Are cops going after stolen phones at all?

[vash]

From what I understand, modern cellphones can be traced by the government even when they are turned off.

In the case of iPhones, there is "Find my iPhone". Not so long ago I read a news article on Yahoo. Two women's iPhones were stolen, and they traced it through Find my iPhone easily before called the cops. They got the reply of "Go ask your phones back, if you feel you are in any danger, then call 911". So what the heck was that? Is stealing phones not a crime any more?

Since the government has the means to trace any cellphones even when they are off, they definitely have the ability to get back all stolen phones and get the thieves. Then why are there still so many phones stolen?

 

[Gabe]

Of course it is a crime, but most phones are covered by insurance. I would rather the police dedicate time and resources to catch criminals and terrorists than to look for stolen phones. It would be too time consuming and most phones are out of date after a year.

 

[missbishi]

In the great scheme of things, other crimes are prioritized over mobile phone theft. Police departments just don't have the resources to follow up all reported crimes these days and some things have to take precedence.

Also, I wonder if there is an assumption being made that "stolen" phones are actually just "lost"? My phone was stolen around 10 years ago and when I reported it, the cop just spoke to me like rubbish and tried to make out that I'd actually just lost it.

 

[Patrick]

The government wouldn't want to publicly acknowledge their phone tracing capabilities over something as petty as phone theft. I agree, most police resources could be delegated to more important purposes. Only in unusually inactive lull periods would I think the police would bother with such cases of stolen phones.

 

[JoanMcWench]

There's no real priority (given my experience) in getting your phone back. Even if you have GPS coordinates. It sucks but I can understand why that seems to be. There are big crimes & this is a tad smaller than those.

 

[Profit5500]

From what I understand, modern cellphones can be traced by the government even when they are turned off.

In the case of iPhones, there is "Find my iPhone". Not so long ago I read a news article on Yahoo. Two women's iPhones were stolen, and they traced it through Find my iPhone easily before called the cops. They got the reply of "Go ask your phones back, if you feel you are in any danger, then call 911". So what the heck was that? Is stealing phones not a crime any more?

Since the government has the means to trace any cellphones even when they are off, they definitely have the ability to get back all stolen phones and get the thieves. Then why are there still so many phones stolen?

The police are probably trying to track the phones as is. They just have their hands full with all the current crimes they have to deal with. Government can track the phones just by the GPS signal.

 

[Gabe]

The thing is how many phones that are stolen are also due to the owner being careless? My friend has lost over 5 iPhones but he had insurance. One fell out of his pocket, one was stolen by a one night stand and another someone took from the table when he wasn't looking in a pub. Imagine this times a billion. Quite simply they will only track phones of missing people or phones that may have sensitive material on them. Insurance exists for a reason and they expect a percentage to get lost and stolen.

 

[FuZyOn]

Well, cops are willing to help but sometimes they can't do much more than just filling in some paperwork and getting something out of you.
Although, if you have concrete evidence and the thief is relatively nearby I saw that cops are more than willing to catch him!

 

[vash]

I understand that the cellphone theft happen way too often. But if it is a public knowledge that the cops will go after the stolen phone as soon as it is located and it can be located almost instantly when the theft is reported, then why would anyone risk having cops going after them 100% the time? It is like stealing a broadcasting beacon.

As the example I have mentioned in my first post, even when the victims have located the stolen phone and reported to the cops, they were not getting any help at all. The news report said the two women had to knocked on the door and confronted the thief. Lucky them, the thief turned over the two iPhones without any incident. But it was a dangerous situation, they just got lucky that they faced a cowardly thief.