Just focusing on the demand-side dramatically reduced incidences of catalytic converter theft in the US. You still get the occasional attempt, but basically no scrap yard will take catalytic converters without a title to the vehicle with matching VIN, and most will want to see the vehicle.
Yes, requiring paperwork to scrap wiring is bureaucracy manifest. But legitimate people just do not roll up to scrap yards with a van full of tangled 4/0.
The big catalytic converter buyer was so brazen, he had a mobile app. Free markets for stolen scrap is just beyond tolerable at this point.
Free healthcare and education, guaranteed housing and social safety nets make little difference.
Some people will stop at nothing to get more, no matter how much they already have. (Applies to billionaires and paupers alike). I guess you could call it having an entrepreneurial spirit.
No one steals car stereos anymore though, because you can't sell them to anyone. That mechanism could be put to more work. Heavy, EU-wide supervision and enforcement against scrap metal dealers would probably make a difference.
You also need society to have local cultures, as well as the culture at large, that actively oppose such behavior as immoral and/or shameful, with enforcement by peers. This I say based on two well-proven models, the sociological typology of societies as guilt, shame, or fear-based, and the psychological model of the six stages (level of complexity) of moral reasoning, that shows that up to 85% of the adult population worldwide derive their values from group-affiliation.
Atop that, individuals themselves need hope in the future, meaning the perspective of improving upon the baseline that those pre-requisites provide, since a baseline is emotionally neutral. The perspective of remaining at exactly that same baseline year after year after decade isn't sufficient.
With all of the above provided, petty crime is minimized to the point only people with severe personality disorders commit them. There's no way to fix this, but it becomes so low we're now talking of Japan levels of per-capita crimes, if not less.
