Security

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Update: 22-7-22

Burglaries

Last year we saw an increase of burglaries in the area compared to 2020, which might be expected after the lockdown Covid year. But where we had 7 burglaries reported on the Alerts whatsapp in the First half of 2021, we already have more than 30 reported this year! The police obviously is very aware of this and they are doing all they can patrolling the streets, but with four cars on average out on the roads per night (local and Guardia combined) and a town spread out from Montgó to Granadella you can imagine they can only be around every now and then. As for details on the burglaries that happened there isn’t a real pattern… some houses had alarms, others didn’t, some had good locks, others didn’t… most of the time it happens when there is no one around (abroad or just out to dinner), but sometimes people are sleeping while being burgled. The only thing that was a bit strange is that a lot of the burglaries for a while seemed to happen in Calle Nicaragua and neighbouring streets.

Police

As I said the police is doing what they can even though they don’t have enough (wo)manpower or cars to be everywhere all the time. From within the Security Group we have established contacts now with both Policia Local and Guardia Civil and both have tol dus they are willing to attend a meeting with APMJ members to discuss and answer questions regarding security if and when we as APMJ organize it. We will start looking for a possible date and location and keep you informed!

If you need to contact the police you can do it in various ways:

• Call 112 (for all emergency forces)
• Call 062 (for your local Guardia Civil – only use when IN Jávea and they don’t always speak English)
• Use the app Xabialerta (for use IN Jávea only)
• Use the app Alertcops (nationwide)
• Call 965791085 (Guardia Civil in Jávea)

Security Group

Besides establishing contacts with local police and Guardia, the Security Group has put together a lot of information about what you can do to (better) secure your home. This information can now be found under the header Security Group in the member area of the APMJ website. Of course there is never any guarantee that you will not be burgled when you install lights and alarms, but it will deter most criminals to look elsewhere for easier targets.

One of the targets of the Group was to find out more about the burglaries that have taken place in the area since the beginning of 2021, to see if there are (general) lessons to be learned (and shared) from them. A questionnaire with that purpose has been put together, but getting the information in has only just started.

Street lights

The answer to the question whether (street)lights help or deter burglars is not so straightforward as it might seem, though the majority of the experts tend to think it helps to keep them out.

Because Jávea townhall has approved a budget of 870.000 euros to improve street lights (remember it is a vast area and with this kind of money you can only do bits and pieces in some places) last March, I did a quick survey amongst members to find out what street lights we have and if the need for better/more was felt. I got reactions from 57 streets… 18 of which have lights (but only 3 with WORKING lights) and 39 have no lights installed at all. At least half of the reacting members expressed they would lik ebetter streetlights, 10% specifically said they wouldn’t like them (because of light pollution). The Security Group has asked APMJ committee to contact town hall to see what could be done for our urbanisation within the allocated budget.

Street cameras

In a meeting between townhall, the local police and the NHW coördinators for all of Jávea end of March it was announced that the installation of street cameras to increase security is now an official project of Jávea. A company has been contracted to find out WHAT type of cameras (including e.g. license plate recognition cameras) could be helpful in WHICH area. With the outcome of this study town hall hopes to be able to install the first cameras by the end of this year. Because the privacy laws in Spain are very strict the process is not an easy one, so it could well take a bit longer than hoped for, but the will to do something with cameras is there.

Whatsapp alerts app

Nothing that gets emotions more stirred than this… the whatsapp alerts app! It gets us all scared when it pings and it gets us all annoyed when it pings for the wrong reasons! Here is a short analysis of 2021:

• In total there where 394 individual apps/posts/pings coming in that year
• These can be brought back to 69 individual “cases” (a first post so to say) – which means 82% is follow up posts (usually a remark, emoji, an apology, question, addition etc)
• There were 24 burglaries reported amongst the 69 posts, and 14 suspicious people/cars
• Of the 24 burglaries 17 were reported one day or days later than they occurred
• With some good will a maximum of 80 posts can be considered valid/just… 314 shouldn’t have been posted!

Here is a list of some of the things that should NOT be posted:

• Emoji’s
• Saying “sorry” because you posted something wrong before
• Posting “this shouldn’t be here” because someone else posted something wrong
• Asking questions that could have been asked by contacting one on one the person who posted something before
• Adding something because your previous post had something missing/wrong (try to do it right and complete in one post)
• Any posting that is not about a burglary/robbery or a suspicious person/car
• Any remark about the fair/circus in town

There is two ways to go with this whatsapp group: the first is to have someone playing the police (wo)man/school teacher, warn people 1-2 or 3 times and then exclude them for posting wrong things, or the advice can be to put the ping to silent and read the alerts whenever you have the time for it and scroll through the nonsense ones (which we are all used to from friends/family/club group apps aren’t we). The first way is very tiresome for the one controlling the group plus we might lose a lot of members quickly, whereas the second way is much more relaxed but it might mean you miss out on an important alert at a specific moment (on the other hand ask yourself the question which of last or this years alert posts would have helped you IMMEDIATELY when receiving them? Most of them not I think, it’s good to know and hear about it, but it doesn’t have to be here and now).

Nothing will be changed for now, maybe the person who takes over after me can take the discussion further and/or change the rules.

Harrie Goossens neighbourhoodwatch@eleanord18.sg-host.com

17-02-22

APMJ Neighbourhood Security Workgroup

A few burglaries within a short timeframe on the Montgó end of last year raised the question if there was anything that could be done to secure our homes and ourselves better against this type of crime.

Shortly after – coincidentally – there were two meetings with representatives from the local police and townhall, one at a APMJ coffee morning at Le Gourmand and one organised by NHW Jávea for all the neighbourhoods of Jávea in Casa Cultura.

In both meetings the representatives gave us little information on how much crime had occurred, details on how the burglaries happened, how security had (or had not) functioned and what happened afterwards (if any crime was solved f.e.).

Concerned home owners who wanted to step up to see what those who live on the Montgó could find out, learn and do to improve security got together and formed a security workgroup.

The seven of us got together twice now, in December and in January and a first provisional report on what we talked about and what we’re doing (and plan to go and do) was presented during the coffee morning of February 2nd.

For those who were not there and because we aim to publish our future findings also here on this website, we hereby want to share with all members what we’ve talked about so far.

We determined first of all what the goal of our efforts should be and described it as follows:

We are an advisory group for APMJ and its members. We will gather as much information as we can on past and current criminal activity in our area and on possibilities for the neighbourhood and its house owners to protect their homes and themselves. We will combine and analyse all of this information and present it to APMJ and its members hoping that those who want to can this way be helped to improve their security.

We will only look at criminal activity against homes and the people living there such as burglaries and robberies in the neighbourhood. Areas as internet fraud, fire risks and other threats are not part of our focus.

We will plot all members of APMJ on a map to determine where our Montgó neighbourhood begins and where it ends.

These are the subjects we are going to work on:

1. Statistics

As said before we feel there is lots to learn from past burglaries if we would know the details of what has happened. We read the (often) short message about a break in in the Whatsapp Alerts group, but without much detail (when did it occur, how did they get in, what were they after, where did they look, what did they take, was there alarm, did it work, was there camera footage, was the police called in, what were their findings etc etc). If we want to know what the effect of lights, alarms and cameras is, then we need to know more about what has happened. That is why we decided to put together a quite extensive questionnaire with which we’ll – end of February and during March – contact as many of those whose homes were broken into (we know of 26 in 2021) as possible. Have you had a break in which you did not put on the Whatsapp Alerts app and do you want to help us help us all, then we would be very grateful if you drop us a line via neighbourhoodwatch@eleanord18.sg-host.com . And please rest assured that all information handed to us will be 100% anonymised and if for some reason in some case it is not possible, then we will communicate nothing about that piece of information to anyone!

2. Our Montgó neighbourhood and its streets

Of course we would like to implement as many devices as possible to secure our neighbourhood, but a gated community and armed guards at every entrance street will not make living here more attractive. Cameras at the beginning and end of the neighbourhood are much less invasive, but encounter Spanish laws on privacy on their path to implementation. But there are other ways to place cameras. And with lights (streetlights – which are not everywhere in our neighbourhood and if there they’re not always functioning / but also lights placed near your own gates or on your garden walls) and signs we can also maybe scare some of the villains a bit more. We will look into what’s possible and present our findings here later on.

3. Authorities: townhall, local police and Guardia Civil

The feeling is that – though not bad – there is room for improvement regarding the exchange of information and working together between us as a neighbourhood on one side and the above mentioned authorities on the other. Especially from the side of the police we hope to receive more information on past and current criminal activity in our area, always with the intention to improve security for us all as a learning from knowing. We are going to try to establish a good daily workfloor point of communication between them and us. We’re also going to find out what they can tell us what is and what is not allowed with regards to defending and securing our neighbourhood and ourselves in Spain.

4. Home protection measures

What can we all do to improve security in and around our own home? Think about locks, lights, alarms, cameras and the role of mobile phones. In a range from buying simple and cheap stuff from the likes of Leroy Merlin or on Amazon, to professional alarm systems that can cost small fortunes but cannot be tampered with. We are going to try to describe all different levels of home security with their advantages and disadvantages, including what kind of investment goes with each level, plus the places, firms and people you might go to to help you. The information will be put in this closed off member section of the APMJ website eventually.

Update 28-06-22: By clicking on the link below you will find a document describing different aspects and levels of home security that you might consider if you want to improve the security of your house:

Home Security Report

5. Security companies

Part of securing your home can – in stead of doing it yourself – of course also be taken care off for you by the well known security companies such as Securitas, Prosegur, Sie3 (and others). We are going to take a close look at all the ones that are available in our area. What are they offering, what is their track record (and buzz), what (if anything) can the police tell us about the information they are given by the security companies after burglaries, what are the costs etc.

We also want to find out if – by combining the purchasing power of the many home owners on the Montgó – one of these companies could be persuaded to bring extra security to our neighbourhood in exchange for us becoming (or switching to become ) clients with them.

6. Whatsapp Alerts App

And last for now we want to look at and discuss the use, effect and efficiency of the APMJ NHW Whatsapp Alerts app.

Questions like “how much does the app make us feel safer or unsafer?”, “how does it contribute to the safety of the neighbourhood?”, “what should and what should not be put on it, and how should it be put on?” are some of the issues we’ll look at.

Besides that, when you take out all the bleeps that come in about Jehovah’s witnesses, pushy Securitas salesmen, bogus gasmen, lost dogs and roaming caterpillars, you’d maybe already feel safer. And though each burglary is one too many, we think the Montgó still is a great place to live. Let’s try together to make it an even safer place to live too!

Harrie Goossens

Coordinator NHW Montgó