| Is your house vulnerable to opportunistic burglars? | |||
Police and Neighbourhood Watch to drop warning note through your door
Ealing Police alongside the Safer Ealing Partnership and Neighbourhood Watch have launched a new tool this week to help reduce the chance of residents suffering the distressing effects of burglary.
Burglary, on the whole, is an opportunist crime. A burglar will select his target because it offers him the best opportunity to carry out his crime undetected and with the fewest number of obstacles in his way. A building that presents itself as unoccupied and insecure is far more likely to be targeted than one, which presents itself as occupied and secure.
A high percentage of burglary is committed by offenders who seize opportunities presenting themselves such as open windows; tools and ladders left out; open and insecure gates, or unattended houses in darkness.
To help combat this type of crime the Safer Ealing Partnership have created The Vulnerable Premises Advice book.
The book is pocket sized and lists the common features that can make a house more attractive to burglars. When a Safer Partnership representative comes across a premise, which they view, is potentially at risk they can fill an advice sheet from the book, tick the feature observed and pop the completed sheet through the letterbox. The reverse side of the advice sheet explains to the occupier who and why it has been posted through their letterbox.
Police are sure the residents of Ealing borough will appreciate that they are doing all they can to assist them in reducing the risk of potentially becoming a victim of this type of crime.
In order to use these as widely as possible, many partner agencies are participating in this initiative as a service to the residents of Ealing Borough.
The Vulnerable advise books will be initially distributed to all eight Ealing Borough Police Safer neighbourhood teams, each team has three Police officers and two Community Support officers, the 15 permanent beat officers on the remaining wards across Ealing Borough, Southall Wardens, Council Caretakers, Park Wardens, Neighbourhood Watch and Street Watchers.
The books will cause minimal disruption to each representative's normal working routine and will go some way to minimising the number of opportunities for burglary across the borough.
Any residents association who may wish to take part in the scheme are asked to contact Insp Joe McCloskey, Ealing Borough Police Crime Reduction Partnership Inspector at Ealing Police Station on Tel: 020 8246 9446.
Chief Inspector Des Rock, Ealing Borough Police states
�These books are an easy tool that can be used by the police and our partners to help bring burglary down. By working together we can frustrate the criminals who cause such misery by taking away their opportunity to commit crime in the first place. I am grateful to all the agencies that are participating in this scheme and ask the public to support this initiative.�
Mr Charles Gallichan, representing Ealing Neighbourhood Watch Committee states ,
�Like all good ideas, these booklets are a simple and practical tool for our co-ordinators to use. We believe they will be an effective tool in alerting people to take greater care in safeguarding their property�.
Susan Parsonage, Ealing Council's head of Envirocrime, states,
�Our staff are looking forward to working with the police and are other partners to try and make this scheme a real success. It's an excellent initiative and it will remind people how crucial it is to keep their homes secure.�
January 27, 2006
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