Tulsa World: Software to target stolen property

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Software to target stolen property
Police will use a new online system that will offer instant access to pawnshop transactions.

Tulsa Police Sgt. Brandon Watkins, a burglary detective, sits in his office with a week's worth of pawnshop business receipts. A new computer system will link police with area pawnshops, enabling officers to identify stolen property more quickly. MICHAEL WYKE / Tulsa World

By NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writer
Published: 5/11/2009 2:20 AM
Last Modified: 5/11/2009 3:27 AM

A new online system that allows police to track pawnshop transactions will be good news for burglary victims and bad news for burglars.

The Business Watch International regional system is expected to be in operation, linking the Tulsa Police Department to area pawnshops, by the end of June, Sgt. Brandon Watkins said. The system could increase by 300 percent the amount of stolen property that is recovered from pawnshops, he said.

"We really believe it will have a great, positive impact for burglary investigations in Tulsa," Watkins said. "We will essentially be shutting off a source of funding for burglars, and it also benefits the pawnshops. They don't want to buy stolen merchandise."

The cost of the system, which will provide real-time access to pawnshop transactions, is $17,000, Watkins said. The Police Department sampled another system in 2007 that cost almost twice as much, he said.

Oklahoma law requires pawnshops to make available to law enforcement agencies detailed records of every purchase or pawn transaction.

Some pawnshops e-mail those records to police, but many shops mail handwritten slips to the Police Department. Some pawnshops send reports in monthly, and police can receive an average of 1,000 slips at a time from individual shops.

Information from each slip is to be entered into a police tracking system, but Watkins said he determined that only about 25 percent of the slips are being entered.

"It takes a while to physically enter each one," he said.

To deal with the backlog, a volunteer who types the slips into a police computer focuses on the ones for property with serial numbers. Those items have a better chance of being matched with property that has been reported stolen, police say.

"The system we had was better than nothing, but we needed something more beneficial to everyone involved," Watkins said.

The new system, he said, will be "beneficial to everyone except the burglars."

With the new system, pawnshops will enter information about each sale into their computers with the Business Watch International software, and police will be able to obtain that data immediately.

Watkins said police will have a variety of uses for the data.

For instance, they can flag a stolen item to alert officers of any attempt to pawn it, enabling police to go directly to the pawnshop.

"This system has been known to catch people with murder warrants," Watkins said.

Although people who frequently pawn items are not necessarily selling stolen goods, transactions involving large amounts of certain types of property will send a signal to police.

Watkins said the system was able to notify Baltimore police that someone engaged in 60,000 incidents of pawning property in six months.

Police are also encouraging people to log their property and its serial numbers on Business Watch International's HomeWatch system, which is accessible through tulsaworld.com/businesswatch .

HomeWatch is linked to the pawnshop data-sharing system, Watkins said.

"So, for example, if you are on vacation and somebody breaks into your home, steals your property and pawns it, we will know you had a burglary before you know," he said.

Burglars also sell stolen property at consignment shops or secondhand stores and online on such sites as eBay and Craigslist. Police hope the new online system will deter thieves from taking stolen property to pawnshops.

"We are hoping to take away another market for burglars,'' Watkins said.

The system can expand to include pawnshops in the region as well as those in Tulsa, he said.

Nicole Marshall 581-8459
nicole.marshall@tulsaworld.com By NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writer

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Some reader comments for this story were copied from "MONDAY: Tulsa police track stolen goods online," which was published on 5/10/2009.

	Report Comment okie ridgerunner, Small Country Town State Line (5/10/2009 9:06:47 PM) This will be very good. and a great help.
	Report Comment rdhm, (5/11/2009 6:11:29 AM) Good Job TPD! I just lost my drivers window and my Magellan 1430! But I updated the S/N with the TPD and Magellan. They say if they update the GPS online I will find out who has it since it was registered before. I hope they do. Maybe these slime can start staying locked up also.Hopefully it will deter some theft around here.
	Report Comment Shooter, Tulsa (5/11/2009 8:01:08 AM) Doesnt do much good to arrest people if the judges wont keep them in jail longer than what they do. Anyway I will this help some of theft victims get their property back.
	Report Comment Britt, Dallas (5/11/2009 11:34:13 AM) This system sounds good but it is inferior. There are others that do the same job but do not take citizen information and look up what you are doing based on race, age, zipcode or other profiles of honest citizens. Big Brother is watching. It should be called Citizen's Watch International not just Business. Dallas and other large cities use another system that does not have the onerouse privacy violations that BWI is not ashamed to promote. Canada shut the system down! There are very few cities that allow this system.
	Report Comment born okay the 1st time, tulsa (5/11/2009 12:28:21 PM) This would be good & all if the police actually took reports on burglaries. Several friends have been broken into while they slept, tpd did nothing, told them to contact their insurance companies!
	Report Comment Shooter, Tulsa (5/11/2009 6:58:05 PM) born okay the 1st time. I have never had that problem. I have only had to call TPD twice for burglaries and they took a report each time. I think your friend misunderstood or you were misinformed.

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