The Operation Ident engraving tool, available without charge through Skinker-DeBaliviere, The Women’s Crime Crusade, the Police-Community Relations Office, and many public libraries, has only been used by four or five hundred households in the entire 7th Police District, according to the latest estimate.
The SDCC Crime Committee is urging all residents to use these marking tools and post the blue hand stickers in their windows. The crime rate rose slightly in January 1973, and in the local area daytime break-ins are the most numerous crimes. Use of the engraving tool, which very easily etches the owner’s driver’s license number on all valuables, has been shown to slash the break-in burglary wherever it is used. Pawnshops and fences know that engraved property is easily identified and do not want to handle it. Criminals avoid homes and apartments displaying the blue hand stickers.
SDCC residents can help eliminate the break-ins by engraving their license numbers on radios, TV’s, stereos, bicycles, cameras, etc.
The Crime Committee also recommends that everyone be a Block Watcher: Watch your home and your neighbors’ homes for suspicious persons and call the neighbor or the police if you are alarmed.
Originally published in The Paper, March 1973.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1973_03.pdf, printed page(s) 1.
