Societal Collapse

I was listening to a news bulletin solemnly announcing that phone theft in London has surged, followed by the usual hand-wringing about police numbers, resources, visibility, morale, funding, and whatever other managerial incense happens to be to hand this week.

All very serious. All very worthy. And almost entirely missing the point.

We are walking around with £1,000 computers in our back pockets. Often £1,200. Frequently held out in front of our faces like a tray of canapes. Unlocked. Insured. Replaceable. In other words, we have turned ourselves into mobile duty-free shops and then expressed bafflement when someone helps themselves.

There was a time when you walked around London with a tenner in your pocket, maybe a watch that told the time and little else, and a wallet full of cards that were useless without a signature and a bit of paperwork. Stealing from someone involved risk, confrontation, and a modest return. Today it involves a passing cyclist, a quick grab, and an object that can be stripped, exported or fenced before the victim has finished saying “Oi”.

This is not a collapse in morals. It is not the end of civilisation. It is basic economics. Street crime follows value. Increase the value and liquidity of what people carry, and theft follows like night after day.

If we all decided tomorrow to stroll through London wearing £20,000 Rolexes, there would be a sudden and dramatic outbreak of watch theft. We would not conclude that this was caused by a mysterious social malaise or a failure of community cohesion. We would not convene a task force on horological deprivation. We would recognise that parading small, expensive, easily resold objects in public has consequences.

Yet when it comes to phones, we insist on dressing this up as a failure of policing alone, as if a few more officers could repeal gravity. Policing matters at the margins, of course. But it cannot undo the simple fact that we have made theft easy, profitable and low risk.

The cause is obvious. The outcome is boringly rational. The surprise exists only because we prefer complicated explanations that absolve us from admitting we changed the rules of the game and then lost our grip on the ball.