By age 17, 43 percent of youth in the United States have stolen property worth 50 dollars or less. Because many students carry valuables, such as phones, cameras, and car keys, they are often a target of theft at school. Property theft is shown to be more popular among youth ages 12 through 17 than in adults, with most of the crimes committed at schools, and the majority of these thefts are never reported to the police, according to the National Crime Prevention Council. These statistics justify the numerous precuations Aragon takes to prevent theft.
The school campus, according to dean Michael Valmonte, has 63 surveillance cameras scattered around, helping to ensure the school’s safety. On the rare occasion that theft is committed, the surveillance cameras are almost always used to recover the possession that is missing, and investigations are always conducted if the incident is reported to Valmonte. Teachers are asked to lock up their rooms when they aren’t there, in an effort to prevent school property theft. Furthermore, the presence of School Resource Officer Steve Bennett at Aragon on school campus and during games has not gone unnoticed by students. Officers not only create a sense of safety, they also deter potential criminals from committing theft.
However, students play a major role in ensuring the safety of their own belongings. Valmonte says, “[the staff] encourages students to be more protective and aware of their personal belongings,” whether this means using tracking apps with smartphones or simply putting a backpack in a locker instead of leaving it outside. Unfortunately, even within Aragon’s protected campus, some students may have an unlucky experience, sometimes due to a slip of the mind.
In late December, after soccer practice, junior Katie Savage found that her car window had been broken, with shards of jagged glass all over the ground. Through her broken window, she noticed that her backpack was missing. Savage didn’t lose anything particularly valuable, but she did lose much of her schoolwork. Savage says, “I just felt really frustrated because it happened on school property, so I assumed it would be a safe place … I wouldn’t go as far as to say I was violated, but it was definitely frustrating to get all of my notes stolen and still be expected to do all the homework and all that.”
While uncommon, Savage’s experience isn’t unique — two years ago, a similar incident occurred in the girls’ locker room. P. E. teacher Linda Brown remembers the theft well. “Some kids left their stuff out [of their lockers] – their gear out. And what happens when students leave when they are dismissed, everyone starts to go out and if it’s two minutes early, there are still people in here and when students leave their stuff out, they can go through someone else’s backpack. Same thing if there are two classes and one class comes back and stuff is still outside in the locker room, people can go through their gear,” says Brown.
Fortunately, in this incident, Valmonte caught the culprit. All that was stolen was also reimbursed to the students. Since then, the locker room policy has changed to limit the cases of theft; Brown says, “Now, you can’t leave your stuff out; there’s nothing that can be left in the locker room so if you leave something out in the locker room, [the P.E. teachers] will walk out and pick up your backpack and bring your backpack [to my office] and you receive a detention. The instructions are there’s nothing left. You have a locker you can put your backpack in. If you don’t want to do that, you can put your bags [in my office], so there should be absolutely nothing else left out in the locker room.” Because the P.E. office is locked up during the period and is reopened only when the classes return to change, no student can get in or out of the office without the knowledge of the teachers. The locker room’s new policy has appeared to be successful, as there have been no incidents or complaints of theft in the locker rooms since then.
Theft at Aragon might not seem like a prominent problem, but cases like the locker room incident prove that taking precautionary measures to protect belongings is an important step in preventing theft. With steps taken to prevent theft from both the administration and students, Aragon can be a safe place for everyone.
