For quite some time, auto theft has been a major problem in the Rose City. To begin with, we are considerably understaffed with police for a city of our size, which has hurt enforcement, and then there was concern that there could be “profiling” involved in making traffic stops of suspicious vehicles, which could have the effect in court of throwing the case out, for want of ?probable cause?. Would-be car thieves knew all of this, and often believed they could steal a vehicle without much personal risk.
The Portland Police Bureau, with special attention to East Precinct, has taken some very innovative steps towards nullifying the “profiling” concerns by partnering with OHSU statisticians to develop a scientific technique with a high degree of success in identifying car thieves in stolen cars. So now arrests are based on science, rather than merely suspicion! It has drawn national interest by the law enforcement community.
In December, the Portland Police issued a press release with some very encouraging news, with the figures to back it up. Since this Portl and Police Bureau release did not get a whole lot of attention from much of the local news media, we are sharing it with you here:…