St. Louis County police to use ‘bait house’ to catch burglars
St. Louis County police are trying a new tactic in an effort to cut down on residential burglaries in high-crime areas: bait houses.
Modeled on the concept of “bait cars,” vehicles set up by the police to catch auto thieves, police plan to outfit a vacant home with security equipment that will catch burglars in the act.
Motion sensors and video cameras will be set up at the vacant property that will be rented by police, according to documents filed with the St. Louis County Council, which needs to approve the funding for the program. The motion-detection system will alert police when burglars have entered the home.
Police also will plant props within the home, some of which will be fitted with electronic tracking devices, which officers will be able to use if the burglars leave the scene before police arrive, according to the program plans.
Detectives with the burglary unit also will be able to use video footage from inside the house once arrests are made.
Police will rent the vacant homes to be used in the program.
When first launched, police will have the ability to set up one bait house at a time, but hope successful implementation of the program will allow for its expansion.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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Does this remind anyone of the time they busted mr. Delorean (sp?) for trying to buy drugs?
Please put some of these in Spanish Lake!
Well, my initial thoughts were, “this is not a bad idea”. What is a bad idea is releasing this infomation to the public. It won’t take long to get around that police are doing this, and when a vacant home all of a sudden has stuff to steal in it, but no people living there, I would think it would be an obvious set up.
But then again… most criminals are pretty dumb, and desperate for more drug money. So probably most of the petty thieves won’t put two and two together.
Waiting for someone to incorrectly state that this in entrapment…
They should also install a trap door to a holding cell in the basement. Then, they would only have to come check their trap every few days or so.
Great idea although it won’t take but a couple of break-ins, if that, for them to catch on. Some criminals are not a dumb as you think. I don’t want to pay for it, we have better things to spend our tax dollars on.
Neighborhood watch is the way to go. People need to open their blinds, get to know their neighbors and what’s going on in their community. It never ceases to amaze me how a house can be broken into on a block where there are people at home in at least 3 homes on the block. In my township we are encouraged to report “any” suspicious activity, it’s the police job to figure out the circumstance. Install motion sensor lighting and know your surroundings.
If this is to succeed, they will have to make it look legit. Tip #1: Nobody uses a professional moving crew to move into a 750 square foot home in Castle Point. Tip #2: They don’t buy boxes, they get them from dumpsters.
If they get a U-Haul and some ordinary looking people, and put all the cameras in regular cardboard boxes, they might actually snag some thugs with this one.
I say make stiffer penalties, and you wont need this. Less people will decide to do crime, less money spent. Taxes will be able to be lower, because less people go to jail. Insurance costs will be lower, because less crime (arson, vancalism, ect.) happens. Simple when you think about it.
I believe the reason the police are making this public info is because the whole point is for this to be a deterrant to crime.