Trace for Law Enforcement
 

Creating Investigatory Leads

The internet has provided thieves with an anonymous global fence for stolen wares. Trace is the best strategy available to protect consumers and aid police in shutting thieves down and recovering victim’s property. Consumers can check a secondhand purchase before they buy; while pawnshops and secondhand retailers can check items they suspect are stolen and deny thieves an outlet for selling their stolen goods.

Trace keeps the victims of crime anonymous by only collecting information about stolen property. The Trace record includes information needed to identify an item, the police agency that took the report, the report identifiers, and additional information available either only to police or to both the police and the public. However, to identify investigatory leads, searchers are identified when they register. If a searcher gets an exact match on an item, the police are immediately sent a silent alert with the searcher’s name, address, e-mail, telephone number, and IP address of the originating search. This information may be used by the police to generate leads on property crimes or crimes related to stolen property. The system also prompts the searcher to send additional information on the stolen item to the reporting agency.

Trace supplements local police files as well as NCIC by maintaining a significant amount of stolen property that will never be entered into NCIC article files. The Trace database has over 650,000 (and rapidly growing) searchable items that are from the UK and Europe, and police departments are invited to upload existing local data that was not entered into NCIC.

A 21st Century “Operation Identification”

The Trace police partnership allows police agencies to deliver a true community policing strategy to their citizens that emphasizes a “register your belongings” message that delivers tangible benefits. The local jurisdiction’s citizens are directed from a link on their police department or town’s website to a partnered homepage, providing a natural connection to the local police agency. This page blends a localized police protection message with the immediate benefits of registration with MyThings.com (Trace’s sister site).
MyThings helps people organize their possessions online and provides helpful services such as appraisal, accessories, manuals, repair info, recycling, donation, and a one-click sell-on-eBay feature. The failure of previous property registration/identification programs is that the only benefit to the owner was protection “just in case” of a theft. Trace offers unequalled protection in the case of a theft, but combines the immediate valuable tools of MyThings, which provides consumers with an immediate reason to participate - getting the most out of their property today.

Trace Functionality

1. Search – The public searches our online database to ensure they are not unknowingly buying or trading in stolen goods. The police search the database with access to additional information and crime details.

2. Register – The public is directed to MyThings.com to create a free, online, detailed, and anonymous inventory of their property.

3. Report – Citizen Report-it Stolen (CRS) – The public may report stolen items to the Trace database after they have completed a police report. The information is emailed to the police agency identified by the CRS reporter. They are notified that a report was filed, with a request for the agency to validate the report.

   1. Once validated by the police agency, the item is labeled in Trace as “Stolen” with a notation that the item was validated by the police.

   2. If the police do not respond within 3 working days, the item is placed in Trace as “Stolen-Publicly Reported.” If the police later validate the item, the status can be updated.

   3. If the police report that the CRS report was false, the item(s) are not placed into the database and the reporter is directed to the police department.

Tremendous Search Capacity

1. Text – contextual search of all the fields of a property record.

2. Serial Number – If a specific serial number is matched, the entering police agency is notified.

3. Image – Trace uses LTU image recognition software to aid in identifying unique property.

4. Advaned Search – The advanced search functionality allows you to narrow results further by identifying fields such as Country, State, City, Date Occurred, Category, Brand, Model, or Artist/Maker.

Trace – A Path to National Stolen Article Data

In December 2006, the Trace Direct concept was presented to the FBI Criminal Justice Information Systems – Advisory Policy Board’s Executive Board. After seeing the Trace presentation, the Board unanimously approved a motion recognizing that national property files need improvement and encouraging states/cities to work with private vendors to bring forward public-private solutions to improve the article files and create a publicly accessible database. Subsequently, the APB’s NCIC sub-committee and all the regional working groups passed motions that will allow Trace access to the FBI’s stolen article file data.

Trace Benefits

1. Trace provides unparalleled protection against purchasing stolen property.

2. Trace Direct allows police to receive, approve and forward victim’s stolen property data into the state, national, international and Trace databases with ease.

3. By creating a single source of stolen property data for the public, law enforcement, and businesses, Trace significantly improves the quality, accuracy and integrity of stolen property records. Police databases of stolen property are now linked globally through a centralized data repository.

4. An online application for crime allows victims to report stolen property accurately and easily. This significantly reduces record keeping costs as the victim supplies an electronic inventory of stolen items, allowing law enforcement to focus more resources on violent crimes.

5. No personal information is ever collected from victims to protect victim privacy.

6. Businesses can contribute commercially lost data from retailers, warehouses, ports/distributors, etc. into the Trace database.

Trace Users Performance Measurements

1. Increase in property crime arrests

2. Increase in amount of stolen article entries into regional, state and national databases/li>

3. Decrease in administrative expenditures for data entry of property crime articles

4. Increase in recovered property returned to rightful owner

5. Increase in community engagement in proactive property identification programs

6. Increase in vigilance of secondhand property resellers engaged in due diligence programs

7. Improved data by police officers using Trace Direct for case data entry

8. Improved data by the public using Trace and MyThings for portfolio building/data entry