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Neighbourhood watch in Victoria and Nanaimo goes digital with Facebook groups

Victoria and Nanaimo residents fed up with petty acts of theft have taken to social media to help clean up their neighbourhoods.
Facebook group against crime.
Facebook group against crime.

Victoria and Nanaimo residents fed up with petty acts of theft have taken to social media to help clean up their neighbourhoods.

Three Facebook groups — Stealing Nanaimo, Stealing Vancouver Island and Stealing Victoria — are giving victims a place to post their missing items in the hopes of helping police retrieve them.

Armed with Internet sleuths, victims of crime and curious residents, the pages have become a digital neighbourhood watch, praised by police for their ability to generate tips, help return lost or stolen items and make criminal life a tad more difficult.

The idea came after creator Anne Bright’s son had items stolen in a break-in.

“It is bringing awareness, and I think that’s why I did it,” said Bright, who lives in Nanaimo.

Residents have used the group — which has more than 1,000 members — to report area break-ins, thefts and missing items such as bicycles, jewelry, vehicles and tools. Members report sightings of suspected stolen merchandise, comb pawn shops for missing goods and forward viable tips to police.

Nanaimo RCMP are well aware of the Facebook page, said detachment spokesman Const. Gary O’Brien.

“They’re sick and tired of it, they want to do something,” he said of its members. “It’s endless, the amount of exposure you can get for something.”

Social media groups such as Stealing Nanaimo might help generate the information police need to make an arrest or recover missing items.

O’Brien said online sharing has been instrumental in breaking cases. In one instance, a woman who had been robbed and lost her wedding ring had her story shared on the page and the jewelry was eventually recovered.

“It’s a great avenue, using social media,” O’Brien said. “One, for people to vent — they share a common interest, they’ve been victimized — and also to do something about it.”

The success of the Nanaimo page prompted Bright to create a Victoria version. The former B.C. Tel worker lived in Victoria from 1984 to 1998. Her truck was stolen one night near the Johnson Street Bridge. “I did get it back, but I felt like I’d been violated,” she said.

Victoria police spokesman Bowen Osoko said online reporting of thefts is becoming popular, and while Bright’s Stealing Victoria Facebook page is new and has few members, police will be interested to see how it develops.

“These kinds of things can be very helpful, providing people use them safely,” Osoko said. People who recognize their own stolen goods or locate a stolen item are advised to call 911, rather than try to retrieve the item themselves, he said.

“Most folks who steal don’t steal just once, and it’s important that we get the evidence we need,” Osoko said.

The Victoria Police Department has its own Facebook page and posts recovered items to its Pinterest page under the heading Is This Yours. A Facebook post that included photos of items stolen from Christ Church Cathedral was viewed more than 3,400 times in the first 24 hours, Osoko said.

Vancouver Island University criminologist John Anderson said the groups could help empower residents to collaborate and improve their neighbourhoods.

He pointed out that before the modern police force materialized in the 19th-century United Kingdom, people tended to regulate themselves through gossip and word of mouth.

“The whole of social media has introduced a level of surveillance, both on the good guys and the bad guys, that perhaps nobody anticipated five or 10 years ago,” he said. “Facebook can work in some really wonderful and powerful ways.”

With files from Rob Shaw and Cindy E. Harnett