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Alex Cabrero reporting While some Utah cities are seeing a certain type of crime going up, others are seeing the same crime going down. In this case, we're talking about vehicle burglaries, not where someone steals your car, but where someone breaks into your car and steals your valuables. In one city police have cut that crime in half in only one year.
For the first time in her life, Texas resident Diane Carney figured she'd visit Park City. She's always heard good things about the mountain city, but to be safe, she hid all her valuables inside her car. "People come here to relax and have an enjoyable time. If you have your car broken into and have your stuff stolen, that's not a very good time," she says.
Park City police lieutenant Phil Kirk says detectives noticed an increase in car burglaries in 2006, so in 2007, they made it a priority. "We targeted certain areas that we saw were high crime areas, certain times of the day, and we educated our officers better on what those things were," Kirk said.
It worked. In just one year, Park City had a 47-percent decrease in car burglaries. Of all the cities we contacted who called us back, Park City has, by far, the biggest decrease. Other cities seeing a decrease include Logan, at 23 percent, and Murray, Ogden, and West Valley at 3 percent.
"We're happy with the numbers. We hope some of it is due to our work but also the public's work," Kirk said.
Police also say in many of these cases, they are crimes of opportunity, where the bad guy will see something valuable in your car and decide right then and there to take it. "It's a great opportunity for a criminal to quickly snatch and grab," Kirk said.
That not only hurts the person whose car was broken into, but the city's image as well. Carney says, "I mean, if you come here as a visitor, and I am from out of state, and if I have a bad experience, then I'm going to tell lots of people, and I certainly think it would hurt business."
Five other cities saw an increase in this type of crime. Those include South Jordan, Orem, St. George, Brigham City, and Provo, where cases jumped 74 percent.
Keep in mind, because of different populations, cities are not necessarily comparable.
