March is here and with it comes the third month of the Naperville Police Department’s Safer Naper Campaign. This month’s focus is burglary prevention and residential safety.
The department says so far this year there have been 22 home burglaries, which is just slightly above average for this time of year. For the last three years, the average has been about two residential burglaries per week. This year so far, the average is 2.4 per week.
Some tips to keep your home safe include leaving your porch lights on whether you’re home or not, reporting suspicious vehicles in your neighborhood, and keeping valuable items out of sight.
“It’s not uncommon for someone who’s going to think about breaking into a residence to take a walk around a house and see what they see in the windows because these are going to be quick-hit crimes,” explained Deputy Chief Jason Arres of the NPD. “It’s not going to be something where they’re going to be spending a lot of time in there.”
And the simplest thing you can do is to lock your doors. Police say more than 40 percent of Naperville’s residential burglaries are to homes with unlocked doors.
But if you do become a home burglary victim, your response is important.
“Don’t go in,” said Arres. “If you see a forced entry to your home, call us because what if the suspect is still in that house? That’s a 911 call. We’ll come out to the house. We’ll walk through there and make sure your home is safe.”
This also gives police a chance to gather evidence untouched.
You can learn more about burglary prevention at two presentations scheduled by the police department this month. See the NPD website for details.
Naperville News 17’s Beth Bria reports.