As a professional in the crime prevention industry, I often follow current crime prevention trends in an effort to keep current on certain topics.  Thanks to the wonderful (and free) tool of Google Alerts, I receive daily emails that notify me of news activity pertaining to specific key words.

 

This morning I was particularly intrigued by three separate crime sprees involving church burglaries, vandalism, and arson.  While these stories are unfortunately becoming more common in the news, I was intrigued by today's posting because all of the stories had a commonality of crime sprees involving multiple churches.  It is a pattern that seems to be increasing across the country.

 

The first story comes from the Shelby County Reporter in Columbiana, Alabama.  According to the article, police in Alabaster have arrested a man who they believe burglarized three churches and set fire to another after an unsuccessful break-in.  For more information, click here.

 

The second story is reported by KSAX in Minneapolis where police are still looking for a suspect in a string of six church burglaries.  One church was broken into after a recent fundraising event and lost all of the proceeds raised by the event.  To read the full story, click here.

 

The final story is from the Shreveport Times in Shreveport, Louisiana.  Sabine sheriff's authorities have arrested three people they believe are responsible for numerous crimes in five parishes, including a number of church break-ins and vandalisms.  Police believe that the three suspects targeted seven churches in the area, stealing everything they could find from TVs to microwave ovens and even paper plates.  For full coverage on the crime spree, click here.