Increasing Burglaries in HPP

[bystander]

I know it was always pretty bad but the area I live in seems to have had an astounding increase in burglaries. Many houses near me have been broken into lately. The police have been by several times asking me if I had seen or heard anything. One house near me was broken into three times in the last three months![V] Has anyone else noticed this huge increase in crime? What about those on the Neighborhood Watch? Do you have any stats to report? I guess the bad economy is making these theives desperate.

[mdd7000]

HPP maintains a nice website with all the details you are looking for:

[url][/url]http://www.hppwatch.ucoz.com/index/0-2

[JerryCarr]

Bystander, in September there were seven burglaries reported in HPP, and they were not clustered in a particular area. That is actually a pretty good month for us, and our police liason told us at our most recent Neighborhood Watch meeting that recent months were historically low numbers. If the ones near you happened in October, however, they would not be included in that total. We get stats at the end of every month, and they are posted in both map and table form on our website www.hppwatch.ucoz.com .

Of course, statistical trends are no comfort if you are experiencing difficulty in your neighborhood. Please contact us by email at HPPWatch@aol.com , and we will help you set up a Block Watch in your area. Block Watches are small, very locally focused groups for which we provide free training and support. We will visit your area and talk to residents to survey specific needs and then teach methods which will make your area less attractive to thieves. Locations where we have active Block Watches have experienced significantly fewer burglaries and thefts than other areas. Please consider taking this step to improve your security.

[bystander]

Thanks for the link mdd7000. I see the first two incidents with the house I mentioned that was broken into three times. One was classified as a theft and not a burglary since the the items were taken from the carport. The last incident occured about week ago so it must have been in October. The very latest burglary I've heard about occured this past Saturday night.

[Jay Bondesen]

Kudos to the HPP Watch folks. The website is great and I hope everyone appreciates the efforts that you all put in. How great it would be if more people get involved. We can't really stop everything but we sure can make it harder and reduce the numbers.

Jay

[ef9]

Friend's house on 27th was broken into around 11am on a Sunday afternoon!

[DTisme]

quote:

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Originally posted by mdd7000

HPP maintains a nice website with all the details you are looking for:

[url][/url]http://www.hppwatch.ucoz.com/index/0-2

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Thanks SO much for posting this. I had no idea about this site. A great help.

[DTisme]

Jerry et. al,
Do you find there are certain types of houses that get broken into more often (corner houses, houses w/o fences, better-maintained/less-maintained, houses w/bigger/lesser setbacks, window coverings or no window coverings, etc.)? Crime prevention tips -- besides Neighborhood Watch, which is GREAT -- would be greatly appreciated. I see the site has plans for this type of thing, but anything you can tell us would help. Lock doors & windows, obviously, but what else? What's the percentage of houses where the occupants are home at the time of break-in? What's the typical time of day, method of entry, etc.?

Thanks, Neighborhood Watch!

[JerryCarr]

DTisme, your questions are useful and valid, but I'm not sure they can all be well covered in a blog post. I'll try, though.

More prosperous looking homes tend to be targeted for obvious reasons, but we have also had humbler residences victimized. Thieves hate being seen while at work. Visibility of the home from the street tends to reduce the likelihood of burglary. Deep setbacks can reduce visibility, and they also make it easier to enter from the lot at the rear of the home, a fairly common method in HPP. Fences with sturdy, locked gates do seem to be a deterrent, but we have had cases where gateposts were pushed over by trucks. If you do have a fence and gate, do not close and/or lock it ONLY when you are away from home. You might as well hang out a sign that says "We are gone. Come on in."

Although we have no statistics regarding window coverings, common sense would tell us that anything which reduces a criminal's ability to easily spot valuables might be helpful. This also brings up the topic of small valuable items left about. In the past year, a preponderance of burglaries in HPP have been of the "grab and go" sort. This means that one or two culprits enter and take whatever they can carry on their person and in backpacks. When we see lists of things taken, laptops, jewelry, cameras, electronic gaming systems, and other portable items occur most frequently. Anything you can do to secure and/or hide such items makes it harder for a burglar to get them. Just putting such items in a drawer or otherwise out of plain sight makes it much harder for a burglar to do a "grab and go."

The great majority of break-ins in HPP occur in the daytime while people are at work, or in the case of vacation rentals, while visitors are out touring. We only very rarely have break-ins of occupied premises, but it has happened. Entry can be via any means, usually whatever appears to be easiest at first glance.

Burglars have to work fast. Anything you can do to make their work go slower discourages them from choosing your home. We are neutral on the issue of dogs, and discourage people from training them to be viscious. If you are a dog person anyway, they are good companions and can be an "alarm" of sorts, but I wouldn't count on them to prevent crime in any direct sense.

And you knew I wasn't going to post all this without another pitch for forming Block Watches. All the tips I have given above are just the barest bones of what we provide during Block Watch training. There is safety in numbers, and when you have a whole block of homes practicing crime prevention, the bad guys learn to avoid the whole area. It really upsets me when people call or email me and literally ask me to send a patrol to their area, but refuse to get involved when I ask them to participate by learning how to do it themselves. If more people would get off their butts and just spend a few hours a month, we could make HPP a very secure place. It works. Ask anybody who lives in one of our Block Watch areas. Rant over.

Hope this helps,
Jerry

[808blogger]

big dogs and then some more dogs. don't tie them up.