A recently erected sign showed a sorry state of affairs in San Francisco. The sign in question said ‘Safety Alert – leave nothing behind’. This was accompanied by pictures of a masked thief, alongside cellphones, laptops, and IDs. Sadly, San Francisco residents will know all too well that car break-ins have boomed in the last year, with the sight of smashed glass becoming all too common.

These signs may be the brainchild of local politician Dean Preston, who previously said ‘We’ll dramatically reduce car break-ins,’ after implementing a public awareness campaign. This idea was proposed last month and went down like a proverbial lead balloon.

The image above was uploaded to Reddit, where it was captioned: ‘Instead of safety alert signs that warn you not to leave items in your car to avoid getting your car broken into, why aren’t these signs warning criminals of the punishment that will occur if they are caught breaking into someone’s car (e.g. 5 yr prison sentence) to deter crime in the first place?’

This image prompted over 320 comments, with many of them criticizing the sign. Some also called out Preston who may have masterminded the campaign. The reason for this is that it takes aware responsibility from the thieves and puts the emphasis of the law onto the victims. Overall, it will be interesting to see if this campaign actually works but based on the public response, most people aren’t very optimistic about its potential success.