Thursday, July 3, 2008

Peddlers permit

I have nothing against peddlers. Door-to-door sales is a tough way to make a buck, and requires some real gumption. But some peddlers (or at least some criminals posing as peddlers) use the role to take advantage of criminal opportunities. Every year, we investigated burglaries and thefts by door-to-door canvassers. A couple of cases last week were typical. When you think about it, it's pretty obvious: a peddler walking around a residential neighborhood knocking on doors finds out who's home and who's not and can essentially case the block pretty carefully before letting himself in a lightly secured door. We get a fair number of calls like this:


Probably because of this risk, Lincoln, like most cities, requires peddlers to obtain a permit, and the application includes a criminal record check at the police department. You are ineligible for a permit if you've been convicted of a felony or a crime of moral turpitude in the past 10 years. We're processing quite a few of these right now--60 in the past 30 days. We probably have a few hundred peddler permits (which are valid for one year) out there right now, with peddlers hawking fruit, cable TV and phone service, lawn care, siding, magazines, cleaning supplies, and vacuum cleaners.

Many permits are denied based on our record check which reveals disqualifying convictions. But I have no doubt many slip through, because of the nature of criminal records. Contrary to popular belief, there is no computer system into which you can enter a name and obtain a complete and accurate nationwide criminal history. That's a myth. Most criminal history records are local, and the State and national repositories are not complete. Moreover, juvenile records are never included in these repositories.

I am particularly concerned with what we know about out-of-town peddlers. During the summer, crews are recruited by companies that shuffle young people around the country flooding residential neighborhoods selling wares--most commonly magazines. We'll have a group of six or eight in our lobby sometimes, and the oldest in the bunch will be 20. They are from all over the United States, so a check of our rather detailed and complete local records is pretty worthless. A Nebraska criminal history is better, but probably not a great improvement if the applicant is from, say, North Carolina. We can't run a national criminal history, but even if we could, it would be unlikely to help much--if any of these people have a criminal past, it would likely be for misdemeanor crimes, or processed in juvenile courts. We have no idea whether they are hard-working students trying to make tuition on summer break, or deadbeats who've skipped their own town for greener pastures.

We also have a problem with peddlers who do not get permits at all. Sometimes these companies and their peddlers are willing to run the risk that they'll get some 19 year old thrown in jail for peddling without a permit. They bond him out for $50 and move on. The permit costs $25, so it's a calculated risk. The defendant skips town, a warrant is issued, but believe it or not Nebraska is not going to extradite someone from Las Vegas to face to music on a misdemeanor back in Lincoln. So far this year, we've arrested 29 people for peddling without a permit. Here's the locations of those cases:


The lean to the northwest is probably due to proximity to the Interstate. The defendants come from 17 states. Only four are from Nebraska. Only four cases have resulted in the defendant actually showing up in court. The remainder have gone to warrant, or are pending right now--waiting for the defendant to fail to appear and the warrant to be issued.

Of the four that have been through court, the defendants were fined $25, $100, $150, and $250. The higher fines were all in the same group. One of these three had applied for a permit and been denied based on a felony conviction, but peddled anyway. The second didn't apply because she knew she'd be denied, and the third was a level 3 high risk registered sex offender. This group was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners. You'd be a little surprised, I suppose, to learn that the guy in your living room sweeping up the sample confetti was a sex offender.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most people don’t have all the time in the world, so constantly developing new ideas every week simply isn’t feasable. From now on I am refusing to take on any new ideas that come to me (unless they really the idea), and I will concentrate soley on a certain few apps/websites/projects. Once they’re finished I might try actually developing and promoting those sites, rather than hopping straight onto the next project. Do you take on too many projects? Pehaps you should consider a stronger focus on a certain few…

Anonymous said...

Here is an example of a company who has been in the Lincoln area over the past years selling magazines. Granted this link is from the coast but crime can occur anywhere.

http://www.claremont-courier.com/pages/Topstory1209.1.html

Anonymous said...

A few weeks ago I had 2 different girls one day after another come and try to sell cleaning products. The way they approached my house was rude and their comments unprofessional, one saying "Your neighbor said you would feed me some fried chicken and adopt me". Who wants to let these people in?? Not me, I advised them no thank you. It did make me suspicious that they were just checking out my home.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps changing the bond from $50 to $250 would garner a little more attention from the out of state peddlers sent to jail. I never could figure why the bond for driving under suspension ($250) is so much larger than most other misdemeanor offenses ($50). Let's face it, $50 just isn't going to get many people to pencil the court date into their planners. Why not make the bond for the offenses that have notoriously poor attendence records have higher bonds?

signed - If I were king

Anonymous said...

Being a bachelor, I'd be much more concerned if the D2D guy had a burglary conviction on his record than if they were an RSO, but I understand that those with children have additional concerns. Playing salesman while really looking inside the house to case for a future break-in, noticing if there is an alarm console, if there is a large dog, and so forth

I dream of a day when I could sit at my PC and see where the convicted felons (burglary, robbery, auto theft) were living near my residence. If Corrections keeps track of them, it should be possible for the state to geocode them. A good deal of them re-offend while they are still on parole, and I believe they keep tight track of parolees.

Anonymous said...

11:07 -
Your dream appears to be close to reality. You may be interested in this website Though the website is just random names and locations, the idea is out there...

Anonymous said...

Let the Govt police the people?
July 3, 2008 11:07 AM seems to want a police state. Move to russia if you need more oversight

Anonymous said...

Maybe 9:46, aka: future King, can put chips in all the convicts so we can keep track of them (I hear my Big Brother calling me). I'm all for it.

Some of these sellers aren't just casing the place for a future break in. If no one comes to the door they might head around back and break in then. If you're like me and don't answer your door to peddlers, make sure the person moves on down the street and not around back.


Stay in school.

Anonymous said...

Bottom line is don't buy stuff door to door. This isn't the fifties. If I need something I go buy it. The best way to put these people out of business is to not buy their crap!

Anonymous said...

Speaking of robbers, the "great" local paper has thus far ignored the attempted robbery (A8-064780) at 11th & N on Friday afternoon. The summary reads "UNK H/M DEMANDED MONEY FROM VICTIM IN ATTEMPT ROBBERY NO LOSS". Can you tell us any more about this? Does the suspect description match up with incident A8-063601 (Wednesday's laptop robbery @ 8th & N)?

Anonymous said...

Once some pushy guys selling steaks came to my door. After telling them NO several times they started laying vacuum-packed steaks on my porch to show me what they had. I let my 120 lb dog out who started sniffing and going nuts because there was steak all over the porch. The guys said, "Hey your dog is shedding all over our steak!" I said,"He sure is!" That's what they get for being pushy. It was funny.

Dog Mom said...

Recently I noticed several facebook posts about door to door sales people. My neighborhood has had burglaries and strange activity which seems to increase in the fall. Therefore, I am sharing this post with my friends. If you are providing a new blog post/update which uses a different link, please let me know.

Tom Casady said...

Dog mom, still valid information!