The number of stolen iPhones dropped by 40 percent in San Francisco and 25 percent in New York in the 12 months after Apple Inc added a kill switch to its devices in September 2013. In London, smartphone theft dropped by half, according to an announcement by officials in the three cities.
This was a real concern for cities around the world. The drop shows how powerful the kill switch has been as a deterrent.
Sadly, local San Francisco Bay Area TV news is giving full credit to SF DA George Gascon. While he pushed to make kill switches mandatory in all phones, Apple had announced Activation Lock in iOS 7 long before that.