Police 'Ignore' Odd-Numbered Houses

The Leicestershire police force came up with an interesting way to deal with cuts. Because they say their officers are being stretched too far they had a plan to lighten the workload – they would only attend attempted burglaries at houses with an even street number.

At first glance you think it would halve the work but actually it will probably reduce it more. If you were a burglar and you'd heard that story you'd focus more of your efforts on the odd-numbered houses.

In fact if I lived in a house with an even number I'd be temped to nick stuff from my neighbours. What are they going to do? If they call the police they won't pay me a visit. And if my neighbours nick their stuff back I'll call the cops and get them arrested.

Leicestershire Police said the pilot scheme had had no adverse effect on public satisfaction or crime rates. Before we believe that can we just check that they weren't only surveying people who live in even-numbered houses, because they've got form.

Apparently this success could mean the scheme may be rolled out throughout the East Midlands. You know it won't stop there. Before long they will have this system in place across the whole UK, and then they'll still complain about funds, so they'll change it so only crimes in houses with a prime number will be investigated.

“That's not fair,” we'll all say.
“Yes it is,” the police spokesperson will answer, “There are an infinite number of prime numbers.”

I can see where this is heading, and that's why I have applied to change the number of my house to the square root of minus 1.

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