The problem is that prospect of a stay at one of the HM Hotels is just that they have no punishment value anymore because they have become driven by the PC brigade and are there to rehabilitate not punish, is any surprise we have career criminals. Then you have the courts with the sentencing why give a prison sentence when the reality is only 50% of it will be served.
I've had a few close calls with people looking to steal stuff from my van one was a Saturday afternoon I had nipped into the office to pick something up I came out of the office to find a couple of lads who had been hanging round the area being chased off by one of the salesman from the car showroom opposite the police had already been called and arrived quite quickly the lads were identified by someone who knew who they were and when a police officer stopped them one ran off and the other was arrested, it went to court a couple of months later and his clever brief got him off by blaming the other guy in the foyer of the court I walked up to this smiling career crook and told him not to walk in that street again as if a saw him the first thin he would see would be the front of my van then the underside and when he saw daylight again I would be jumping on him I followed it with this is not a threat it is a promise so don't go to the police about 6 weeks later I heard that both of them were back inside for 12 months. After he got out I did see him start to walk into the street where our office was just as I had got into my van it was quite funny watching him run just for the hell of it I followed him for a short distance
When I was on a call out rota for the alarm systems we installed I saw many things as to how these criminals work the problem was the lack of police response and that was 20 years ago, I lost count of the number of times I was told the way I was carrying my 4 or 6 cell on my shoulder looked threatening by keyholder's as we investigated where the alarm had been triggered. A popular one I had a few times was the trigger the alarm and run do it a few times and hope that the alarm is then left off, it worked well on a couple of occasions when we left a police officer and his dog in the building while we went and stood off a short distance away making it clear we had left the alarm off (we hadn't) a short while later the K9 made an arrest as they came back to break in