The top three things that are being done to address property crime include communication with the public, the use of the vehicle theft task force, and the crime prevention through environmental design program.

SPOKANE, Wash. — It's no secret, property crime is a big issue in Spokane.

Just a Google search of our city, brings up the high rate. The city launched a new initiative over the summer to address the problem. Some city staff believe the public still isn't aware of what the city is doing to combat property crime.

The City of Spokane launched a program in August called the Property Crime Initiative. It's a city wide initiative, involving multiple departments, looking at ways to reduce property crime beyond just enforcement.

Assistant Chief Justin Ludgren is involved in this initiative.

Speaking for the police department alone, he said the top three things that are being done to address property crime include communication with the public, the use of the vehicle theft task force, and the crime prevention through environmental design program.

Lundgren said communicating with the public on how to prevent being a victim is key.

"For instance with our vehicle thefts, if we take out the vehicles where someone left their keys, or their vehicle running--if we exclude those numbers, we could have reduced vehicle theft by about 20 percent," Lundgren said.

There's also the vehicle theft task force. Lundgren said it's comprised of multiple detectives, and a chronic offender task force. They all work together with support from crime analysis to provide a more reactive approach to property crime.

The hope is to stop repeat offenders from continuing to commit these crimes.

"Crime analysis looks at all the information that's coming and they help us to connect the dots and find out who is active in the community, and who is creating the most damage--and who we need to spend our resources on," Lundgren said.

As for the environmental analysis program, we've done stories on this before and found downtown businesses especially have benefited from it.

"They look at things like shrubbery and plants and lights and physical security and they can make suggestions the public can adopt," Lundgren said. "Doing so will make that environment less attractive to criminals."

A big part of reducing property crime is prevention.