Yep, in the UK the Police budgets are stretched so thin that pretty much nothing except for actual murders and violent attacks ever gets investigated. And I don't mean it in a "it will get investigated at some point" way - I truly believe that for example stealing a car in the UK(outside of London) right now is a crime without any consequence. All you're going to get from the Police is a case number so you can call your insurer, no one will ever look into it. And again, that's not really the police fault - it's the stupid austerity that has slashed the budgets so much that there are simply no investigative policemen left on the force except for the worst of crimes.

I kind of wonder about that, though. Japan has 198 police per 100000 citizens. The UK figure is 216 per 100000. And Tokyo and London both seem to have about the same number of police per capita working within their city limits.

How many more police would it take, I wonder, before London was considered as safe as Tokyo?

Well, that's the problem with getting averages though. London is relatively fine, there are issues but very broadly speaking there is enough officers there. The problems start outside - in Manchester/Leeds/Doncaster the numbers are so low that what I mentioned above happens daily. If it's "just" theft or burglary and no one is hurt forget about any investigation. Even if you have CCTV of it happening, the police just don't want it as no one would review it anyway.

Greater Manchester has a population of 2.8M, and a police force of 6237, meaning the number of police is 223 per 100000, which is higher than the UK average.

I think the real problem here is that the citizens of Japan police themselves, and the citizens of most western countries like the UK don't.

I remember a walking tour in Munich some years ago, the guide told us to watch for Munich police bc they were bored and looking for crimes to take on, given the lack of crimes.

No, please. I bought a "ticket" that wasn't actually a ticket (had to use the red box to "convert" it?) for a train and got an earful. Also walked into a Rewe with a bottle of water and the cashier was really displeased.

In the UK and some other EU countries, you'd just pay on the spot (either the fine or the ticket price). Some things aren't worth that much policing.

I suspect you bought a ticket that can be made active any time, so you could buy it in advance if you wanted. To make the ticket "active" you have to stamp it using the pillar thing with the automatic date stamp at the station. Common mistake, but understandable you got an earful because you might as well be pretending you didn't know how things worked and are actually just riding again and again using the same pretend-ticket.

Similar with bringing a bottle of a brand that the store sells into the store - how are they supposed to know if you brought it in or if you just took it in the store and opened it there on the way to the cash register? (which, by the way, is not super uncommon either and generally tolerated)

German police are not allowed to collect fines on the spot, it's a corruption prevention measure.

Oh, I see what you mean. Pretty sure it had a date and time on it, so it could not have been used for more than a day, if that.

Yes, kind of my bad with the bottle, but it was half empty and was like 50 cents anyway.

You could limit collecting fines by card I guess, the payment would go to the authorities.

Just seems like such small infractions aren't worth the stress, there's operations raking in millions tax free that could be worked on.