ABSTRACT
During the period from 21 April through 5 May 1999, Officer Matt Tangen organized and carried out a problem-oriented policing project, after he became aware of a trend of residential burglaries occurring in four police reporting districts. The modus operandi in these burglaries was distinctive. The suspects were entering open garages and stealing high-value items such as bicycles and golf clubs. In some cases, the suspects entered vehicles parked inside garages, and took items such as cell phones and compact disk players. Officer Tangen and his fellow officers on Southeast, the Team B Beat, patrolled the affected districts looking for open garage doors and delivered an informational flyer to homeowners with open doors, warning them of the trend and suggesting precautions. During the project, officers located eighty-eight open doors in the target area. An analysis of the eight weeks following the project, compared to the same period in 1998, showed that the number of residential burglaries was reduced by two thirds, from thirty-one in 1998 to ten in 1999. GIS technology helped identify the geographic trend in these reporting districts, and also aided in the assessment of the results achieved.
