open season on your property

Open season on your property

I don't normally comment on local stories here in Indy, but this

disgusting story deserves comment:

Burglaries surge 25% in area

$14 million in property was stolen in IPD area in 2004; only

$607,000 was recovered

Andrew Scott, 29, returned to his Far-Westside home after work to

find crooks had jimmied a window and taken his digital camera and a

jewelry box.

Wes Johnson, 57, was gone for about an hour when burglars broke a

window, entered his Northeastside home and made off with a Sony

PlayStation and other valuables.

Helores Grimsley, 81, had a kerosene heater and checks stolen from

her Near-Southside garage and home while she was asleep.

Those three incidents last week are among the most recent in a wave

of burglaries, which have increased more than 25 percent since 2000

in Marion and Hamilton counties.

As national and statewide rates remained flat from 2000 to 2004,

burglaries surged in Greenfield, Noblesville and many other

communities across the metro area

.

Drug use, the added opportunities provided by a growing population

and, one expert said, early releases from the Marion County Jail

helped drive the increase.

Burglaries are among the toughest crimes to crack, with 14 of every

100 IPD cases solved and about $4 of every $100 in stolen property

recovered. The losses reported in TVs, jewelry, tools and other

possessions amounted to nearly $14 million in the Indianapolis

Police Department area in 2004.

People need to be concerned about the rise, according to Jason

Hutchens, a deputy director for the Indiana Criminal Justice

Institute, a state planning agency. Burglaries, Hutchens said, are

often a gateway crime from which offenders graduate to more violent

offenses.

"These people are violent," Hutchens said. "I think there's a

perception by some to treat drug offenders, burglars and people

doing certain property crimes as nonviolent offenders, and that's

just not what the criminal history and research shows."

Burglaries in Greenfield doubled from 2000 to 2004, according to

the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Indianapolis police

investigated 28 percent more burglaries in 2004 than in 2000.

Noblesville also saw a steep increase, with 48 percent more

burglaries over the same period.

Even after adjusting for population growth in several areas, the

rate of burglaries increased. In Noblesville, for example, the rate

was up 27 percent -- to 40 burglaries per 10,000 residents in 2004,

compared with nearly 32 per 10,000 in 2000. The IPD burglary rate

was 136 per 10,000 people in 2004.

IPD Maj. Lloyd Crowe said it will take the help of the public to

reduce the burglary rate.

"What people need to be is vigilant," he said. "It takes a

collaboration between the neighborhoods and the police."

The trend reflects just how difficult it is to catch a burglar,

police say. Without a witness, DNA or fingerprints, the crime

becomes impossible to prosecute.

Many burglars are stealing to support a drug habit, police say.

Meth was almost unknown in Indiana a decade ago, and as recently as

2000 police broke up fewer than 500 labs making the drug. But by

2004, the number had soared to more than 1,500.

New laws make it harder to set up a home meth lab, but police say

users are likely turning to other sources for the drug.

Addicts tend to be disorganized and prolific burglars, IPD Sgt.

Lloyd Walker said.

"The lust of the drug is just so severe that they don't worry about

being caught," Walker said. In the time it takes police to gather

and process evidence from one crime scene, Walker said a desperate

burglar can hit four or five more homes.

Criminologists also say an economy that has more people living in

poverty affects burglary rates. In Indiana, more than 516,000

people enrolled for food stamps in 2004, up 74 percent from 2000.

And the growth in areas such as Johnson and Hamilton counties

offers burglars more chances to act.

"I think we have always been a target," said Hamilton County

Sheriff's Detective Todd Uhrick. "People here do typically enjoy a

higher standard of living, which means they've got more stuff."

Marion County officials have struggled for decades to solve

crowding problems at the jail. To avoid violating a federal court

order, judges have released more than 10,000 inmates early since

2001.

Six of those released prisoners have gone on to be accused or

convicted of murder, but the question of how many have committed

lesser crimes after their release has drawn little attention.

"It's the same folks over and over," said Hutchens. "Twenty percent

of the criminals do 80 percent of the crime." (emphasis mine)

As a victim of both burglary and auto theft, I believe some comments

are in order:

1. I dealt with this issue in an earlier post. Law was originally

intended to protect order in a civilized society -- life, liberty and

property. It has morphed to protecting only life. Property is no

longer protected. Disagree with me? The cold numbers in this story

tell the tale: $14 million in property stolen, only $607,000

recovered; 14 of every 100 cases solved. Police cannot prevent or

solve these crimes. People are discouraged from defending their

property because it would threaten life -- that of the criminal. This

is unacceptable. The solution here is putting more police on the

street, but then we have ...

2. The meth labs. The police statement that many burglars are trying

to support a drug habit is illustrative of the ineffectiveness --

indeed, counterproductivity -- of the war against illegal drugs. We

don't want people cooking up meth in home labs -- for one thing, it's

not safe and can blow up the home, injuring the people involved. So we

make it more difficult to make meth -- better enforcement and banning

the OTC sale of certain cold medications used to make meth. Now, they

can't make meth in their homes and have to go to drug dealers for it,

which is more expensive. As a result, they have to resort to crimes

such as burglary and auto theft.

So, as a result of these new laws, instead of meth users killing

themselves by blowing up their own homes, they are burglarizing

everyone else's. Brilliant!

3. Jail Overcrowding. I've also commented on this before. The Star

won't touch it, not in the way it needs to be touched anyway. A

certain federal judge here has determined, at the behest of the ACLU,

that the Marion County Jail is overcrowded. The dangerous criminals

are a li'l uncomfortable, it would seem. A federal court order has set

a cap on the number of inmates. As a result, inmates get released all

the time.

So, instead of our jail being "overcrowded" with criminals, our

streets are now overcrowded with criminals, just waiting to pay a