With orders of social distancing previously in place and the option for remote learning and working, many students and residents have attended class and worked from the comfort of their homes.
This interrupted the plans of burglars in the surrounding areas because fewer individuals were able to socialize in close proximity, providing limited opportunity for break-ins.
Though crime is still prevalent, home burglary was said to have decreased during the pandemic in some areas including college campuses and residential areas.
According to ASU’s Annual Security and Fire Safety Report (Clery Report), a total of 130 burglaries occurred across Arizona State University campuses between 2017 and 2019. At the downtown location, 18 burglaries were reported.
ASU’s Police Information Officer Adam Wolfe said that due to less interaction during the pandemic, crimes in general are down on all campuses.
For most college students, break-ins are probably the least of their worries when classes, homework loads, socializing and sometimes jobs occupy most of their time. Graduate student Courtney Gallegos said her experience of crime on ASU’s campus came as a shock even though she was warned that it could occur.
“In 2010, we had someone try to break into our dorm and threw a brick through the window but didn’t enter,” Gallegos said. “We didn’t experience anything else of the same sort. PD came quickly and took a report, looked around, and then left to continue the investigation.”
With the downtown campus totaling over 11,000 students from around the globe, opportunities for theft are high. Students are not surprised at the amount of people who’ve been victims of a burglary.
“You’ve got a massive number of people from a variety of backgrounds in a relatively small location,” Gallegos said. “That mixed with vast opportunities for being around people and their belongings, I think, makes lots of sense that theft is prevalent.”
Wolfe said that invasion and burglary cases are less likely to occur on college campuses because, oftentimes, a person requires a card to access the doors of the building as well as a turnstile in the lobby.
“University housing, for the most part, is set up differently than you would find in a city,” Wolfe said in an email. “The majority of our burglary cases at the University occur in academic spaces (i.e. offices, classrooms, etc.) or from parked vehicles (commonly called “smash and grabs”). [It] is often the result of opportunity.”
According to annual data released by the FBI, a property crime occurs on a college campus every 10 minutes, with more than 50,000 incidents recorded each year. As for regular residents, every 25.7 seconds a burglary occurs, and 46.6% of the acts are actually reported to police.
Though crime decreased during the pandemic, burglary continues to be the second most common crime in the United States. It’s important to note that these statistics only include crimes that have been reported, because many crimes are not brought to police attention and go unsolved.
Additionally, while crimes have decreased due to the number of students living on campus, renters, home owners and other residents still face being a part of the 25% of people who are burglarized in their home during the morning or afternoon, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
DeAnna Nelson, Phoenix resident and business owner in the real estate industry, knows about the dangers of home invasion all too well. On Feb. 13 2019 at 1:09 am, five young men broke into her home, armed with guns.
The males, ranging from 16 to 19-years-old, were at her house for about eight minutes on the night they successfully broke in because the security system wasn’t on.
“They had come through a kitchen window that happened to be unlocked that night. I was awake in my room with my door shut,” Nelson said. “They went into my son’s room who was 12 at the time and woke him up with the gun, an M40-Submachine gun, tapping him on the chest, and then continued to rob us.”
After the incident, Nelson said she felt a bit of relief that PD would be able to catch the burglars since she caught them on her security cameras, but said she was upset when they didn’t investigate much or take any fingerprints.
“I feel they did a really super s**** job because I was able to actually give him the leads from pictures on Instagram with the kids wearing our stolen items,” Nelson said. “They really didn’t give a s*** about my 12-year-old.”
About a week later, four of the teenage boys were involved in a car accident. Three of them died, leaving one currently in jail for involuntary manslaughter. Though this didn’t make things better, Nelson said that justice was served without help from investigators.
“The police could have used a little more compassion. They actually ended up treating me like I was the predator,” Nelson said. “That sheriff down there basically said, ‘DeAnna…just be grateful the kids are dead and you don’t have to worry about them coming back to your house.’”
Regardless of the pandemic, college students, campuses, and residents are not immune to the possibility of being added to the long lists of crimes. But, Wolfe said that by installing security cameras, locking doors, and being aware of surroundings, potential targets can stay protected.
“To protect one’s self, the best practices are to keep things out of sight in vehicles (lock it in the trunk or take it with you),” Wolfe said. “And make sure you’re locking the doors to your vehicles, offices, or residential rooms (even if you’re only going to be away for a short time).”
Contact the report at dnet1@asu.edu.
