News Jul 16, 2009 at 4:00 am

Home Break-ins—One of the Most Difficult Crimes to Solve—Are on the Rise

Paul Hoppe

Comments

1
Not locking a criminal up because you don't want to kill his job prospects is kind of stupid given that most of the criminals you let go... are simply going to continue stealing shit and pawning it for money. Give an amoral criminal a choice between working for a shit wage... and stealing shit for free then pocketing the money, and it's pretty clear what virtually all of them are going to choose.

There's no real utility to being lenient out of protecting the job prospects of the ~150 criminals responsible for most of the 15,000+ burglaries because, as things stand, they're not going to put said prospects to use in a way that will stop them from stealing... if they don't just continue to steal shit for a living entirely.

At least by locking them up, you send a message and offer some sort of real chance that you'll reform the damaged mindset of a thief. And given recent implementation of state and Federal work opportunity credits for businesses that hire (among others) past felons, getting a job out of the can isn't the near-impossible task it was a few years ago.
2
@1...I was going to comment on the same stupid quote in the article but see you beat me to it. Nicely stated.
3
"On July 3, Anderson says, another burglar just walked through his front door while he was home."

WTF? Does this guy Anderson not have any locks on his door?
4
I have to take issue with "Burglars used to have burglar tools. Now they're not sophisticated." When I was training to be a locksmith a decade ago, we were shown statistics about break-in methods and even then it didn't involve picking locks or complicated scheme. While this may have been to prevent us from using our newly-acquired powers for evil, they did have numbers to back them up.
5
@3. He was at home. Nothing was stolen, because he was at home. Do you really lock your doors right after you walk through them?
6
@5. YES!
7
@5. YES!
8
@5. YES!
9
@5 Jesus, I would be locking my doors right after I walked through them if I had been robbed twice. And the article says that the first time he was robbed he was also at home.

I agree with comment 3, wtf is up with Anderson's doors? Maybe the landlord should have installed bars on the house's doors too.
10
I was downstairs at the time. I have housemates. One of them left the door unlocked as they were leaving the house. I assume they thought it was okay since I was home with the dog. Dog heard intruder, ran upstairs, and chased them out of the house.

And we actually did not have bars installed. We've talked about it, but it hasn't happened yet.
11
I always lock the door behind me when I come home. That's out of habit from growing up in a high-crime city like Vegas, though.
12
@5 Are you insane? Of course I lock my doors. Being female, I'd like to avoid being raped in my home (or anywhere else for that matter).

Incidentally, someone once told me that most break-ins occur when people leave their front doors unlocked. That happened to me once. I was living w/ a housemate who had a friend who thought locks invited bad energy (nope, I'm not kidding). This guy stayed w/ us briefly. I would always lock the door when I left and while I was home. If he knocked on the door after I was in bed, I wouldn't let him in (that happened once at 2 in the morning). I had to go out of town for my job for a few days. While I was gone, he left the door unlocked and my housemate's television and VCR were stolen. I was lucky. I didn't really own anything but clothes and guitar and they were left alone.

Always, always, lock your doors.
13
It's particularly difficult to catch burglars when you devote large amounts of your scarce resources to investigation of victimless crimes like gambling, prostitution, and possession of prohibited substances. Catching burglars, however, doesn't provide police with the opportunity to spend time in strip clubs, show off their paramilitary SWAT team gear, or to drive fancy cars taken via forfeiture from people before they've had their day in court.
14
@1 I can't even begin to express how much I disagree with everything you said in your comment, except to say that your use of a word like "amoral" speaks for itself. You really think people just commit crime because they're amoral assholes? Really? Have you ever looked at a statistic? Ever? You really think lower-income people commit petty crimes more because they're more immoral, and not because of a higher need/smaller pool of 'legitimate' life choices?

Just think about this for a moment--if putting people in jail is the best way to stop crime, then why does the US, which puts more people in jail than any other first world country, have such a fucking terrible crime rate?
15
Let's answer your questions in order.

Of course not. Really. Yes. Uh, yes. Both (and you don't recognize the difference between immoral and amoral). And, among a variety of other reasons, because they let criminals off far more easily than the justice systems of other nations.

And finally, because you couldn't tell the difference... immoral is a label for an action that violates the speaker's moral code... while amoral is the absence of awareness or regard for moral codes.
16
@14
"You really think people just commit crime because they're amoral assholes?"

I can't speak for all crimes. Obviously some of them are more harmless than others. But as a person who has recently woken up to a burglar in my bedroom, I can definitely say that 'petty crime' does not extend to burglary. Luckily he was scared and presumably unarmed, but if he wasn't, what would I have done (while naked, drowsy, and confused as hell)?

Most fights you can walk away from if you want, but someone in your bedroom can't be dealt with passively.

He was actually stupid for being unarmed, since if I had caught him, I would have tried to kill him out of sheer fright/shock from seeing him in my room.

Considering the response (to the perceived threat it creates) from people who catch burglars in their home, I consider burglary to be no less harmful than pulling a knife or a gun on someone. And given that they obviously have no respect or consideration for the well-being of those they are victimizing, what would stop them from taking the opportunity to kill or rape the person they are intruding upon, as happened on Capitol Hill last week?

Admittedly 'petty crime' like theft is one thing, but intruding into someone's home to commit that crime takes it to a completely new level. Burglars should be mandatorily jailed once convicted of the crime. Without a doubt.
17
Come and burgle my house...you'll get a nice surprise. A hollow point right between the eyes. Won't be burgling anymore.
18
I wish the cops would investigate why Nick Licata and Peter Steinbreuk were gambling in the speakeasy Cafe Corsair....... why did the SPD brass cover that up??? Jesse Isreal.... you listening?
19
And people wonder why a lot of us like the 2nd Amendment.
20
#17, since when is burglary a capital offense? Yeah, it's crappy that people do this, but they don't deserve to die just because of it. I wonder what the law of Washington State is for this? Do you get to kill someone just because they broke into your house? I'm guessing you have to be under immediate threat of serious harm first, like if they're carrying a gun or knife.
21
I always lock my door right after I walk through it. I grew up in a "city".
22
1. It's your responsiblity to protect yourself from home invasion. Locks, window bars, loud/big dogs (to alert and deter rather than attack), fences, all that will help deter burglars - though it is only a deterrent. Some people keep themselves armed to stop a threat. The chick chock of a shotgun is a very effective deterrant - if you are home. If not, your guns are just one more thing to steal...

2. Get RENTERS INSURANCE (or homeowners) to replace stolen property. Mine is $12 a month - it also covers anything stolen from inside your car.

3. There are fewer police officers working the area you live in than you think. For example, there are 5 at a time working West Seattle - including ALL of West Seattle, Delrige, and South Park. It is pretty unlikely that they are going to happen upon a robbery in progress on their own, so:

4. CALL 911 to report crime. Yes, 911 is for emergencies. Reporting a crime or suspicious activity IS AN EMERGENCY. The only way to get added patrols or police attention in your area is if the police can identify a trend. If there are many breakins or items going missing from yards or any issue police should help with - the ONLY way they know about it is if we tell them. SPD can increase their activity only based on 911 statistics (and police reports) - the non-emergency line information does not count.

But no one wants to call the police and be wrong, right? So get to know your neighbors enough to know the difference between their weird activity and suspicious activity that should be reported to 911. And if the 911 operator says they will be sending a police officer to talk to you in person - meet the officers outside and you won't have to worry about forgetting to stash the bong.

5. As for the criminal justice system and jail space and all those issues - IMO it all boils down to that our societal solution to problems is drugs. Feeling bad? Prozac or pot. Kids aren't behaving in school? Ritalin. Tough day at work? Just have a drink. No wonder people turn to drugs to help them along when things get tough, we've been teaching that there is a pill or bottle or drug to fix every problem.
23
It's all good advice, Sammie. One of the problems with counting on a 911 call to help you is that SPD typically does nothing about break-ins and robberies unless someone was assaulted or killed, and even then their chances of nabbing the perpetrator, when they're actually trying to catch him, are dim at best.

I mean, sure, call them after a robbery, I guess. But it won't produce any results 99 times out of 100, and that 100th time only applies if someone happened to see and recognize the person in question during the act.
24
#22: only five at a time working all of west seattle? i find that hard to believe since i can hardly drive down delridge to the gas station without seeing at least five. agree with you on renter's insurance though. everyone should have it for the price...
25
I always, always lock my doors, and grew up in a small central WA town. The biggest city I've ever lived in is Bellingham, and now I live in a town 1/30th the size of Bham, and there are plenty of burglaries here. Scary. And to #20 - an intruder in my home would definitely be inviting a similar outcome to an intruder in #17's home. Anyone with the insane, fearless disregard of others it must take to carry out a burglary/robbery I'm going to assume is also armed and/or a terrible physical threat to his/her victims.
26
@25

I would almost bet that small towns are statistically more dangerous than big cities. My totally hypothetical guess is that the the drug problems, particularly meth and drunk driving, are oversized compared to the small population. This is in addition to the much higher rate of fatalities on the roads in and around small towns.

I used to live near and work in a Northern California town of 30,000 (not that small, I guess) and that place was fucked up. Of course, I was dismayed and not surprised (as a bicyclist) to learn that its streets were the most deadly in all of California. I felt more uncomfortable walking there at night than I do in Seattle.
27
I did some recent calculations and there are approximately 1 police office for every 400 people in Seattle vs. 1 for every 200 people in New York. I did call the police recently in the middle of the night when someone was trying to break in the door of the house across the street. The police came, talked to the people and sent them on their way!
28
@26

I think you are entirely correct in your assessment of small towns (wherever they are; mine is in eastern WA). I am one of the rare liberal, young, educated (B.A. from WWU) who is also a gun-toting, first and second amendment supporting believer in locked doors and believer in the depthless barbarity of criminals who prey upon other people in their own homes. Sometimes I get that twinge from my totally liberal upbringing and past that my fears are just irrational insecurities disguised as rational fears, but then I keep reading the news. Fear is a bad thing if it keeps you from doing what you want, but if it simply compels one to lock the doors and be vigilant, I have no conflict with it. BTW, I also have no conflict with being an almost radical liberal who still thinks private citizens should have the right to bear arms.
And #26, I believe you are correct that meth and drunk driving are the larger of the crime problems in my town. As far as burglaries go, the profile of the offenders has been white males ages 20 to 40, knocking on doors as a way to case a joint, and going from there. There has also been a meth problem here (similar to everywhere in rural/semi-rural WA so I tend to correlate the local burglaries with meth problems and the like.)
29
My apartment was broken into just two weeks ago. The people who broke in left a water bottle on my couch.

Hey, if you read this and want your water bottle back ... let me know and we can arrange a pickup time.
30
someone once told me that most break-ins occur when people leave their front doors unlocked.
31
I was robbed, truck stolen (they took *all* of my keys sitting in a drawer, then put my TV + other stuff in the truck, wrecked it, ...)

Long story short, they came back to steal my other car, I caught the mothers, got their names (stoopid teenage fuckwads), gave all of the information to the police, got a couple of other witnesses... Open and shut case, right?

Nope. Nothing at all happened. The detective never even talked to them. The series of breakins in my neighborhood continued. Next time, I'm handling it with a baseball bat.

Moved away, but I'll be visiting these guys someday I'm back in Shitattle.
32
I own a Dogue de Bordeaux and a gun. Any of those motherfuckers try to break in and violate my home will get quite a surprise.
34
Gomez,Vegas a high crime city?Youse know the "boys" didn't let crime happen in Vegas.Crime would scare off the rubes and keep 'em from coming back to gamble again.
35
I'm trying not to roll my eyes, Gomez, on your disingenuous reading of the article. The goal, from King Co Prosecutor Satterburg is to turn the criminals into law-abiding taxpayers. This is a very different goal than to punish, which seems to be your desire. Punishment as an end, and not a means, has proven, time and again throughout history, to be not only useless, but helps to degenerate the society which practices it.

Another proven truth is that the age of the individual is the major factor in their capacity to be rehabilitated. Older criminals tend to stay that way (and just get better at it) while younger criminals have a much higher rate of becoming law-abiding taxpayers.

People who are completely amoral are extremely rare, and there are psychological terms for this disorder. Most people just do what they're used to. Kids haven't developed these habits, so they are easier to change. I didn't read from the article anywhere that the criminal justice system is interested in removing punishment from the menu of possibilities of caught criminals. I certainly don't advocate it. It's a carrot-and-stick argument over how much carrot and how much stick, not an either-or argument.

There's actually another aspect of this issue, which is the actions of the police. I have no idea what they do all day, but they seem to occupy their time on things that aren't running down burglary. One of the most telling parts of the article was how they responded to car theft. The rates of car theft jumped, they responded, they went back down again. Why aren't these practices part of their daily routine? Why does it take all these victims to gather before the cops start doing what they're paid to do? I think an article on the psychology of people who become cops would be a good read.
36
BTW here's a simple tip for people especially the single ladies. Install a turn internal dead bolt on your bedroom door. Now you don't have to wake up to some douche bag standing over you.
37
Turning into taxpayers: ages up to 18

Punish for being an idiot: 18+
38
@28:

cool. looks like there's two of us in seattle. :)
39
@1: Bravo, Gomez! I couldn't have put it better, myself!
And, although this pains me to say this, after growing up in an era when most people left front and back doors unlocked, windows open, and carkeys in their ignitions (!!), I agree with know-it-all: lock your doors, people!
Better safe than sorry....
40
People who break into other people's houses with the intent of stealing shit either don't know it's wrong or don't care. That is "AMORAL."
41
Leaving your door unlocked, while it might be unwise, is not an open invitation to invasion. It does not make the act any less criminal, or the victim any less entitled to their trauma. Stop being so goddamned judgmental.
42
I had some very expensive gear stolen from my garage a few months ago. If was stuff I use for business so I had all the serial nums. A pawn shop alerted me when they bought it all from the guy for a hundred bucks. So I reported it to the police, along with the info collected by the pawnshop: his name, soc. sec. num, address, they even had a copy of his driver's license and video of him. The officer at the front desk at the East Precinct was actually angry at me for trying to report it - takes too long to enter it into their f'd up computer system, he said. Plus, I assume, it would just never amount to anything. Weird.
43
Why did Eli Anderson get burgled repeatedly? NO REPERCUSSIONS! A person's home is a sacred thing. How about this: Funded by the Homeland Security department, shotguns for all homeowners (and no, I don't support the NRA).
And OF COURSE lock your damn doors even when you're home. That way if they're coming through, they probably deserve some lead.
44
The worst mistake a criminal could make is to try and enter my apartment while I am home. I'm an insomniac, my brother sleeps lightly....and his wife has ultra-sonic hearing.

Add to that the fact that between my brother and I we have around 25 to 30 various swords,throwing knives,axes and spears....and we know how to use each and every one of them lethally.

BAD NEWS BEARS FOR THAT BURGLAR!

That being said....we still dead-bolt, doorknob lock, and chain lock our door when we go to sleep. And it is always locked at least with one of the locks when I am here and awake.........

45
As an afterthought to #20

If you enter my house un-welcomed....I don't give a fuck if you are waving a PANCAKE AT ME. You are fucking DONE.

I have enough knives to wipe one clean and replace that pancake.

And to reply to the very first part of the actual article it's not called "doing a lick"

It's called "hittin' a lick"

Haven't you listened to E-40?
46
to #20. You raise a valid point, a burglar may not DESERVE to die, he may legitimately be trying to feed his family.

But then again, base jumpers don't deserve to die either. Some activities just carry that risk...
48
My home was broken into recently: the guy took the stuff straight to the local pawn shop. The cops know who did it (from correlating the serial numbers on the stolen property database), but the detective can't arrest him "because we need two people to make an arrest, and my backup is on vacation - we're so short of resources"

Funny that, they never seem to be short of resources when I make my 11 mile commute up I-5: quite the opposite, in fact. If the cops went after burglars instead of motorists they might be bit more popular, but I guess there's no money to be made by chasing out-of-work meth-heads.

I'm a peaceful person but I find myself siding with the gun owners and baseball bat wielders in here. Kill/hurt/maim the scumbags.... be sure to give them one in the kneecaps from me.

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