Keeping your homes safe during holiday travel

As you travel to be with family and friends this holiday season, your vacant home becomes a target for burglaries and break-ins.

According to Sheriff Lorin Nielsen, Bannock County sees about a thirty percent increase in crimes of the sort from Thanksgiving through the end of the Christmas holiday.

Most of the places targeted are residences, but Nielsen says that businesses are often hit as well since they have a larger inventory and generally have more money on site.

Often times, stolen items will be brought to local pawn shops. Little do the thieves know, many of the shops work with local law enforcement to return these stolen items.

Using a system that tracks all of the items pawn shops take in each day, local police are able to identify possible stolen items and identify a suspect.

According to Nielsen, there are a few simple things you can do to keep your homes safe:

First, an obvious one, locking your doors. Nielsen says that many people don’t lock up and it makes them easy targets.

Additionally, keeping a light on to make the home seem occupied seems to be a good trick.

Packages have become a “dead giveaway.” Any mail, packages especially, that pile-up over time, alert would be burglars to the fact that no one is home.

Worried travelers can also call law enforcement, like the Bannock County Sheriff’s office, and alert officers that their home will be unoccupied. Nielsen says that officers will then keep a look out on those homes while making normal patrols. It will also allow them to contact people directly in the event of any emergency, such as a fire.