As the Crime Prevention Officer for Islands Precinct I wanted to share a few crime prevention tips that could easily save you a ton of headaches and help us take down the criminals.
1. Serial Numbers:
These numbers (usually preceded with S/N) are located on a wide variety of electronics, firearms and other items. Take a few moments and locate the serial numbers on your goods and write them down. An even easier way is to simply e-mail the numbers to yourself so they can be stored electronically.
What we do with these numbers is use them to help track stolen goods. If your brand new LED television gets taken and the criminal attempts to sell it to a pawn shop, it will come back as stolen and can be recovered. The same thing if any of your firearms or other objects are stolen and later found inside a criminals home. Documenting serial numbers is the easiest and best way to safeguard a lot of your valuable goods.
2. CrimeStoppers:
CrimeStoppers is a completely anonymous crime reporting system that can be accessed at http://www.savannahchathamcrimestoppers.org/ or call them at (912)234-2020. CrimeStoppers allows you to give information about crimes you know are occuring, but you don’t exactly feel safe or secure coming forward about. Upon reporting your crime you’ll be given a number and password that you can use to check on the status of your complaint. If your complaint leads to an arrest you can even gain a cash reward that will be placed anonymously into your bank account. There’s really no exscuse for not reporting crime anymore with systems like these.
3. Vehicles:
Your vehicle is important and under Georgia law your vehicle is considered an extension of your home which protects it with some tough laws. That said though, would you leave your front door unlocked when you were away? Would you leave your keys sitting in the lock? Of course not. So please keep that in mind when you leave a vehicle unlocked on the street or in your driveway. There is a certain group of criminals who go around checking door handles and when they find one unlocked they enter and go through the car. I’ve responded to reports of firearms, money, important medications and priceless family photos being stolen. Please lock your car and make sure that if you are going to leave valuables inside of it (even empty bags that look like they could hold valuables) that you hide them out of view. With the doors locked and objects hidden there is no reason (beyond pure maliciouseness) to break into your vehicle.
In addition to that, when stopping to drop off your kids or to run into the gas station for a drink remember to turn off your vehicle. One of the main ways someone has a car stolen is by simply leaving it running while they go inside a building “For just a second..” A second is all it takes for a predatory criminal to run over, jump into your car and roll off.
Remember for crime to occur you need a criminal, an opportunity and a reason. We’ll take care of the criminals, you help remove some of the opportunities and together we’ll get crime the lowest it’s ever been. Thanks for reading!
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