Property Marking

Crime Reduction Poxymoron No. 6 (How many more can there be?)

Despite extensive, and hugely expensive, local property marking initiatives that include signs on lampposts and huge add-campaigns printed on the back of buses, not one of the prolific ex-burglars and thieves in two neighboring areas (one city and one town), where research was conducted and taped interviewees recently, were at all concerned about Smartwater - or about any other property marking initiatives taking place in their area.

The majority of the very experienced and prolific offenders that were interviewed dismissed questions about property marking and Smartwater as a waste of time. For them, such initiatives were not even worth talking about – they were so inconsequential. Some had never even seen any marked property, ever, and were unaware of any type of police property marking initiatives ever having taken place.

One said that he thought such operations were a joke – they did not make him more careful. He just did not care about them - and if he had ever come across any marked property he would still have taken it.

Even those that had seen marked property were unconcerned because it is quickly sold and out of their hands:

“The buyers still buy it, and it’s not us that the police are going to go into our house and find it.”

Another interviewee said that he was never affected by property marking, saying that he stole it anyway:

“…the criminals is always one step ahead of them [police]. It doesn’t take long for someone to sit there with a bit of brain on ‘em and fuckin figure out how to fuckin decode it, get rid of markings or whatever. And you always know somebody like that. There is always going to be somebody like that [who could remove property marking or security features for the thief or fence]. When you’ve got a proper buyer [Commercial Fence] who spends money getting it sorted out he will.”

One of the thieves that I interviewed at length has come across marked property, but said that he could and would always steal it and sell it. Marked property made no difference to him, other thieves or buyers:

“Because it would not put the next person off. If owt comes on top [police get involved] the person buying ‘em obviously knows the score. They’re asking for a cheap thing, so they know the score. But if they get pulled with it they say they just bought it from a man in the pub.”

Another interviewee talked about a friend who had been caught through the use of a police Capture Car after breaking into it to steal a satellite navigation device:[1]

He took a sat. nav. system and the capture cars were used, and the police followed him to his house. They put stuff in the car so that when you walk past you see it. And when you steal it they just track you to where you’re going.”

This interviewee said that the use of Capture Cars and tracking devices does not put thieves off. Similarly, he said that property marking does not put him off taking marked property. He had seen marked property in the past: “It was like yellow paint but it never bothered me. I just scratched it off.” He said that Smartwater was not a worry because he never had enough information about it and so he never worried about it.

One interviewee never knowingly stole marked property and said that it was never an issue for him anyway. He never worried about smart water: “…because you can’t see it![2]”

To conclude on this theme then, in the light of past research and the findings mentioned above: although property marking is one of the easiest initiatives to undertake; it is unlikely to be cost-effective in reducing theft and should not be undertaken unless it forms part of a local strategy that will genuinely and significantly increase the likelihood of thieves and handlers being caught in possession of marked goods and handlers being caught in possession of marked goods.

That said there are several Bent Society questions that need answering in order to help ensure that taxpayer’s money is not being wasted on poxymoron crime reduction schemes:

1. Why do police forces undertake property marking when properly conducted and peer reviewed research has proved it to be ineffective? (Readers please don’t be taken in by the junk-science figures so often used on property marking organizations promotional websites – more on that in later posts).
2. How much is being spent on property marking by police forces and how is its impact being evaluated?
3. Who owns and operates the property marking companies that are used. Are they ex-police officers?

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Footnotes

[1] Planted – sting – cars that are under constant surveillance. They act as an allurement to thieves and are used to either detain thieves once they are inside, or else contain property with tracking devices fitted.
[2] Part of the intended projection of ‘paranoia’ among thieves in the use of Smartwater is that its invisibility means they cannot know whether or not they are vulnerable to detection. However, its very invisibility might mean that for the short-run-hedonist thief – ‘what you can’t see can’t hurt you’.

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