Jeff White said:
You are more likely to set yourself up to be a victim of a crime. I always kept my take home squad car in the garage when I wasn't working.
In case you haven't noticed from the posts in General and Legal here, a lot of people don't like like the police. The last thing you want to do is be mistaken for one.
Jeff has a good point there too! In my neck-o-the-woods we've had a rash of thefts from officers in the past few months.
Two guys at my district had guns stolen from their cars/home, and I knew of a shocking number of additional incidents that had recently occurred in the metro area. Obviously an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (ie: don't leave your duty weapon in the car), but stuff happens. Regardless, the point is that people do target officers from time to time... We aren't well liked by a lot of folks, and criminals seem to be getting wise to the idea that we have decent firearms to steal!
Having said that, I'll address the crime deterent/visible presence aspect of the OP's question. In my years of patrolling a densely populated urban ghetto, I've noticed a few interesting things:
1) When driving a fully marked car, bad stuff avoids you, and victims find you.
2) When driving an unmarked car the ghetto begins to come alive with folks who don't recognize that you are in a police car. Some folks still "get it", but many idiots are completely fooled by a blue crown vic with interior red/blue lights (despite the classic "cop wheels" and spotlight).
3) If you ever get a chance to drive a completely "soft" car through the ghetto, you'll finally get the chance to see what it is
really like out there! Driving habits change, crack dealing becomes more obvious, gang activity is more brazen, etc.
So, an unmarked Crown Vic probably falls in the middle of the road in terms of the direct effect it might have on a criminal. Keep in mind that I also mentioned the possibility of people using that as a reason to victimize you!
The bottom line is this:
Given how the guys drive the cars in my city, I'd NEVER buy a used cop car! These things are treated worse than rental cars: 0 to 60 to 0 all the time. The cars are driven very hard when priority calls are stacking up, they get bounced over speed bumps, through dips, over curbs, run through fields, etc.
Nevertheless, I've heard decent things about the cars that highway patrol units turn in (they aren't driven as hard out on open highway, and they seem to be better cared for due to the fact that many of those officers get assigned take-home cars). As I said, I'd never buy one of my department's cars... I hate driving some of the ones we have in the fleet still!
and not talking about how much fun "Stella" had pouncing twin-turbo Porches, jumping V-12 Jags, and victimizing V-10 Vipers (all legal).
