AURORA | When police arrive at a burglary scene, they don’t often have much to go on.
Fingerprints are rare and witnesses who may have noticed something suspicious aren’t easy to find.
“When you come home and your house has been burglarized, sometimes we can’t collect a whole lot of evidence,” said Aurora police Sgt. Rachel Nuñez.
But police say a program that puts extra focus on burglaries is proving successful, and burglaries are down citywide in 2012 even as overall crime inched up slightly.
The department started a Burglary Impact Group — known as BIG — in 2010 in District No. 2 and later expanded it to District No. 1.
The group consists of two officers in each district assigned to a 90-day rotation focused on burglaries.
Nuñez, who works in the District No. 1 property crime unit, said the officers do a variety of things focused on burglaries, including responding to burglary calls, helping burglary victims track down serial numbers for stolen items and gathering intelligence about known burglars.
Midway through 2012, burglary citywide is down 14 percent, even though overall crime is up 4 percent. Aurora police Chief Dan Oates last month said a lot of the credit for the dip in burglaries goes to BIG.
Aurora police spokeswoman Sgt. Cassidee Carlson said the program has led to substantially more arrests of burglary suspects, too. In 2010, the group reviewed 126 burglary reports and filed charges or made an arrest in 64 cases. Last year, they reviewed 156 cases and filed charges or made an arrest in 67.
The national average clearance rate for burglaries in cities of comparable size in 2009 was 10.5 percent, Carslon said. Locally, in 2009, the year before the program was implemented in District No. 2, police were beating the average with a clearance rate of 13.57 percent.
Since the program was implemented, the rate has shot up to more than 50 percent.
Carlson called that “an astounding number.”
Nuñez said burglary is a particularly important crime for police to focus on in part because it leaves victims feeling unsafe in their own home.
“When you realize someone has been in there and done whatever they want in there, that’s a huge invasion,” she said.
Police also know that just a few burglars can account for a huge chunk of burglaries, so if investigators can pull one of those prolific burglars off the street, they can make a major impact on the number of crimes.
“There can be one arrest that we get and all the sudden a decrease in a whole area,” Nuñez said.
So far the program has been popular with officers, she said. It also has the added benefit of sending officers back on patrol after the 90-day rotation with a better understanding of burglaries and what to look for.