Hacker News

In Texas I'm surprised it's not legal to shoot a catalytic converter thief if caught in the act. That's what they used to do for cattle rustlers.

What an insane trade off. Seems like a few bait cars and a couple of trackers would be plenty to figure out where the converters are getting fenced. Obviously there is a small number of buyers driving the entire catalytic theft economy.

EV batteries weigh hundreds of kilos. They typically require a mechanical workshop with a hoist to remove, not something your typical theif could easily steal on a street corner.

Because many people agree with having cameras to help reduce/monitor crimes.

From their views, the right isn't trampled. It's a win

Over a tea tax without representation. Very common to forget that part!

I agree. I "revived" the comment by clicking on the timestamp ("33 minutes ago") and then clicking "vouch". I believe only users with a score of 200+ (points? karma?) can do so.

I wondered that too. It doesn't say, but does state: "Data from the license plate readers, known in law enforcement as LPRs, was searched 62,000 times in 2025, leading to about 1,660 cleared catalytic converter theft cases, a report from the authority said."

Also, how many missing people are there? finding 10k seems quite a lot. “one of the most effective ways Flock has been able to help find, just last year, over 10,000 missing persons”.

I doubt it helped much directly. The nationwide ring that was dismantled recently was busted partially due to surveillance from a pole mounted camera though. The article title initially baited my rage, but I can plausibly see how LPRC's could be used to track catalytic converter thieves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932022_catalytic_co...

To quote from https://www.txdmv.gov/sites/default/files/body-files/MVCPA_F...

Number of times an ALPR was deployed. 61,875

Number of LPR Deployments by taskforce investigators 42,878

Number of vehicles recovered from LPR detection 1,963

Number of Cleared Cases – Catalytic Converter Theft 1,658

Number of arrests from LPR detection 569

Number of identified/documented prolific catalytic converter theft offenders 266

Number of Catalytic Converter Theft bait operations 236

The problem is they don't define "deployments". There are ~13,500 ALPR cameras and they do thousands of plates per hour and neither of those numbers matches the deployment. My best guess is it is a targeted search and so a vehicle is recovered or a case is cleared 2-3 times out of every 100 times they search the database.

Regarding actual reduction, as another comment said, the amount of crime fluctuates with metal prices, pretty much lockstep. But at least they can lock the people away.

It’s hard to say. As the economic got better, trade policies stabilized and the price of commodities and therefore the metals in a converter dropped in value. As the price of the metals went down, the thefts dropped nationally. Texas thefts seemed to have dropped inline with the national trend. Since the supply side issues are picking up again, the thefts are going up likewise.

Doesn't seem especially likely, does it? People report the thefts in unmonitored neighborhoods. The police... check the nearby intersection cameras for any vehicles passing between 11pm and 4am?

Because the users of the cameras have proven themselves untrustworthy.

Because deploying these cameras is anti-social conduct.