iPod thefts and subway crime
p2pnet.net News:- A sharp rise in robberies and thefts of cellphones and portable music players (Yep, those portable music players) is almost entirely responsible for this year’s rise in New York city subway crime.
“Just as officials in the high-crime 1980’s warned riders to beware of chain-snatchers and pickpockets, so are they now suggesting that iPod users avoid standing out,” says the New York Times. ” ‘Earphones are a giveaway,’ one announcement says ominously. ‘Protect your device’.”
iPods have become, “a totem of prosperous urban life,” says the story. Many victims are young people robbed after school.
However, things aren’t, apparently, as bad as they look.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority numbers say 50 digital music players and 165 cellphones have been stolen so far this year, up from zero and 82, respectively, last year.
But, “the trend has had a noticeable effect on subway crime figures,” says the NYT, going on:.
“In the first three months of 2005, the total number of major felonies committed in the subway rose to 891 from 753, an 18.3 percent increase from the same period a year earlier, even as the number of arrests, summonses and ejections from the subway fell during the same period.
“The size of the increase can be attributed partly to the unusually low crime figures from a year ago, when more patrols were put in the subways following the Madrid train bombing. And there are already indications that serious felonies are declining this month, the police said.”
But if music player and cellphone thefts are left out of the calculations, “serious crime has actually fallen 3 percent so far this year, compared with last year,” the NYT has Michael J. Farrell, deputy commissioner for strategic initiatives, saying.
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<——Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO is the answer / Erik Naggum——>
See:-
New York Times – Ears Plugged? Keep Eyes Open, Subway’s IPod Users Are Told, April 2, 2005
April 28th, 2005 at 11:25 pm
“But if music player and cellphone thefts are left out of the calculations, âserious crime has actually fallen…”
With all those iTunes files on those iPods, by entertainment cartel standards if you jacked someone’s iPod full of music and got caught it would be AS BAD AS UNAUTHORIZED DOWNLOADING. OMG!!! Word to you would be muggers, watch out for the RIAA. These are some bad motherf%@*ers. They will mess you UP!!
April 29th, 2005 at 2:15 am
even the thieves have no taste.
let them take them all. anyone who owns an ipod deserves to have it stolen from them. they’ll be much better off without it. let the muggers have the hassles.
April 29th, 2005 at 4:54 am
If the RIAA had their way, you’d do less jail time for mugging someone and stealing their player than if they’d shared their music and you’d just grabbed a copy.
Then again, maybe the muggers aren’t mugging the ipod owners. Maybe they’re desperately trying to save these “victims” from being total prats.
If you can afford an ipod, what are you doing on public transport anyway?
Besides, just get some black headphones, or paint the white ones black or something sheesh… it ain’t hard.