Recent burglary at my home revealed how ineffective the fight against chronic crime in our neighborhood has become. This website introduces two initiatives of mine to improve safety for us all.

Many neighbors are out at work most of the day and high fences obstruct views, so once again nobody saw anything. After being target of theft, and vandalism on multiple occasions I do have security cameras, but the images are often poor quality and inconclusive.

Local Burglar

This time, besides valuable items and cash from a sale I had coincidentally made on Trademe the burglars got away with the base station itself. They knew exactly where to go, what to take, and were obviously confident they would eliminate the security footage

There is practically always someone at home, but on this occasion we had gone out independently just to get groceries. I believe the burglar is watching people's movements.

you may know them

... but what you don't know is what to look out for, so my first initiative here is to publish recognizable stolen items and hope someone has noticed these being acquired or offered for sale recently.

I invite other victims of burglaries in Woolston area to also post such information on my page there, and to share it on social media. There are no privacy concerns as personal information is not required, but just information on what was taken, approximate date of the theft and a police file reference please, (in similar way I have done). Everyone who is concerned about burglaries is encouraged to share these posts, not just the victims.

Recognizing stolen goods

My second initiative is to make identification of stolen goods more effective, and thereby increase the chances of catching our thieves. I am busy creating a public database specifically for serial numbers of stolen photographic equipment and cell-phone IMEI numbers.

This too will not contain personal information. Adding information to this database will be up to the individual, but I do hope it will become useful nation-wide.

Why photographic equipment?

Apparently one of the top targets for theft due to high value and portability, but some disappointing facts I discovered:

• Many victims don't care about theft as they simply claim on insurance.
• The Snap database of serial numbers serves only as our own private record.
• Police add identifying data to case reports, but it isn't searchable when items are located.
• Social media facilitate covert sale of stolen goods.
• Few cameras use the camera serial number facility in image exif data and it is often stripped making no attempt to identify stolen equipment.

There is scope to work with social media, insurance companies, the police and photography clubs, but as it is necessary I build a level of confidence before they take it seriously, this will be innitially for use by people buying and trading second hand cameras and lenses, for people who want to fight crime in their area, and for the victims of theft.