Oh my gosh! Is that good news that property crime is on the decline, or is that a typo? No we got it right!
Every year our local police chief hosts a citywide meeting of neighborhood watch captains to discuss trends in crime and in law enforcement. At this year’s meeting, one of the things that came up was that property crimes nationwide are on the decline. That observation prompted a vigorous discussion as to the reasons for this “phenomena.”
Of course since we were involved in neighborhood watch we thought we deserved at least a little bit of the credit. And it is true that neighborhood watch is at least in part responsible for this decline. Neighborhood Watch in case you don’t know, is a national organization that has been around for over 40 years now and continues to be a major force in fighting crime locally through groups of citizens banding together to keep an eye on their neighborhoods.This article that we did called The Ultimate Home Security Guide describes just how big of a problem burglary is for homeowners across the country. It also provides some ways to fight the crime of burglary.
According to the FBI’s definition of burglary it is “the unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft. To classify an offense as a burglary, the use of force to gain entry need not have occurred. The UCR Program has three sub classifications for burglary: forcible entry, unlawful entry where no force is used, and attempted forcible entry.”
This FBI table shows that property crime in the U.S. has dropped nearly 50% from 1993 to the year 2012 but still accounts for 23.4% of all crimes.
Okay so neighborhood watch takes credit for part of it. But what else is there that can account for this dramatic decrease in property crimes? Believe it or not, social media can take as much credit as anything. Take a look at our previous article on Fighting “Perps” With Twitter And Facebook.
In that article we discussed what we call a “high tech neighborhood watch” which is a unique combination of homeowners using Twitter and Facebook to post pictures taken from their surveillance cameras. More and more people are getting security surveillance systems or just single surveillance cameras installed on their property.
And right on cue just in time for this article out of Lewiston, Maine, comes this story and video from a local television station there about how a Facebook Post Helps Nab A Burglar. It seems a homeowner had a legal medical marijuana facility on his property that had been broken into on three previous occasions so he installed some surveillance cameras. They captured a burglar red-handed. But only when he posted the picture on Facebook were the police able to apprehend the bad guys.
Our Four Wireless Security Cameras use 2.4 GHz transmission. The cameras have infrared capability that allows for video capturing in complete darkness. The weather proof cameras have a line of sight of 300 feet from the receiver which can be placed inside your home. Email alerts can notify you when motion is detected.
How is your community doing on the war against burglary? Have you experienced burglary? Please share your experience. We want to hear your thoughts.