Let&#x27;s say you have a house that&#x27;s easy for burglars to get into. Would it seem unreasonable for you to call the police every time you&#x27;re burgled?<p>I would argue that you should secure your house better, but <i>only</i> because it&#x27;s going to suck to have so many thefts, not because you&#x27;re somehow placing an undue burden on the police.<p>There&#x27;s no expectation that people need to take precautions against being victims of crime in order to avoid abusing police resources. To the extent that we expect people to do this, it&#x27;s because we think people don&#x27;t want to be victims of crime.<p>I find the tone of this article worrying. Why is private security an expected thing? I thought that the government&#x27;s function in preventing crime and punishing criminals was one of the few things that nearly all political ideologies agreed on.