more of the same crimes, knowing they are unlikely to be apprehended.

“There are certain things the public expect of police, one of which is that they will at least investigate these bread and butter crimes,” said Muir.

“Policing is going to have to look at these levels and decide if it has got it right. Where the charge rates are at that level, there is no deterrence to commit these kinds of offences and it might encourage people to commit them in future,” he added.

As we have exhaustively highlighted, while real crimes go unpunished, authorities in the UK have plenty of resources and enforcement power when it comes to punishing people for ‘offensive’ speech.

Last month, a man was jailed for 20 weeks for the ‘crime’ of posting offensive George Floyd memes in private WhatsApp and Facebook group chats.

Last year, a 50-year-old mother in Scotland was charged with a ‘transphobic hate crime’ after she retweeted an image of a suffragette ribbon.

After contacting his employers, Humberside Police interrogated a man and told him to “check his thinking” after he posted a limerick that offended a transgender person.

Harry Miller told police he did not write the limerick and merely retweeted it, but was told by an officer, “Ah. But you liked it and promoted it. It’s not a crime, but it will be recorded as a hate incident.”

In 2017, it was reported that British police had arrested 3,395 people for ‘offensive online comments’ in the space of a year.

People in the UK are routinely investigated and sometimes charged by police for “hate crimes” that have become so broad, anyone form a minority group who claims they were offended is enough for authorities to treat and record it as a “hate incident.”

Back in 2015, the head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council said that due to a lack of resources, officers would be unable to attend some burglaries. In 2018, it was revealed that two thirds of burglaries are not even investigated.

As we highlighted last year, Merseyside Police were forced to respond after officers took part in an electronic ad campaign outside a supermarket which claimed “being offensive is an offence,” with authorities later clarifying that it is in fact not an offense.