*How do you “cut them off”. Library thieves don’t generally check things out in dribs and drabs over a long period of time. In general they check out a whole bunch of stuff all at once and never come back. Short of putting a cap on the dollar value everybody can check out you can’t really cut these guys off, by the time you know they’re a problem it’s too late.*
It’s odd, isn’t it? Freepers generally want the death penalty for every other crime committed in America, but in this instance—since the crime was committed against a function of a local government—freepers turn into mushy liberals and argue that the criminals should have been somehow stopped before they committed their crime. Utterly ridiculous.
Look, people, when you get a library card you are explicitly told that if you don’t behave in a certain way there will be financial repercussions—usually you have to sign your name to that. If you can’t hold up that end of the bargain, don’t borrow the materials.
I can almost guarantee that the people who stole the taxpayers’ property in this instance are deadbeats, too, which are usually a Freeper’s favorite target. Interesting to see that any function of any government ranks below petty deadbeats in some Freepers’ eyes.
The fewer fines that libraries recoup, the more taxes they try to take to replace these items—consider that.
The simple solution is to dissolve public libraries. They are useless nowadays. One can find information on the Internet in less than a few seconds. It takes one an hour to go the library, look up a holding, and check it out. I cringe everytime talk comes up about modernizing out library. Half the cost will go to meeting disability access laws - more ramps, elevators, and short stacks that can be reached from a wheelchair meaning fewer books per square foot of floor area.