Spring break burglaries in university neighborhood drop significantly

EUGENE, Ore - Spring break can turn into a tough break for college students. The Eugene campus area is routinely hit by burglars over holidays when school's out.

"There's a lot of people who vacation over spring break but not anywhere in the city where such a high population all do it," says Sergeant Lisa Barrong with the Eugene Police Crime Prevention Team.

But this time, police say the numbers dropped significantly.

Last spring break, there were 39 burglaries and car break-ins in the university neighborhood. This year, that number dropped by more than 50 percent. There were 17 documented break-ins total.

Students told KVAL they were taking extra precautions, like locking their doors and windows.

Police say their extra efforts may have helped too.

The Crime Prevention Unit set up booths near the University for 9 days, distributing informational flyers to students. They also left these flyers on car windows, in nearby businesses, and even went door to door to alert students of the risk of a break-in over spring break.

"The kids apparently listened," says Sergeant Barrong.

She says her best advice for students would be to use common sense. Lock your doors, lock your windows, close your blinds, and take expensive items like laptops with you.

Sergeant Barrong says even though the numbers are down, they're still researching whether or not these most recent crimes could have been prevented. "Anything's too high as far as I'm concerned," she says. "In terms of crime prevention I'd like those numbers to be zero."