Car Robbery in Oakland, California
Car robbery has emerged and become a serious problem in Oakland, California. In recent years there have been several claims from car owners that there is increased number of car thefts even from their parking areas. It has become such rampant to the extent that robbers broke into residents parking areas and disappear with portable parts of cars like tires, windscreens etc. several claims about that theft are reportedly received by police and more of investigations have been carried out and no remedy solution has ever attained to end those robberies. In this paper am going to show how car theft is a growing problem throughout recent years, also discuss what solutions have been tried but failed and why and come up with possible solutions of this problem.
The Method of Shaved Keys
To begin with, robbers have a way to steal cars by improvising a shaved key that is able to start up a car engine. By having this kind of a key they can easily go away with a car from parking without the knowledge of the owner. What they actually do, they time and target cars from parking areas where the owners have parked the car and safely kept their key. These robbers will use those forged keys to ignite the car and disappear without owner’s knowledge (Maxfield et al p.53).
High Risk for Old Cars
Old cars are the ones at high risk of being stolen. The stolen old cars are broken down to parts which are either sold to auto spare shops or put to a new car of the same model and by so doing it become very hard for one to recognize the stolen car (Geason et al p.47).
Stealing for Reselling
Robbers also steal cars for reselling so as to make money for their daily spending budgets. Some use the money to buy lamp sum amounts for buying trafficking drugs. They are able to dispose those cars easily at cheap prices since they require very little amounts of money hence they sell the robbed cars at a throw away prices. The buyer of these cars benefits much since they get them at cheap prices and sell their spare parts at high prices (Hameed et al p.64).
Attempts to Curb Car Robbery
Due to increased car theft the residents tried several solutions to curb this crime. First the come up with car tracking method. This method was used specifically to locate a missing car through GPS. This one thought to be an efficient way of recovering lost vehicles and returning them to the owner. Although the residents of the Oakland tried this method of fixing their cars with trackers it seemed not work for them as expected. This solution failed as the robbers realized a way of escaping this tracks (Fujita et al p.83). As the police tried to track and recover the stolen cars the robbers began to remove some spare parts and burn the rest of car body then they disappear. Also the track did not consist to secure parts like tires and windscreen.
Installation of CCTV Cameras
Fixing of CCTV cameras around parking areas was another solution to curb car robbery. The residents of Oakland came up with this way of fixing cameras all over parking areas and believed that they will make reviews when cars are stolen and make a follow up (Maxfield et al p.53). They were very much convinced by this solution and then the residents could spend sleepy nights hoping that their cars were safe for them. Unfortunately this solution seemed not to work for them again. Several incidents of theft appeared to make this solution a failure.
Ineffectiveness of CCTV Cameras
The car robbery incidents were clearly reviewed from the clips caught by their CCTV cameras and seemed not to give them their expected results. This time the robbers appeared to be keen on their crime and the clip showed robbers who stole the cars but they had covered their faces with mask to hide their identity. It was very hard to identify the robbers with covered faces and this still was also a problem both to police to identify the robbers and to the residents to secure their cars.
Modern Ignitions
Another solution came from car manufacturers to reduce the risk of buyers to lose their cars to those thieves. They came up with modern ignitions to prevent the robbers who use the hand shaved keys to ignite car engines. The modern cars cannot be ignited using those shaved keys and that assured the buyers the security of their cars. It also appeared not to solve their problem to curb car robbery since the notorious criminals again seemed not stopped. Car robbery continued but now in a very shocking way. The new cases about the same robbery which were reported seemed to be uncontrollable since the robbers then were removing car tires broke the windows and remove the car seat and leave rest at parking. This solution seemed to have failed them all (Fujita et al p.83).
Deployment of Security Guards
Lastly the residents decided to be deploying security guards to check the car parking overnight. To them this appeared to be the very careful way to keep their cars safe. The Oakland residents decided to hire and deploy security guards at restaurant’s parking and even at homesteads. The robbery here proved to be of advanced level. The car robbers started stealing the cars but this time was armed robbery. The security guards were not armed only had wooden sticks in their hands (Geason et al p.47). It resulted to deaths of the security guards who appeared to overrule and restrict the robbers. This solution failed and no security guard was ready to take a job at Oakland parking.
Possible Solutions
There are possible solutions which Oakland’s residents can put in place to reduce car robbery. For instance, they can come up with electric fence with an alarm to alert the security respondents about any attempt of one trying to break into the car park. The alarm will always respond to the security back up and an urgent rescue is provided.
The government and the residents of Oakland should come in place with ways to ensure no drug trafficking business going around that place. It is due to drug trafficking and drug abuse which has made jobless youths come up with robbery as a way to raise money to buy drugs.
Another reason which led to car robbery was as a result of escaping criminals who want to leave a place in fear of being arrested. They maybe thieves escaping from stealing from say banks or any other places. Those thieves run away with cars and may end up dumping them in their ways. In order to control this, the number of policemen should be increased in this place to ensure no crimes taking place in the area and this will reduce car robbery (Hameed et al p.64).
Work Cited
Fujita, Shuryo, and Michael Maxfield. "Security and the drop in car theft in the United States." The International Crime Drop. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2012. 231-249.
Geason, Susan, and Paul R. Wilson. Preventing car theft and crime in car parks. No. 5. Canberra, Australia: Australian Institute of Criminology, 1990.
Hameed, Shihab A., et al. "Car monitoring, alerting and tracking model: Enhancement with mobility and database facilities." Computer and Communication Engineering (ICCCE), 2010 International Conference on. IEEE, 2010.
Maxfield, Michael G., and R. V. G. Clarke. Understanding and preventing car theft. Vol. 17. Criminal Justice Press, 2004.
