New Secondhand Ordinance provides opportunities to fight property crime in Madison neighborhoods

Despite local business' concerns regarding Madison’s newly instated ordinance requiring secondhand dealers to report transactions online, the Madison Police Department considers the online software, LeadsOnline, to be an opportunity to fight property crime in local neighborhoods.

Under the new ordinance, secondhand businesses, including pawnshops and jewelry stores that buy gold, are required to report their transactions through LeadsOnline. The ordinance also requires businesses to include a photo or video recording of the customer who pawned each item in addition to the serial number or photo of the item.

With this information and the software, the police department can watch for transactions conducted by individuals with previous crime records, giving the police another opportunity to catch a thief and return stolen property, MPD Crime Analyst Brayton Grinnell said.

Property crime is the most common crime in all of Madison, Grinnell said. But some neighborhoods, like the Vilas and Greenbush Neighborhoods are more at risk.

Grinnell said he hopes the features of LeadsOnline will provide opportunities to decrease property crime in these areas.

“A lot of people just know these areas are ripe for the picking,” Grinnell said. “You don’t have to spend much time to find the things [of value].”  

During busy times like university football games, throughout the neighborhood doors are left open with house lights on but no people in sight and valuables out in the open.  By thinking like a criminal during these times, Grinnell said it’s easy to spot the opportunities to steal around the neighborhood.

Looking at the data from the last few years, the Vilas and Greenbush neighborhoods experienced predictable spikes in property crime, usually from August to October in the areas of rental and student housing.  In response, South District Police Capt. Joe Balles made reducing property crime in this area one of the South District’s 2011 goals.

“If crime is predictable, it’s preventable,” he said. 

For the first seven months of 2011, property crime in the neighborhoods was below the previous year’s rates. At that time, Balles said he was confident neighborhood initiatives aimed at decreasing property crime by posting flyers, displaying bulletin boards, and increasing police presence in the area were succeeding.

However, when August rolled around, the police recorded a strikingly high number of break-ins in the area. These break-ins continued into October.  

These crimes were primarily crimes of opportunity occurring during busy times when residents were not paying attention to who is coming and going in their home. 

In October and early November a small number of burglaries also happened while people were home and asleep.  These incidents prompted Balles and Grinnell to increase efforts to raise awareness and reduce property crime in these neighborhoods.  

“The thing that really concerns me… is where we run across reports [where] it was an occupied building,” Grinnell said, “There are so many opportunities for disaster.”

According to Madison Police Officer Dave Dexheimer, property crime revolves around easy entry: the thief gets into an apartment or car through an unlocked door, an open window or a cut window screen. Usually items that are stolen are easy to sell, like laptops, GPS devices, TVs, and other electronic devices.

When it comes to these stolen items, residents can take steps to help ensure their property is returned by using the same software businesses and the police department use. 

LeadsOnline supports a free website called ReportIt that allows residents to record the serial numbers and descriptions of their valuables.  This information is private to individual account holders and allows them to print out the serials numbers of missing items and give them to the police in the event of a burglary.

Grinnell said he encourages Madison residents to record their serial numbers so they are easier for the police to trace. This provides the two-fold benefit of helping the police find the person responsible for the crime as well as returning any stolen items to their rightful owner. 

There are also a number of simple things homeowners can do to protect themselves from becoming a victim and to make their home less of a target: lock windows and doors, avoid leaving valuables in plain view of windows, record serial numbers of possessions and increase awareness of the neighborhood’s environment.

Criminals often know where the easiest targets are and how to avoid raising suspicion in those areas, so the most important thing for any homeowner is to be educated on the situation, Grinnell said. By simply increasing their overall situational awareness, residents can lessen the likelihood of a burglary being committed and assist the police in catching the people responsible.

According to both Grinnell and Dexheimer, there have been a few situations where an unknown person has opened the door to an apartment, noticed the owner is home and simply asked if ‘Joe was around.’  There is no ‘Joe’ living in the apartment, but it is an easy cover story for the would-be thief’s presence in the apartment without arousing the owner’s suspicions.

If something seems unusual, officers encourage residents to report it.

To address these problems, this year Balles said he plans to work with property management companies and the University of Wisconsin-Madison to educate students about property crime to help them protect themselves from becoming victims. 

Balles would also like to see a few surveillance cameras added to high-risk sections of the neighborhoods to help the police identify thieves after a crime has occurred and help deter crime from happening in the first place.

To report an incident or suspicious behavior, call the MPD hotline at 608-266-4275 or report the incident online.