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The Cost of Nuisance Crimes

The Cost of Nuisance Crimes

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Public nuisance crimes include many of the most commonly committed crimes in the U.S. They include criminal wrongs such as graffiti, vandalism, vagrancy, and illegal dumping. Because these are crimes committed against the public at large, it is most often the city that incurs the cost associated with these illegal acts. Besides cleaning and repairing property affected by nuisance crimes, there are other costs associated with these nuisance crimes such as policing and prosecuting individuals.

Vandalism of public property is a crime which can incur huge economic losses. These losses most often include the cost of repair and can total thousands of dollars. A decline in property value can result when these types of crimes are committed more often in a given community. Already strained city budgets and resources are exhausted to repair or deter more of these crimes from happening.

Vagrancy can lead to other public nuisance crimes including illegal dumping. These large-scale encampments can often be found in or on city-owned property with heaps of undisposed trash lying around. Cleaning up these trash sites can take days or months to effectively clear the area. And with limited resources, cities are forced to take money from other budgets to cover the cost of the clean-up.

So What Is Being Done?

Prior to now, most urban neighborhoods have treated public nuisance crimes as simple code violations. A small fine would be the consequence of violating one of these codes. More recently, many cities have begun prosecuting these violations as criminal misconduct and imposing harsher fines and fees in an effort to try to curb these acts from being committed. Cities using Crime Deterrent Cameras are seeing great results in deterring and find them to be very effective when strategically placed.

What is your city doing to prevent nuisance crimes and the costs associated with these crimes in your community?

Metal theft refers to incidents in which goods are stolen and stripped for their value of various types of metal.

Deterring Metal Theft with Behavior Modification

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Metal theft refers to incidents in which goods are stolen and stripped for their value of various types of metal.  Metal recycling is lucrative, and thus, the motive behind metal theft.

 

Metal theft takes on numerous forms and there are several applications for which they are used, and the motives for each metal robbery differ depending on both value and risk factor.  Common targets include car lots for their catalytic converters, business centers for their air conditioning units, roofing material for its lead, bronze plaques from graveyards and monuments, and construction sites or stadiums for their copper wiring and cables.  Each metal target has its own marketplace value, as well as its own risk factor depending on its level of vulnerability and its surrounding security.

 

For the valuable metals that have the security risk-factor added to its theft prospect, there is evidence that a specific type of security that involves the intervention of catching the metal thief in the act, may serve as a type of behavioral modification by altering their thoughts toward changing their behavior.  This is due to the negative reinforcement or by the “warning” they’ve just encountered.  As humans, we are wired as such to alter our thinking and therefore change our behavior based on both positive and negative outcomes. Behavior modification is just that, a reversal of one’s decisions built on a known outcome.

 

There is a multitude of research in benefits surrounding behavior modification. Its therapeutic techniques first became popular in the 1970s, and it is used for countless behavioral breakthroughs today. One study presented children with ADHD in a behavior modification group turned out to have 50% less felony arrests later in life then the children who were not in behavior therapy. The reason it works is because its purpose is practical—the use of thought intervention begets a halt and modification in behavior.

 

Bringing us back to our theory on how the application of behavior modification in security may stop a metal thief from finalizing their treachery, a sudden interruption in metal thievery and the prospect of recycling stolen metal for cash suddenly becomes the prospect of jail time.  Most people, even thieves, do not like the possibility of a negative outcome.  A crime-deterrent camera system serves the use of crime intervention by warning the criminal that they are on camera and prosecution is around the corner.  This is the security technique of the future… using behavior modification as a deterrent for metal theft.

 

Construction theft

Construction Theft – How to Reduce the Risk

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Construction theft is a major problem throughout the United States.  Equipment and tools are left at the site for convenience and if not protected become a target.  Here are some action points and ideas to reduce your risk.

30% -85% of the theft is from someone that you authorize to be on your job site. An article in allBusiness lists six bullet points to protect yourself from employee theft.

  1. Understanding The Job Site “Theft Rationalization Impulse”
  2. Adequate Background Checks
  3. Eliminate Easy Opportunities to Steal
  4. Honest Communication with Employees on Site
  5. Create “Employee Awareness” Programs
  6. Establish Regular Drug Abuse Checks

Point 3 from this article really sticks out.  It talks about ways to eliminate opportunities to steal.  It also mentions setting up alarms and checking your perimeter for access points.

Alarms are an effective deterrent against crime.  By setting up alarms around the perimeter of your construction sites, it reduces the total risk of construction theft, both by employees and by thieves outside your employee network.  Alarms cause an instant reaction in the mind.  Would be criminals in the offense are immediately placed in the defense, thereby giving them a second chance to rethink their choices of committing that crime.

Another effective means of deterring crime includes setting up visible security cameras within the same perimeters of the alarms.  If the security cameras are visible to the thieves, it will reduce the risk of construction theft by reducing the impulse to steal and replacing it with the fear of being caught.

An added benefit to installing cameras is you now have the resources to identify the construction thieves.  In MEMPHIS, TN, four men are accused of stealing millions of dollars’ worth of construction equipment .

Start being proactive and protect your equipment from theft.

 

 

 

Halloween Decorations

Graffiti, Vandalism and Theft, OH MY!

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Are you ready for the increase in nuisance crimes such as graffiti, vandalism and theft during America’s second major holiday? People in America are expected to spend about 8.4 billion dollars this year in 2016 to celebrate this Halloween. This is the highest expected spending in the history of Halloween.

Decorations of spiders, graves and bats are in full swing as the shorter and cooler days approach, but so is the mischief of vandalism, graffiti and theft.  What can you do to protect the valuable assets that your department has worked so hard at attaining?  Whether it is pavilions, park benches or bathrooms, your cities’ assets are at a higher risk during this scary time of Witches, Goblins and Darth Vaders.  How can you protect these valuable assets from nuisance crimes?

While searching the web, one can find many articles on how to protect your house or your car, but what about park equipment and athletic sheds located in the remote dark areas?  Even eggs and toilet paper can be costly to clean up, not to mention the damage caused to the equipment.  In addition, the department needs to be ready for the morning visitors who come to enjoy the facilities you provide.  This can cause a lot of stress.

A 2009 Popular Mechanic’s article, “Halloween Vandalism: How to Prevent it- And How to Clean it UP”, gives some pretty good tips but states keeping your property well-lit is the best preventative, because people do not want others to watch them as they commit their mischief. This can be difficult in a remote area. Also, it is costly to keep the lights on all night where electricity is available.

The FlashCAM systems make their presence known, and they require no hard wiring, making it easy to deploy.  This is a cost effective way to guard your valuable assets from graffiti, vandalism and theft.