Last night someone pawed through our vehicles at the house. Only missing a $15.00 flashlight and a cheap pair of sunglasses. No damage was done.
We are in a small, unincorporated part of town, so any report would go to Madison County Sherriff Department. They won't take a report over the phone, only in person.
Question is, is it worth it? I know there is really nothing to investigate. I'm just wondering if there is any internal benefit.
Looking for a real world answer, not some PC response. I figured it would be either, "We like to know what's taking place in our jurisdiction" or "Dude, why are you wasting our time". Figure less the first, and more the latter.

So what do you think?

LouieH

If all your neighbors thought as you do how would the SO know to increase patrols or something like that.

I'd say make the report. You may not get your stuff back, but it may benefit you and your neighbors indirectly.

file a report, and then notify your insurance carrier - you don't need to file a claim - its well under your deductible, but let them know you had the issue

Every agency is different, every officer in those agencies are different and every officer in those agencies are different on different days.

If you called us, we'd respond. We'd take a report if you even didn't want prosecution. If you didn't want prosecution, we wouldn't have processed the scene for recoverable evidence...pretty much an information report, but still a report which helps overall.

Sometimes these idiots get caught and tied to other incidents, which they will sometimes even cop to.

I would suggest you call and report the incident...it can't hurt.

I can comment from a beat cops perspective.

Its annoying to take a 3 hour report (yes, that's about how long it took us to write one up) when the car owner didn't even take the time to lock up their vehicle. No, you'll never get your stuff back, and 98% of the time, the perp will not be identified, or charged. AND, these are usually juveniles car hopping looking for stuff, and they will hit 20-30 cars a night, the reports can really add up. So in the grand scheme of things, taking a report is USUALLY a complete, utter waste of time in the ops case where minimal was stolen and no damage was done.

On the other hand, the crime trend folks do like to plot these things in their data points so that they can try to identify patterns, dates, times, locations, where they can direct resources.

Bubbatime is largely correct, but that stats do create useful patterns over time.

Wow, you guys are fast!

Years ago, when we lived in Texas, we got broken into fairly regularly, the cars were always locked. It got so that I could pop off the door panel and replace a side window in about 20 minutes. Some things you don't like to be good at, so we quit locking the doors. We just don't keep anything of value in the vehicles. I guess that's not the right approach.

It sucks that it takes so long to do the paperwork, and I hate that someone has to take time out from something potentially important to deal with such a trivial matter.

If it has the possibility of helping show trends, maybe future budgets or resource allocations, or maybe just helps a neighbor, then I guess it's worth making the call.

It will be reported, and my stuff will stay locked up. This is the first instance of this in the six years we have been at this location, so maybe I can stay rusty at replacing auto glass.

I appreciate your responses.

LouieH

Report it. We always want to know what’s happening where. As far as the amount of time to do an ICR it was no where near 3 hrs, 5 minutes max to do the paperwork, 10 minutes to take the report, and talk a bit with the community member. Made lots of contacts with the community that could help down the road.

quote:

Its annoying to take a 3 hour report (yes, that's about how long it took us to write one up) when the car owner didn't even take the time to lock up their vehicle.

Great Googly Moogly what sort of reporting program do you use???
A simple LFA report takes me all of 30 minutes if that. Inthe old days when we hand wrote everything sure but that went away for us long ago.
Plenty of auto fill, drop down boxes, and OL scans. All one really has to do is the narrative. In a simple LFA not more than a paragraph or two.

A can do an arrest report of a suspect that just stabbed 3 people in under 3 hours.

Waste of time all depends upon how you look at it. Say someone 2 streets over got hit about the same time and they have cameras. Easy to link the two.

Sure report writing sucks for the officer but that is what they are there for.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

quote:

Its annoying to take a 3 hour report (yes, that's about how long it took us to write one up) when the car owner didn't even take the time to lock up their vehicle.

Great Googly Moogly what sort of reporting program do you use???
A simple LFA report takes me all of 30 minutes if that. Inthe old days when we hand wrote everything sure but that went away for us long ago.
Plenty of auto fill, drop down boxes, and OL scans. All one really has to do is the narrative. In a simple LFA not more than a paragraph or two.

A can do an arrest report of a suspect that just stabbed 3 people in under 3 hours.

Waste of time all depends upon how you look at it. Say someone 2 streets over got hit about the same time and they have cameras. Easy to link the two.

Sure report writing sucks for the officer but that is what they are there for.

More than thirty years ago the department I worked for created a "Drop-off" report that is designed to be simple enough so most people can complete it within 10-15 minutes. Its basically a checkbox system with room for a short narrative and is for relatively minor incidents where there's no known suspect descriptions. After completion, the victim can either drop off the report at the police station, find an officer to hand it off to on the street, or mail it in.

While good for insurance purposes, these reports also provide sufficient information to patrol and investigative personnel so that they are aware of crime trends and identifiable property they might come upon during unrelated investigations. I always encouraged people to make a police report. Even in larger cities (ours was about 100k residents in an 8.5 square mile area, but with many more visitors) these reports are useful.

Report it!

We get them all the time in our town. Reporting it can help us see area(s) where we need to concentrate our attention.

Nothing like going to one call, then have a bunch of neighbors come out claiming a dozen vehicles were entered last week, but "we didn't think it was important to report it"!!!!

Um, maybe if we had the info about someone being in the area going through vehicles we could have kept an eye out!!!

And three hours to do a report??? Takes me about 10 minutes if I have to run owner/vehicle info.

We have the same little shitbags here doing same thing, they check the doors and go through your car for money and guns and do no damage. Make a report, enough folks do the same and you might get a little more police presence and that's all it takes to deter this type of crime.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
file a report, and then notify your insurance carrier - you don't need to file a claim - its well under your deductible, but let them know you had the issue

Report it so they have the information, but I don't know why on earth you'd want to notify your insurance company. It may be harmless, or they could increase your rates due to you being in a riskier category now. Yes, they do that.

I would not report it to the insurance company.

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
file a report, and then notify your insurance carrier - you don't need to file a claim - its well under your deductible, but let them know you had the issue

Report it so they have the information, but I don't know why on earth you'd want to notify your insurance company. It may be harmless, or they could increase your rates due to you being in a riskier category now. Yes, they do that.

FWIW: Many Insurance companies recognize that burglaries from motor vehicles and thefts from unlocked cars aren’t accidents, they’re intentional criminal acts. Consequently, there s no “deductions” for those suffering losses of this nature and insurance rates are NOT increased for the customers, unless there’s some sort of obvious negligence involved. YMMV!

quote:

Originally posted by bdylan:
I would not report it to the insurance company.

Me neither. The less my insurance company hears from me, the happier they (and I) are.

I never mind taking the reports. A burglary detective compiles them so we have a sense of where they're trending. I usually take a shot at trying to pull prints, but most times the owner has contaminated it. The victim making the report might only be missing some change or a phone charger, but someone else might be missing a laptop, camera, or gun.

Not a LEO but I am with the majority and, I have been in security as a second job for several years; make the report you never know what it might turn into. As someone else has already stated maybe someone else a couple of blocks over or at least same neighborhood got hit in a similar fashion and maybe there was cameras or maybe even a live witness.

LOCK YOUR CARS!!!!!!!!

Report it. Leave nothing visible in the car and lock it up.

As for report time...our system is archaic. I did well over 100 LFA reports here and they still took me a solid hour. On a good day. Horrible system.

At my old agency, with the OSSI record management system, it’d take about 20-30 minutes.