CSI Announces New Product: Pawn Shop Module
CSI Technology Group is proud to announce the development and deployment of a new product to aid law enforcement in the detection and apprehension of suspects in property crimes. The new product is our Pawn Shop Module.
This Module is built upon the InfoShare© Base Application and is designed to be deployed on a regional basis such as a Major Metropolitan area, Countywide or Statewide system.
This easy to use module will allow law enforcement officers to enter information obtained from Pawn Shops or other businesses involved in the purchase/ sale of second hand property. Armed with this information, the officers can identify patterns, find stolen property and garner valuable information that can be used in the apprehension and prosecution of the criminals who commit acts of burglary and theft.
According to the 2009 Uniform Crime Report (UCR) [1] Burglary and Theft are the two crimes that affect the average New Jersey citizen more than any other crime tracked in the UCR Index. There were 36, 928 burglaries and 128,304 thefts reported in the State of New Jersey. Only 13.5% of burglaries and 20.5% of thefts were cleared. These crimes cost the victims $206,616,186.00 and since these crimes most often occur in their homes and places of business the citizen’s sense of safety are disrupted.
One tactic that has been effectively utilized by law enforcement for years to identify the perpetrators of burglary and theft is to identify them when they attempt to sell the merchandise to merchants who specialize in the sale of second hand goods, especially electronics and jewelry.
Many pawn shops are very cooperative with law enforcement officers and will provide them access to their receipts. It is common practice in the ‘pawn shop industry’ for brokers to obtain identification and in many cases take photographs of the person who is selling items as well as documenting what was sold. This documentation is often the key piece of evidence used to make or break a case against a suspect and possibly retrieve a victim’s lost family heirloom or other items of significant value.
It is not uncommon for suspects to travel over great geographical distances to sell their stolen items. This creates a problem wherein, it is not practical for an officer to travel around multiple jurisdictions in an attempt to locate the stolen items. However, through the use of InfoShare’s Pawn Shop Module and utilizing good information sharing partnerships, these geographic boundaries become less of an issue to law enforcement.
Our Pawn Shop Module has these features built in:
· Deployment via the Internet [2] to partnering agencies
· Easy entry of data and supporting photographic evidence
· Ability to enter stolen items and create alerts on those items in the event similar items are pawned/sold and entered into the system
· Canned alerts can be created. Included in our standard alerts are –
o Subject that sells at more than one business
o Subject that has multiple transactions in a designated amount of time
o Subject that sells at a higher volume than the average person
o Subject who is a “Person of Investigative Interest”
o Suspicious transactions as determined by the local agency
o Stolen item hit notification
· There are also mechanisms in place to document “success stories” so that the value of the application is more factual as opposed to anecdotal.
For more information, please contact CSI Technology Group, Marketing Division at (732) 346-0200 to arrange for a demonstration.
[2] Dependent upon agency protocols, security and infrastructure