Locking Doors

A lot of people use the locked door as a metric for the quality of a community. They will say something like, "I grew up in a small town. It was full of good people, it was safe. We didn't even lock our doors." I've heard it said of big city neighborhoods as well. "We lived in this neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else. In our building there were maybe 20 apartments and no one had to lock their doors."

In a documentary once, some residents of a large, non-US city were proclaiming proudly that they don't lock their doors. Incidentally, I looked up some statistics on crime in that city (my sources were reports put out by that country's government), and it looks like they suffer more crimes in total and fewer violent crimes than the US average. Hence, it appears there are more property crimes per capita than in the US. I'd like to see a comparison between that city and US cities, but the report only included the US averages.

Sometimes when people talk about doors and locks, I get the impression they are saying it is morally superior to leave the door unlocked. That is, the unlocked door is not just a metric on the honesty and goodness of the population, but the character of the door owner.

By the way, I don't get this impression with all people who don't lock their doors. But every once in awhile it seems to me that an open-door person is saying, "You are so mistrusting. You have such a low opinion of humanity. But me, I choose to believe that people are mostly good." Or the subtext is a weird counter projection, "You believe people are dishonest and will steal from you because you yourself are dishonest. You expect other people to do what you would do. Only a dishonest person would lock their door."

I suspect some places where people leave their doors unlocked do so because the neighbors would be offended (or the door owner thinks they might be offended) if they did lock. "What? You think I might steal from you, so you lock your door? You think I'm a thief? I'm offended."

Another reason to leave the door unlocked is convenience, maybe you never want to get locked out. Perhaps you figure that a professional thief will have no problem getting past a locked door. If so, then locking doors won't prevent crime, it will only cause you to get locked out every so often. So why bother? Of course, the locked door might not stop the professional, but it might deter the amateur or the opportunistic. Or maybe the thieves simply go after the easiest targets ("I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you"). They know enough doors are unlocked so they don't have to bother with the locked ones.

If you leave your door unlocked, it's possible you don't get robbed because no one tries your door. A common security measure is "do nothing and hope nothing bad happens". It often works.

I believe that there are thieves in this world. Some of them live in small towns, some in large cities (large cities have more targets and more opportunities to be anonymous, so thieves gravitate to larger metropolitan areas). Some of them are drug addicts trying to get money for a fix (and they might live in small towns or in the supposedly safe apartment building). Some of them are kleptomaniacs or teenagers looking for a thrill or see it as a game. I think it is a wise policy to try to protect yourself from the thieves as best you can. Locking your doors is easy. It's not an indictment of your neighbors, the town, or your own character to lock doors.