Vehicle theft at a 'critical point' in Canada, with car stolen every six minutes | Hacker News Reader

Vehicle theft at a 'critical point' in Canada, with car stolen every six minutes

ctvnews.ca

> The group says the province of Ontario as a whole witnessed 27,495 vehicle thefts in 2021. However, on five people were charged with the offense of altering, removing, or destroying a vehicle identification number.

That's insane. Why isnt every policeman involved being fired? How could they possibly be doing their jobs this badly?

This article could use an editor. But I'm not sure how many people I should expect to be charged with VIN altering for a given number of thefts? No mention of how many people were charged with auto theft either?

Maybe those stealing cars in Ontario tend to deliver them elsewhere where they get VINs altered, so there's no need to charge people with that crime in Ontario. Maybe it's more of a national crime, so it doesn't get picked up in provicinal statistics? Maybe all the parts tend to get exported for sale, and they don't tend to have VINs checked against Ontario thefts, so why bother messing with them?

Unless the article is misrepresenting the total number of arrests that relate to car theft (I agree the wording is confusing), there is no acceptable excuse for single digit arrests. Do you think there are loads of other arrests related to car theft that they didn't mention and they just zoomed in on a random think with five arrests? I suppose it's possible...

I mean, if they can't be bothered to write 'only five' rather than 'on five', who knows what other corners they cut?

Zooming in on one fact is exactly what they did, because that one fact is from the section of the report specifically talking about revinning vehicles.

There's no other stats (from skimming through the report) on arrest numbers, however it does note that the stolen car recovery rate in 2022 is about 50 percent (down from like 80 to 90 in 2015).

No relative numbers are given on the rates of cars being exported vs chopped for parts. No relative numbers of the three main methods of exporting (exporting vehicles that have been financed through stolen identities, revinning, and plain old stuff them into a container) are provided.

In terms of raw crime stats, Statistics Canada lists motor vehicle theft as slightly on the rise from 2020 to 2021, but down substantially from 2011[1].

Interestingly, this page[2] shows a breakdown of several years leading up to the latest stats which show that it was out of control prior to the pandemic and 2020 was the best year recently (I assume because many were at home so less opportunity).

The concerning thing might be though, that the number of people charged has not substantially changed, despite the number of thefts decreasing by about 9000 (~11%) in 2020. Police services across the country seem to charge roughly 5500 people with auto theft each year, though slightly down recently with youth dropping significantly.

The article's focus on how this is a sudden problem when the rates are substantially lower (as of the 2021 data) than they were in 2019 is pretty weird. It also appears to be incorrect about the numbers of vehicle thefts in 2015. They claim it's 3284 but StatsCan lists just Toronto as having 6623 in 2015.[3]

This all does point to a failure by Toronto PD (and bigger picture, other police departments) to enforce, and might explain the relative explosion of vehicle theft. In the years 2015 through 2021, the maximum amount of people they have charged with motor vehicle theft is 514. In that same span, thefts rose from 6623 to 14,032. Since it doesn't seem to be punished, just do more of it I guess. The difference in numbers appears to come from the fact that their linked report is using only Toronto PD's reporting but they aren't going to have all of the numbers because Ontario's provincial police force also operates in and around the city.

[1]: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article...

[2]: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=351001...

[3]: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=351001...

You are a bauss, as they said back in the day

I guess the criminals are just that good.

---

On a more serious note, policemen arrest and prosectors charge.

"On a more serious note, policemen arrest"

Well, apparently not in Canada...

Well that's basically Canada. Politicians literally do nothing except boot-licking the oligarch families like the Irvings and massive importing labors to suppress the wages

Interesting that every time I bring up the social economical reality in Canada on hn and I got down votes or whataboutism but never a productive refutal. I wonder why ;D

Police don't do anything. I had 3 fibre optic cables cut by a Bell technician a couple of months ago that resulted in a significant ~30 hour outage for 60 customers. We knew when the cables were cut, we knew the cables were cut at a height on the pole in question that was only accessible via a ladder or bucket truck, and we knew the first name of the Bell tech that was working on a copper phone line for the only residence served by that pole. There was no question as to who cut the cables, but without video footage the cops wouldn't make any effort whatsoever to pursue the matter. The OPP officer took a report and did nothing more. I no longer have absolutely no expectation of justice on "minor" matters from police here in Ontario.

There are other local residents have had various possessions stolen. We know informally who did it, but the police can't do a thing. Not sure what the cops are doing with the truckloads of money they get from our taxes every year.

> The profits earned from these thefts are used to finance drug trafficking

I think that drug trafficking is used to finance drug trafficking.

It seems time for full legalization. So drugs can finance selling drugs...

Someone needs to find that car and lock it up!

I wonder if the US and Canadian reliance on personal transport is ever going to be considered a failure or if we are just going to create another bandaid for our symptoms.

So people are stealing vehicles and your point is that people shouldn't have any personal vehicle in the first place? Do you think the same about any personal property that are being stolen?

If someone was stealing another personal item of yours, like your food, I'd be suggesting we approach the problem with deeper approaches as well.

A car in the US in unfortunately not a luxury for the majority of cases.

Yes, this is now a certified HN thread.

Someone stole your car? You should be taking public transit anyways...

But how do we stop someone from stealing your car?

Maybe we could reduce the reliance on the car, but we're not going to do that.

But how do we stop someone from stealing your bicycle?

Make the theft of the bike unpalatable without increasing the amount of policing in NA please. Reduce the benefit they get from stealing a bike. Whether it just not having to look as long for a rental bike or reducing the cost of bike use in general so there is less profit incentive to steal a bike.

We could also reduce the pain felt by the person stolen from with the same actions. I would be less inconvenienced by my bike being stolen if their is a free bike I could use for these situations, or maybe free public transportation.

I would still be inconvenienced but I wouldn't be stuck in my rural home 30 miles away from my jobs because I live in a car-centric landscape.

> Make the theft of the bike unpalatable without increasing the amount of policing in NA please.

Have prosecutors strongly prosecute property crimes?

That's increasing policing. what if you could make the theft of a personal property hurt less?

It's not increasing policing, just increasing prosections and penalties.

But yes it would also be good to also strip money and welfare from offenders and force them to pay restitution to their victims, thereby reducing the hurt from their crimes.

>But yes it would also be good to also strip money and welfare from offenders

No, it would not be good. It would be harmful. It would encourage more of the crime you say you want to stop.

It would be good. It would not be harmful. Almost none of the crime I say I want to stop is driven by people driven to desperation to survive, so the prospect of consequences would make it a net positive for reducing them.

> Almost none of the crime

You said it.

> Almost none of the crime [] is driven by people driven to desperation to survive

Yep.

So you are advocating to increase the punishments of those driven to desperation to survive. Further harming them.

Wrong.

And how do we stop someone from breaking into your house? By moving everyone to barracks.

Why are they breaking into your house? Are they going to take your house for a joy ride until they can't anymore and then just find another house to drive?

I'm not advocating that you just stop caring about crime, I want you to think about how we can address the root causes. One of them being the prevalence of easily theft-able, expensive possessions we store on the street.

Burglars want to change ownership of things in your house, so why don't we move on to communal ownership where all things are shared?

The root of the problem is the "seed of evil", also known as selfishness or the idea of separateness. But selfishness is a necessary step in evolution, and if you remove all shiny things that provoke greed, and all other things that make selfishness meaningful, you'd derail the evolution.

So, shiny things that people can own and display bring more good than harm at this point.

OK cool you have a hypothesis on how you can reduce the amount of harm done in the world. How are you going to go about doing something about it? Are you going to increase the severity of the punishment for stealing a car? Or should you address a root cause? To use your metaphor a seed would be much easier to control than trying to tell a grown tree where to drop its leaves in the fall.

Most of these vehicles are stolen while parked. If people just drove them more, they wouldn't be getting stolen!

Canadian car ownership rates are higher than most developed EU countries, but it's not like Canadians are blowing them out of the water.

Tied with Finland. Within 10% of Malta, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Italy, Estonia and Iceland. Within 21% of Germany, Spain, France, Portugal, Norway, and Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...

What a weird comparison. Europe is a bit denser and smaller with more public transport, don't you think?

That was exactly their point, that Canadian car ownership isn't that high when compared to places that likely have less need for cars.

I don't agree.

> Most of these vehicles are stolen while parked. If people just drove them more, they wouldn't be getting stolen! > Canadian car ownership rates are higher than most developed EU countries, but it's not like Canadians are blowing them out of the water.

What if they start stealing buses, too?

It is admittedly very complicated to steal an entire train, but with enough police indolence, I wouldn't dismiss the idea outright.

What if? Stealing a bus is just as illegal as stealing a car. Maybe there is some kind way the busses are protected from theft... like parking it in a secure lot, not on a city street that you may not even live right by because parking is congested.

Buses here in Czechia are pretty often parked in some non-secure place during the day and sometimes even during the night, but, then, vehicle theft tends to be prosecuted here. It is not a trivial crime by deranged individuals, the criminal syndicates involved in its commission are extensive.

But does Czechia have rampant vehicle crime whether, personal or public?

https://knoema.com/atlas/Canada/topics/Crime-Statistics/Burg...

Versus

https://knoema.com/atlas/Czech-Republic/topics/Crime-Statist...

Maybe the data from knoema.com is wrong somewhere but may I also present to you something you probably know about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Metro

I am not really sure why would you tell me about the Prague Metro, which I have taken for approximately 26 years by now. I can tell you every single station on every line by heart.

My US city just cut it's fixed bus service. I want my country/continent to try and be more like yours!

I suspect this has a lot of inertia based on the current situation.

Plenty of middle class citizens here in CZ take public transport, or their kids do, so they are fine with their tax money being spent on it, and they also insist on the service being safe, clean etc.

If everyone drove everywhere, like in most of the US, the prevailing political winds would differ.

Both situations are equilibria separated by a sharp ridge that needs to be overcome in order to change one to the other.

You suspect it? That's my hypothesis from the beginning.

>I wonder if the US and Canadian reliance on personal transport...

I'm just thinking, some people have no taste in hobbies.

You couldn't pay me to steal a car. Especially not in Canada.

So I drive out of the lot in my new stolen car. Next thing I know, I'm behind some asshole who won't move into the intersection for a left turn, and if that doesn't drain the fun out of it, there are numerous constructions and jam on the bridge ... finally I'm at my destination; just 20 minutes more of circling around for parking! Ugh, should have stayed the fuck home and not stolen a car.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com