How Would You Feel About the PD Inspecting Your Home’s Security?

For as long as I can remember, local fire departments have offered free smoke alarms, CO detectors, and home inspections designed to help people protect themselves against fire and carbon monoxide poisoning. They do it as a courtesy to residents who might not know how to protect themselves.

How would you feel about the local police department doing something similar with home security checks? It turns out that it is already happening. As part of a growing trend toward community-oriented policing, police departments are starting to offer two types of inspections. One is designed as a security check while the other is educational.

Checking on Things While You’re Away

Pell City, Alabama is a city of about 13,000 residents located in the northern portion of the state. Its local police department is offering security checks for residents who plan to be out of town. A resident simply registers with the police department prior to departing.

During every shift while the homeowner is away, a police officer will visit the property and give it the one over. The officer will check the doors and windows, look around for potential disturbances, and so forth.

Every shift covering registered homes means an unoccupied home is being checked three times daily. Best of all, the police department will run the checks whether a resident has a home security system. The police consider the checks an extra layer of security that makes an alarm system even better.

Assessing Home Security in Texas

Hundreds of miles away in Addison, Texas, homeowners can register for a free home security inspection by the Addison Police Department. The department will send a Certified Crime Prevention Specialist to a resident’s home to conduct a personalized walk through and inspection.

The inspection looks at doors, windows, locks, lighting, and even landscaping. Essentially anything and everything that could impact a homeowner’s security is considered. But homeowners don’t just get inspections. They also get recommendations to make their homes safer. Recommendations could include things like:

• Upgrading locks on windows and doors
• Installing or improving exterior lighting
• Trimming trees and shrubs

Based on my understanding of the program, none of the recommendations the police department would offer are revolutionary. They are all things experts have been recommending for decades. That may seem odd, but recommendations have not changed because they don’t need to. The same things that worked 20 years ago still work today.

Ignorance Is a Legitimate Problem

Researching both the Pell City and Addison programs led me to an interesting conclusion: both local police departments are doing what they do partly because of ignorance in their respective communities. Simply put, homeowners don’t realize they are susceptible to property crimes. They don’t know how to make their property safer because they do not understand their own vulnerabilities.

Criminals prey on that ignorance. As a general rule, they look for the weakest and most vulnerable victims they can find. The more vulnerable a homeowner is, the more likely he is to be victimized.

In the case of Pell City, their program focuses on the ultimate vulnerability: being away from home. Even a home equipped with the best home security system from Vivint is vulnerable when there is no one around for days on end. Pell City police want to eliminate that vulnerability by conducting regular checks.

In Addison, the police department wants to help local residents better understand what makes them vulnerable to burglary and home invasion. They also want to offer suggestions as to how homeowners can address their vulnerabilities. Both programs are worthwhile. Common sense dictates both programs should yield positive results.

Homeowners Still Have to Be Responsible

There is another common thread in the two programs: homeowners participating in either one still have to be responsible. For instance, Pell City officers don’t check every home in the city three times daily. If a homeowner wants security checks while he is away, he needs to register ahead of time.

The local police also will not make a home more secure. It’s still up to homeowners to make sure they have adequate locks on their windows and doors. Homeowners still need to take the lead on exterior lighting. If they want a home security system, they need to arrange for its installation.

Addison residents need to make the first move by scheduling a home inspection. And once the inspection is complete, it’s their responsibility to act on the suggestions they are given. Ignoring the suggestions essentially means nothing changes. The home’s vulnerabilities remain.

A Practice for Every City

It seems to me that the two programs represent a practice that every city should undertake: the practice of community-oriented policing. In fairness, big city police departments often find themselves overwhelmed by service calls. They simply do not have the time or resources to do security checks or home inspections.

Perhaps this is the sort of thing communities concerned about policing could handle on a volunteer basis. After all, communities have volunteer firefighters. Community advocacy groups have also been known to go door-to-door passing out smoke detectors and encouraging people to come up with a fire evacuation plan.

Maybe something similar could be done with home security. Groups of community volunteers, led by people with home security experience, could educate people on making their properties more secure. They could conduct routine checks for people who are on vacation.

Would You Sign Up?

If programs of this nature were available in your city, regardless of whether they were offered by the police department or volunteers, would you sign up? I would be curious to know how much participation Pell City and Addison police see with their respective programs. Are homeowners really interested?

The programs seem to make sense on paper. Anything that can help raise awareness of home security issues has the potential to help people make their properties more secure. If a police officer at the door does the trick, why not? It certainly cannot hurt.