“I Saw an Opportunity and I Took It.”- Greg Ellifritz

[Joe in PNG]

An interesting shot into the mindset of a thief: “I Saw an Opportunity and I Took It.”

When I asked the man why he stole the bike, his comment was enlightening:

“I took it because I have the chance to stay at my friend’s place tonight instead of the shelter. My friend lives in the next town over and it would be about a four hour walk to get there. It rained all day yesterday and it looks like it’s going to rain some more today. I just didn’t want to spend four hours walking in the fucking rain and getting soaking wet again. I figured a bike would be faster.”

He continued by saying: “I knew it was wrong to steal the bike, but I just don’t care. I didn’t want to get wet no more. I saw an opportunity and I took it. I’d do the same thing all over again if I got the chance. Biking is just faster than walking.”

This is what most folks don’t understand about serious criminals. The fact that the victim of the crime would be affected in a negative manner is not even an afterthought. Your feelings and concerns mean absolutely NOTHING to this criminal. He doesn’t care if you live or die, let alone how “inconvenienced” you will be if he takes all of your stuff or beats you within an inch of your life. If you literally had ZERO concern about the well being of your neighbors and fellow humans, what kind of atrocities would you be capable of committing? That’s something that few people consider.

[DDTSGM]

Hell, I thought he was talking about Trump or Gaetz.

[mmc45414]

One day I miscalculated and thought I could leave the string trimmer on the loading dock at my wife's shop for the 20min or so until she was going to leave to go help a friend. This dirtbag spotted it from 30-40ft away like it was a girl with no shirt, pretty sure he didn't take it because he was on his way to help a friend with their yardwork...

[OfficeCat]

I think an even bigger misconception that most people have when it comes to crimininality is the assumption that criminals get caught because some element of their plan (simple minded though it may have been) fell through. Back when I was young and naive I used to wonder, how did he think he was going to get away with that? Then I realized, the thought if getting away with it probably never crossed his mind. It just wasn't a factor. There was no plan. When you look at criminal behavior as being primarily impulse driven, in the moment ("I saw an opportunity and I took it") with no thought given to consequences, senseless crimes start to make more sense.

[BillSWPA]

A couple of days ago, my wife was about to take a fitness bike ride while I made sure our son got to bed. She put the bike on the sidewalk, and came back inside to get the light, which had not been put back on since being recharged. While she attended to a couple of other things, I ran the light out. As I walked towards the bike, a man walking down the sidewalk had changed course and was walking right towards the bike. He saw me, changed directions back towards the sidewalk, and kept going. Had I come out 30 seconds later, I am sure we would be short one bike.

We live in a safe neighborhood, but it was a good reminder to never assume anything.

[Bio]

There's a lot of research in animals that links developing on a resource-poor environment promoting short term thinking over long-term thinking. For various reasons, theres a lot of barriers to doing this kind of research to humans, but I wouldn't be surprised if it held true.

[TCinVA]

I think an even bigger misconception that most people have when it comes to crimininality is the assumption that criminals get caught because some element of their plan (simple minded though it may have been) fell through. Back when I was young and naive I used to wonder, how did he think he was going to get away with that? Then I realized, the thought if getting away with it probably never crossed his mind. It just wasn't a factor. There was no plan. When you look at criminal behavior as being primarily impulse driven, in the moment ("I saw an opportunity and I took it") with no thought given to consequences, senseless crimes start to make more sense.

That is certainly part of it.

But the other and I would argue larger part of it is because they have, in fact, gotten away with it. Lots of times.

The nationwide clearance rate for homicide according to the hideously inaccurate UCR (which is not uniform and around 50% of police agencies do not report to) puts the homicide clearance rate at somewhere close to 60%. And that's for homicide. It gets no prettier for lesser crimes.

In the most crime-ridden parts of the country homicide clearance rates rarely crack 40%, with many barely breaking 30. (Baltimore, Memphis, etc) In 2017 Chicago's homicide clearance rate was 12%, and would have been even lower if you ruled out the defensive homicides.

When criminals get caught, it's the exception rather than the rule. When they get caught it's usually because they are engaging in an activity with some level of risk and sooner or later the sheer number of exposures to that risk brings about the (to them) negative outcome. Their general tendency towards short-term thinking and opportunism isn't corrected by the intervention of the authorities with anything close to the frequency necessary to actually impact that thinking.

It's like skydiving. If you jump out of a plane enough times, you will eventually experience a parachute malfunction. Same goes for them with criminal acts. If you commit enough crimes...especially violent ones...you will eventually get caught just on sheer dumb luck.

A good example from my life is when I worked for a college administering computer labs. A person who was staying at the local meth hotel was referred to one of the computer labs so he could get his porn fix. While beating off there he noted that the security was pretty weak and decided to just take a computer. He pulled out a knife, cut the "security cable" (which was just telephone wire that maintained a circuit which would trigger an alarm if broken), wrapped the computer in his t-shirt and walked out with it.

Well, stumbled is a better description as at that moment he was experiencing the plentiful benefits of modern chemistry.

Due to the lag in response time he was long gone before the first police officer showed up to the scene of the theft. He was actually a couple of blocks away from campus when he went to cross the road and he tried to cross the street against the lights and stumbled his way directly on to the hood of a marked city police unit.

Being trained investigators, they thought maybe they should talk to the guy who had just dented their police car with a computer that was poorly concealed in a ripped t-shirt being carried by a man with his pants half-off. They looked at the computer, saw the university property sticker on it and...again, being trained investigators...concluded that he likely was not an employee of said college on some sort of official college business.

And that's where I got to meet the individual as they showed up in my office with the dude in handcuffs and I got to make a copy of the security video showing him performing a lewd act to add to the grand theft and weapons charges.

Had this dude literally not fallen on top of the hood of a police cruiser, he'd likely never have been caught. Even with the deck stacked against him pretty hard, if he'd have simply waited to cross the street with the crosswalk signal he'd have traded that computer for more smack to one of the dealers and that would have been the end of it.

But a dude clearly tripping balls with his ass hanging out carrying stolen goods is hard for even the police to miss when he literally lands on top of your cruiser. He left a film on the hood of the cruiser. It was frankly impressive.

[TGS]

That is certainly part of it.

But the other and I would argue larger part of it is because they have, in fact, gotten away with it. Lots of times.

The nationwide clearance rate for homicide according to the hideously inaccurate UCR (which is not uniform and around 50% of police agencies do not report to) puts the homicide clearance rate at somewhere close to 60%. And that's for homicide. It gets no prettier for lesser crimes.

In the most crime-ridden parts of the country homicide clearance rates rarely crack 40%, with many barely breaking 30. (Baltimore, Memphis, etc) In 2017 Chicago's homicide clearance rate was 12%, and would have been even lower if you ruled out the defensive homicides.

When criminals get caught, it's the exception rather than the rule.

This is a good point.

Look at the conviction rate for rape, if you really want a shocker.

[SCCY Marshal]

My crew was working a site with fully disclosed camera surveillance and one of our guys mountain biked up every shift. He'd lean his bike in front of a posted camera pole while working. Another guy waltzed over on after finishing up a touch earlier than the rest of us, grabbed the nice bike, tossed it in the bed of his 4x4, and went home with it. The cops and victim were waiting in the foreman's trailer when he came back to return the bicycle.

"Get your fucking ass back here and give *redacted* back his bike...Shut the hell up, we watched the tape...Save it, the cops are here and will roll out to hook you up if it isn't back in half an hour....Fuck you, I'm not paying the mileage; you're fired...You can return it and we tear up this police report or get fucked harder, I don't really care which." Is what the rest of us heard screamed into the boss' phone. Dipshit returned the bike and his boyfriend was mighty pissed that financing for their next meth fix was lost.

[JCN]

There's a lot of research in animals that links developing on a resource-poor environment promoting short term thinking over long-term thinking. For various reasons, theres a lot of barriers to doing this kind of research to humans, but I wouldn't be surprised if it held true.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs comes to mind and how it’s super hard to be magnanimous when you’re starving.