To start with we need to consider what goes through the minds of thieves. They are drawn to two things: Weakness and Wealth.
These are both aspects which leave rural properties prone to being targeted by thieves. Farms are typically very open unlike residential and commercial property, with relatively easy access to lots of your valuable and highly saleable items. Thieves certainly know this.
We have all heard the stories, and this is backed by rural crime surveys showing almost 60% of rural properties have been stolen from in the last two years. Some more than once.
So what can we do about this?
The NZ Police share some great advice about keeping your valuable assets out of sight or under lock and key. Using this checklist is your first key step.
However the reality is we may not always be able to park our quads, fuel, trailers and other vehicles or valuable items out of sight. It simply interrupts our daily operations or we built our sheds in a location or design that does not secure our items or leave them hidden from sight.
Further to that thieves are becoming smarter and using things like drones to "explore" from afar and discover ways to access and view valuable items that you think are tucked away from sight of the road. Some is oppotunistic, but they will often scope a property before they steal.
So coming back to the "weakness and wealth" aspect, we can now consider what we can do to address this.
The key to addressing security weakness is to consider what risks we can eliminate or seriously reduce and how the thief behaves to prevent the crime in the first place.
Cameras are a popular option but they have pros and cons, which we will discuss in a future post.
Alarm systems with integrated wireless cameras are the ideal protection. Due to technology advancement we are no longer restricted by lack of power or internet connectivity meaning we can deploy intrusion sensing devices on the perimeter of our properties and alert both the intruder that they have been detected, as well as getting an alert ourselves BEFORE they are able to break in. We can provide protection in layers right across our property, with camera verification taking away weakness from all key areas and assets of value.
A leading criminologist in NZ suggests thieves ultimately do not want to be caught or risk being identified. In 95% of cases, if they know they have been detected by witnessing sirens and lights they will leave very quickly. Crime prevention is obviously better that viewing evidence of a crime on CCTV, where a hooded thief might use a stolen car in 60% of cases and never be caught.
www.farmalert.net is operated by security consultants licensed under the Ministry of Justice.
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