Laptop Thefts Spark Safety Plan
The Sunday Age
Sunday February 27, 2000
An alarming increase in laptop computer theft has prompted the police to launch a safety program aimed at teaching students how to avoid becoming targets.
Detective Inspector Ray McLeod-Dryden said that although the number of robberies against students going to and from school was relatively small, the concerning factor was a 64 per cent increase in the incidents from 1998 to 1999.
Police began to notice an increase in laptop robberies while working on the Embona Task force, set up to combat a rise in ``soft target" crimes.
``Students are easy targets if they're obvious about it (carrying their laptops)," Inspector McLeod-Dryden said. ``It's our job to spot trends and the mere fact that you've got these robberies occurring on students is a concern."
Australia-wide, about 65,000 primary and secondary students now use laptops as part of their everyday education. Seventy per cent of those are students in Victoria.
``Most incidents occur after school ... It's certainly in that belt around Hawthorn, Camberwell Kew and also Elsternwick, Caulfield and Brighton where there's also a number of schools," Inspector McLeod-Dryden said.
``It's linked to the private schools because they're the ones that have the most computers."
The Notebook SafetyWatch Program aims to prevent any increase in robberies against students carrying laptops.
The message to students is: be discreet.
The police tell students to try to walk with friends in a group; don't carry laptops separately, put them in your school bag; don't work on a computer in public places or on public transport.
``We do have parents who are always concerned about safety," says Ms Rosa Storelli, the principal of Methodist Ladies College. ``But it's not just about laptops, it's part of a bigger picture of practising protective behavior."
In 1998, she says, two MLC students were robbed of their laptops by the same offender in separate incidents on the same day.
``One student recovered (from the shock) quickly, but the other girl reacted quite badly to it," Ms Storelli said.
Inspector McLeod-Dryden said there had been an increase in the number of reported laptop computer thefts (not involving violence) from 500 in 1998, to 600 in 1999.
Also, about 800 laptop computers, valued at more than $2million, had been stolen from 350 primary and secondary schools in the past two years.
In many cases, the open nature of school campuses allowed thieves to simply walk into schools and take laptops that had been left unattended.
© 2000 The Sunday Age
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