The Ethics of Theft

One afternoon last week I went to a store in town to pick up my wife’s birthday present. I found a parking spot in front of the bank next door, noted the four security guards standing a few metres away, and decided this was definitely a safe place to park. Normally I don’t leave anything in the car, but that day I really didn’t want to be bothered carrying around my bilum (string bag) of stuff. Besides, all that was in there was a water bottle (I thought). No big deal if someone takes a lowly water bottle. So I hid the bag in the back seat.

I locked the doors and headed into the store.

When I came out, the back door was slightly ajar. When I got into the driver’s seat and reached for a sip of water – there was nothing there. Well that’s a bit of a pain, I thought. And not really a nice thought that someone managed to break into the car, with four security guards right there. But at least there was nothing of value in the bag.

But then as I was driving I realized that my mobile phone wasn’t in my pocket. That must have been in the bag too. Well, that’s a bit of a pain – but at least it was just a cheap $20 phone and not an iPhone or something else expensive.

And then I came to the realization that our camera was also in that bag. It was about three years old and starting to act up a bit, so maybe we were ready for a new one anyway. But still, there were a few pictures on there we hadn’t uploaded to the computer yet. And a bunch of older pictures as well – did we really want a criminal to have our family pictures?

I called my own phone, and as I expected, someone answered. The guy was not at all ashamed about having stolen my phone. He said if I wanted my things back, I could meet him at such-and-such a parking lot with some money, and I could have it all back.

Now I leave it to you. What would you do?

Give him some money to get your things back?

Go to the parking lot and start shouting, so that the crowds would tackle him to the ground and get your stuff back for you?

Buy a police officer’s services for $20 and hope he does something?

Do nothing?

Do something else?

Lae begins to wake up around 6 a.m. every day.
It may look like snow on those mountains, but those are just clouds.