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Bloomberg: Steve Jobs Behind NYC Crime Wave
theodp writes "Rudy Giuliani had John Gotti to worry about; Mike Bloomberg has Steve Jobs. Despite all-time lows for the city in homicides and shootings, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said overall crime in New York City was up 3.3% in 2012 due to iPhone, iPad and other Apple device thefts, which have increased by 3,890 this year. 'If you just took away the jump in Apple, we'd be down for the year,' explained Marc La Vorgna, the mayor's press secretary. 'The proliferation of people carrying expensive devices around is so great,' La Vorgna added. 'It's something that's never had to be dealt with before.' Bloomberg also took to the radio, urging New Yorkers who didn't want to become a crime statistic to keep their iDevices in an interior, hard-to-reach pocket: 'Put it in a pocket in sort of a more body-fitting, tighter clothes, that you can feel if it was — if somebody put their hand in your pocket, not just an outside coat pocket.' But it seems the best way to fight the iCrime Wave might be to slash the $699 price of an iPhone (unactivated), which costs an estimated $207 to make. The U.S. phone subsidy model reportedly adds $400+ to the price of an iPhone. So, is offering unlocked alternatives at much more reasonable prices than an iPhone — like the $299 Nexus 4, for starters — the real key to taking a bite out of cellphone crime? After all, didn't dramatic price cuts pretty much kill car stereo theft?"
Wrong. Rape is not caused by economic forces. But theft is (so are drug murders, auto theft, bank robberies, etc.). The black market is still a market and the laws of economics apply. At some point the benefit for stealing an iPhone is greater than the risk of going to jail. But the benefit for stealing X-crapphone is not. The only way to prevent the iPhone/iPad/iWhatever from getting to the black market is to make the cost to get it there (the risk of stealing it and/or having it be bricked) be higher than the price on the open market. Several things can elevate this risk, such as educating people about theft (like Bloomberg has done), increased enforcement, remote bricking, and increased penalties.