Expert: Philip Sweeting - 8/13/2007

Question
Hi,

A family member of mine was burglarized recently and had some significantly valuable items stolen -- jewelry , art , etc -- and I was wondering what was the general police procedure for finding a culprit? How do the police - in general - go about solving the case, in details if you don't mind. Thanks so much.

Mark H.

Answer
Generally, the police only solve 15-20% of burglaries and seldom do they recover the property. Most of the burglaries solved are done by juveniles or petty thieves. Petty thieves are guys looking for cash or jewelry that they can unload/pawn in a hurry.

If they stole art...there is a good chance you are talking about a different class of burglar who are generally smarter and harder to catch. It is likely they have a "fence" or someone who they know they can sell the property too before they steal it. Unless the police get lucky or the bad guy makes a dumb mistake, rarely are these type burglaries solved but you never know. On the otherhand ...they may have a wharehouse/storage facility where they store it until it can be sold.

Depending on the size of your department they should have processed the scene for prints and any property with serial numbers or significant works of art can be entered into a computer system....so if another law enforcement agency comes across property they believe may be stolen they can check it in the computer.

Since art was stolen that is unique so the police should be investigating why? Did the burglar know the art was there prior to stealing it...and if so how did they know? Do they have a maid service, pool service, lawn service, etc. Recent deliveries, how old are their kids and who do they hang out with.

In all burglaries the police should be investigating the possibility that the suspect may be associated with the family. I solved a burglary one time where the homeowner's babysitter who lived next door and were friends with the family had some of her friends burglarize the house while they were away on vacation.

In my opinion the police don't utilize pawn shops enough but they  should have a system in place where they can check pawn shops primarily for the jewlery.Most jewlery at pawn shops is stolen from someplace but the difficulty is figuring out where it was stolen from. I had another burglary where the jewelry was pawned within minutes of the burglary at a pawn shop about a half mile away.

We had another case where the victim was stabbed, beaten and raped and the perpetrator pawned her class ring at a local pawn shop. We dropped the ball in that one because we didn't find it until after he had killed two other women.

If you have any pawn shops in your area you might suggest to the owner to check them out as though they were a customer. If they see something that they think is theirs...they should notify the police. But keep in mind we would like to believe that pawn shop owners are honest but they can tell when a "scruffy' guy comes in with an expensive piece of jewelry...there is a good chance it is stolen but the pawn shop owner has the opportunity to make some easy money. So don't trust them to be cooperative...hope this helps.