Hey! I knew it had to be a lawyer! Great to have your feedback on this.

Take care up there in Chicago,
Taos

Thanks for your answer. Check out http://www.indec.mecon.ar

They have something under “Seguridad Pública”. Those stats are responsibility of the Ministry of Justice (indec just publishes them in the Anuario Estadístico). I haven’t kept track of the institutional changes in the last few years (I was more familiar with sources a few years ago), so I don’t know exactly who is in charge now. There used to be a Sistema Nacional de Información Criminal, but I can’t find anything online, so it may have changed.

Also, there is data at http://www.mpf.gov.ar/estadisticas.htm
Apparently most data comes from this office now.

Argentine stats on crime, prison population, etc. exist (with very low quality) but the state has done a very poor job of making them easily available. And that’s been a perennial problem, long before current problems at indec (if indec used to be reasonably stable and independent before the last year and a half, that hasn’t been the case for the offices in charge of crime statistics, underfunded and disorganized — the police probably doesn’t help much either).

By the way, crime stats are always to be treated carefully, since they might say more about the police than about actual crime:
“What such statistics do reflect are the specifically organizational contingencies which condition the application of specific statutes to actual conduct through interpretations, decisions and actions of law enforcement personnel”
Kitsuse and Cicourel, A Note on the Uses of Official Statistics,
Social Problems, 1963

Saludos y gracias,

dani

Many thanks for your commentary.

Could you be so kind as to provide a link to the official published statistical data on crime that you’re referring to? I would love to see this.

Saludos,
Taos

(if they wanted to do something useful for the community perhaps they should have left LOCKED bikes in different areas and see where they are stolen. Results from that study at least would be a useful piece information, especially if you own a bike and you are not stupid).

If you want to look at the time that takes for the unlocked bikes to be stolen (as you suggest), then you will have to make the case that time results are not random or spurious, that time really correlates with the level of security in the area (you’ll have to waste many more bikes than the ones already donated to thieves for “creative” purposes — and I guess it would be hard and funny to justify funding for a study like that — “we need thousands of bikes all over the world. Participants in the study will be compensated with a bike”).

The only thing I learned from this is what to do if you wanted to steal an unlocked bike.

By the way, there are published statistics on crime (however reliable they are — and this is not a particularly Argentine problem) and studies on crime trends, prison population, etc. (of course not as much as in countries with stronger statistics — and of course not about bike theft, which probably goes unreported most times). But of course, it takes much less effort and shows more effective to pay attention to a silly “experiment” like this one. saludos.

Anyways, I can see your point too, I think you can argue it both ways. I think the reasonable person that we are talking about has to be in touch with his/her surroundings. A reasonable person in Chicago would be likely less precatious than a person in Buenos Aires. I was a reasonable guy in Buenos Aires and never left my bike unlocked, I never even thought about that. I think most people don’t leave a bike unattended in the way that the guys at “liebre…” did… But I do see your point, and you could argue that and I am sure many will agree with you. I just think that it is “unthinkable” to leave a bike unattended/unlocked in Buenos Aires…

Anyways, great blog, thanks for the knowledge and the insight.

Thank YOU for your cogent thoughts on this topic. It’s great to have this feedback with readers and it is almost always educational and interesting.

I am familiar with the “reasonable person” standard and can certainly see how it might be applicable here. But two things come to mind when I think about this. First, it seems to me that if there is a “reasonable chance” that the bike belongs to someone, and has not been abandoned, then nobody has the right to take it, even if it is unlocked and even if most people would not intentionally leave an unlocked bike in a public space.

It is easy to imagine circumstances under which someone might leave a bike unlocked: perhaps the person forgot the lock; perhaps the person didn’t initially intend to park and buy something; perhaps the person figured that it would be safe to leave the bike unattended for just a few minutes, etc. If any of these exceptions are even possible, it seems to me that no person should have the right to take the bike, let alone think that he or she has the right to take the bike under any kind of reasonable person standard.

Second, there is sometimes a disjuncture between what the law dictates and what ethical conduct demands. It seems to me that a reasonable person ought to error on the side of caution – and even be law be required to do so – when acting in ways that involve potentially unethical (not to mention unlawful) behavior. The law ought to keep this in mind when evaluating what a reasonable person might do under normal circumstances.

Your comments have helped me to think about this issue in a more interesting and involved manner, and I appreciate that.

NOTE: I’ve updated the post to include comparative “bike crime” data from the U.S. and the U.K.

Thanks again,
Taos

Where did you get your hands on The Argentimes? I’d love to get a copy. I’ve seen the PDF version online, but I found it hard to navigate through and just gave up, even though it looked interesting.

Taos