View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2007 > November > 06
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Take it inside
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I listed about 25 thefts from cars this past week. The total value of the items taken came out to about $15,000 in stolen items — and I didn’t count all of the thefts, just a sample. Add about 25% more to that. And then multiply that about 52 times so …
Whoa. That’s flirting with the million-dollar mark in about a year. That doesn’t really mean a lot to you does it — especially if you have never had the pleasure of coming out to a shattered window and your stuff gone. Even if you do though, it’s your loss, one time maybe, so the process is this:
a. get a police report and
b. report the items lost to the insurance. (For some of you less honest folks out there, add one Rolex and a set of $5000 golf clubs.)
Still, with all this, once you get your money, you’re happy because you’ve found closure. Two months later, new stuff is in the car and you’ve forgotten what got you here in the first place.
We get a lot of report request from victims whose thefts occurred some time back. They found out they need a police report when they claim the theft with insurance.
Crime numbers, especially thefts, can only go down so far, even if you hit the mother load of arrests, which we sometimes do. We’ll arrest someone for a theft and clear 30 more on the background investigation. Even so, you can only get so far, and then you’re at the mercy of potential victims and your hope that they’ll use common sense. So far, it ain’t looking so good for common sense.
Here are a couple of misconceptions about leaving your stuff in your car. Many people believe:
Their car is a fort and nobody would dare break in because it would shatter the window and that wouldn’t be nice.
The car alarm will scare them away.
It’s parked in a public lot and people will see them so they won’t take the chance.
They believe that in fact, there is such as thing as a “trunk monkey” who protects the car.
The car is safe in the garage.
To respond to number one, cars are not forts. They can be entered easily in the amount of time it takes to shatter the window.
As far as car alarms, the car alarm is a good device to notify people that they should be annoyed that your car alarm is going off. It’s also a good signal to you that someone has already taken your stuff.
As for number three, you’d be surprised what people will ignore.
Number four, Google “Trunk-Monkey” and, like me, wish that you had one.
Number five is something that we see more and more. It involves a combination of things that someone didn’t do that allowed the opportunity for someone else, who isn’t afraid to take a chance, to gain from it.
You and I wouldn’t dare think of breaking into someone’s garage at three or four in the morning. That’s because you and I are relatively honest and work and we’re not up all night smoking crack or meth. (I’m assuming — if you are, no need to read further.)
Most people, who park in their own garage, assume that it’s locked down so no need to lock the car doors and no need to remove things like laptops, GPS, guns, etc.
A number of thefts mushroom out to burglaries simply because the opportunity was there and, surprisingly enough, many times the victim sleeps right through it.
A familiar scenario starts with a bad guy breaking into the garage through an outside door or window, not wired for the house alarm (or the alarm is, many times, off.) He gets inside and opens the car door and takes what is there. Just for the sake of it, he checks the door leading to the house and if it’s unlocked, he listens for movement and if he hears nothing, he creeps into the kitchen. Nine times out of ten he finds a purse on the kitchen counter. He takes it and he’s gone. In some cases, he opens the garage door from the inside and leaves. The victim never heard a thing.
Three things that would get you out of trouble here:
First, set the alarm every night when everyone is in. If you don’t have it wired, wire the garage.
Second, take the laptops, GPS, and other things out of the car and then lock the car.
3.Third, get a dog that barks at noises at night. If you have one, don’t scold them. We use the combo-method. The Shih-Tzu begins the barking and Roxy, the Rottweiler, born of Satan, whose life’s goal is to chase my goober neighbors around, follows up with a low-baritone bark and a loud gallop on the hardwood, on the way to the source of the noise.
In my case there is a fourth thing although it never works and I pay for it ultimately: Politely request my SWAT-certified wife to check it out. (This never works. I don’t know why I do it, but at 4 a.m. it seems to me that the SWAT person would want to go find what’s left of the burglar. I thought SWAT people liked to do all that creeping around the corner stuff but apparently, it’s only when they’re at work that they like to do this.)
By the way, If you hear a noise, don’t forget to call 911 before you start creeping around in your underwear. (For those of you sleeping commando, put something on in case the dog can’t tell you from the would-be burglar. There are enough tragedies in the world.)
The fact is there isn’t enough self-initiated motivation to inspire one to prevent these thefts by removing the opportunity, opportunity being your stuff.
What If:
What if we quit writing reports for thefts when you left your doors unlocked on the car and / or you left your laptop on the seat and you didn’t secure the GPS?
What if the insurance companies declined your claim, citing “Victim Compliance” leading up to the theft meaning the victims were too lazy to carry their things in? It is laziness. It’s not like folks have a phobia about returning to the car once it’s parked.
Insurance companies would love paying out less money and police officers would have more patrol time on the streets. Win win?
In 2006 we defined our Part 1 crime problems and began to address them. The result was a 32% drop in overall Part 1 crimes in the first year. (Part 1 meaning the 8 most serious crime categories including larceny.) We found that the major culprit for our Part 1 crimes was the “Entering Auto” category or, thefts from cars.
We’ve combined prevention information that we’ve put out on television, radio, and print media along with a planned city-wide mail out, reminding people how easy it is to remove the opportunity by just taking your stuff out of the car. But, in all reality, we ain’t in Mayberry folks. It’s a big town with plenty of Bozos to go around. Crime displacement is a much-more practical strategy than eliminating it. We won’t go to zero on crime stats because they do it less. We just want them to do it less here.
When you get home and you dread making a hands-full trip or maybe two trips from the car, and you start to listen to that voice telling you it’s much more convenient to just leave it there because nothing is going to happen, stop and think of what it’s going to feel like the next morning when the first thing you find is glass on the driveway or worse yet, the garage. You’re going to wish you had taken those things out and and you’re going to blame everyone in the world, but your stuff, most likely, ain’t coming back.
It is fair to say that if you take the extra one or two minutes to remove those things you like so well, you will go on to lead a productive life and perhaps win the Lotto. Win, win.
