Recent Home Burglaries Addressed By Chatham Deputy Mayor

CHATHAM, NJ — During this week's Chatham Township Committee meeting, Deputy Mayor Mark Hamilton addressed an important issue in the township — the recent increase in residential burglaries.

In the recent few weeks, the Township experienced two separate residential burglaries, with one of them resulting in approximately $15,000 in jewelry being stolen from the homeowners.

Read more: Burglars Break Into Chatham Home, Stealing $15K In Jewelry, Police Say

"On the public safety front… regrettably there were not one but two actual burglaries in Chatham Township within the last two weeks," Hamilton said.

In both cases, the burglars entered the house through the back door, breaking the glass by the door in one of them. Police have not caught or publically identified either of the suspects involved in those two break-ins.

"We come here every couple weeks and we talk about encouraging people to be diligent and about leaving their key fobs in unlocked cars and such. I want to reiterate that, and I have been asked by the chief to reiterate that, but I just want to say, from my perspective is that this is not particularly surprising to me," Hamilton said.

Much like all of Morris County, Chatham has been dealing with an uptick in vehicle crime within the last year. Earlier in the summer, the township police department held a public safety forum, which was hosted by Lt. Brad Hayworth, and attended by Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill.

During a presentation, Hayworth stated that there had been nine auto thefts and 17 attempted thefts in Chatham Township in 2021. On the contrary, only three vehicles has been stolen in 2022, but there were 16 attempted thefts.

State officials have been attempting to crack down on ringleaders, citing an alarming increase in stolen vehicles perpetrated by auto theft rings that recruit children and teenagers to assist in their heists.

According to Chatham Township officials, juveniles arrested for auto theft and other crimes in Chatham Township are not criminally charged.

"The bottom line is, lawlessness begets more lawlessness. Allowing people to steal cars without any actual punishment to take place, or to blame it on the victim, who inadvertently in their busy lives left their keys in their car, as if that's the problem, as opposed to legitimately clamping down on crime, will lead to additional crime," Hamilton said.

Gov. Phil Murphy recently offered new proposals to combat auto thefts in New Jersey, including establishing a persistent auto theft offender statute. The statute would give state and local prosecutors the option to seek more serious criminal consequences for those who have been repeatedly found guilty of stealing cars.

With auto thefts on the rise, state officials announced earlier this year that the state would spend $10 million from the federal American Rescue Plan's State Fiscal Recovery Fund on automated plate-recognition technology for law enforcement.

According to Murphy, the state has been making some progress in preventing car thefts. Auto thefts fell 12% in September compared to September 2021 and 12% in October compared to the same time last year.

However, local officials believe that more needs to be done, or repeat crimes will continue to occur. "If you can take a car with impunity, why not break into somebody's house and take their jewelry with impunity, which happened in this community twice," Hamilton said.

"A lot of these things are from the state level and the county prosecutor level, but we need to commit ourselves to doing everything we possibly can to discourage crime and to make it clear that unlawful behavior is not going to be tolerated in this town."