There have been many people who have wondered whether it’s possible to find an object that can’t be stolen. This object is safe and you don’t have to go out of your way to keep it safe. As technology levels increase we are undoubtedly getting closer to the time when thieves actually become good people, but will it be a day that will ever come?
In my opinion no. Let’s look at it like this. Yes, technology is increasing and we are now getting stories where stolen laptops, iPads, and iPhones have anti-theft software that can tell the owner where it is and even who stole it by taking remote photographs. Most thieves are generally morons so they usually don’t notice or take into account software like this. So it will certainly increase the number of items that are returned to the owner.
Going back to my point about the thief community being made up of mainly idiots who couldn’t exist in a real job, it’s a certainty that more of these will be caught. However, if they are stupid then they are still going to try to steal it as they will believe, wrongly, that they will get away with it. This is not an unstealable object. Just because the object happens to be returned doesn’t really mean anything. That means that your iPads and your iPhones are still at risk. All you are doing is giving yourself a better shot of catching the individual who did it in the first place.
Will it reduce the levels of people trying it? I think it will as some thieves are smart enough to not go for high-risk objects. And if everything becomes a high-risk objects then they’ll give the game up and just go back to leaching off of state benefits instead. So there’s a point in introducing all of this anti-theft software as it will reduce the levels of people who are stealing.
But there’s also a risk. Thieves have existed since humanity began and they will exist until humanity ends. So that tells us that they are more than capable of moving along with the times. If we move into a world where technology protects everything from sticky fingers then they will just move with the times again. In the beginning there will be a reduction in crime as they struggle to adapt to the new world of anti-theft tools, but eventually they’ll adapt.
Personally, I think we will see a world with a smarter criminal. You will still have your petty thieves who try to steal a packet of cigarettes from the local shop, but I think that the large majority will simply move online. It’s a well-known fact that as more people become connected to the internet the levels of cyber crime just increase. So in the future it will be the thieves acting from a remote base who will be the biggest threat. It will create a smarter thief. And I daresay that it will create more of them because if you steal from home then it takes less courage and less bravado than it does to walk into a store and take something off of the shelves.