Ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure, a gallon of stress

Crime prevention tips, visit the National Crime Prevention
Council’s Web site at www.ncpc.org,
While we all wish that crime was nonexistent, we all know that’s not the case. Folks with defective consciences are happy to sieze upon easy opportunities to victimize other people. Whether we like to admit it or not, many of those folks are our neighbors who walk our sidewalks, shop in our grocery stores and drive our streets.

One example occurred recently in South County, when an opportunistic, conscience-challenged person noticed a grocery shopper loading her purchases into her car and spied her purse sitting in the shopping cart. He grabbed her purse, she struggled, he got the purse and drove away. 

Police got a good description of the suspect’s vehicle, and after a pursuit involving multiple police agencies – Gilroy, Morgan Hill and Santa Clara County Sheriffs – the suspect was arrested. The victim’s purse was in the back seat.

That got us to thinking about easily preventable crimes that we’d just as soon not have to report to our readers.

Purses snatched out of shopping carts top the list. While shoppers are distracted by a fussy toddler or by trying to determine the price per ounce of various brands of peanut butter, opportunistic, conscience-challenged thieves can grab wallets or purses and disappear.

Valuables left in plain sight in vehicles – locked or unlocked – are next on our list. Leaving a cell phone, GPS unit, PDA, wallet, purse or laptop on the front seat or dashboard of your car is an irresistible temptation to many opportunistic thieves. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that locking your car makes it OK. It takes just a few seconds to smash and grab. Your car alarm might sound, but how often do you ignore car alarms blaring in your neighborhood or in a crowded parking lot? Thieves know that the odds are in their favor for a clean getaway, even with a broken window and sounding alarm.

As mornings get chillier, many folks let their cars warm up unattended for a few minutes before heading off to the daily commute. It’s a bad idea. An opportunistic, conscience-challenged person can slip into a car and drive it away with no alarm blaring, no messy broken glass, no hot-wiring needed – because the key was provided by the car’s owner. 

Finally, remember to lock your doors and windows when you leave the house and close your garage doors each night. One study reported that nearly half of household burglaries occur through unlocked doors and windows.

Of course, we ought to be able to leave our valuables in plain sight and forget to lock and close doors and windows – but that’s not the world we live in. We can reduce the cost of insurance, demand for police services and stress and inconvenience levels by following these few commonsense pieces of advice.