The number of break and enters in Calgary has jumped in the past two years and anyone who has experienced a break-in knows their entire sense of security can forever be impacted.
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That’s led Calgary police to come up with a new strategy to combat the problem.
“We’ve realigned some of the officers,” Insp. Mike Bossley told Global News Friday. “It’s not that we had additional officers, but we’ve realigned and reorganized our officers in a section that I have, which is the investigative operations section, to be more focused on property crime.”
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The new break-and-enter detail is a centralized unit with a special focus on the city’s most prolific offenders.
“There’s a fairly small percentage of individuals that are committing most of the crime in Calgary. What you see from the people who are breaking into homes that potentially have drug addiction issues—they’re also the same people that are stealing cars, they’re committing frauds, they’re committing gas drive-offs.”
By centralizing the unit, police have increased communication with the various districts, making it easier to track trends and offenders.
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Investigators say they’ve already seen a slight decrease in break-in stats since the new strategy was implemented a few months ago.
“If you can take off or arrest one person who is involved in break and enters and that person is very prolific and they’re committing multiple break and enters every day…just by dealing with that one individual that is very prolific, it helps reduce all the numbers of break and enters,” Bossley said.
Police also note they depend on Calgarians to do their part. Often homes and garages targeted are ones with the doors or windows left unlocked.