University cracking down on thieves

Albuquerque (KRQE) - Computers, books, televisions, you name it. If it's not nailed down people are stealing it from UNM. Now the school is making some major changes to make it harder on thieves.

Just last week a professor had books stolen out of a locked cabinet.

“Some of those books are high dollar amounts so you can see why someone would want to take that,” UNM Police Lt. Robert Haarhues said.

Someone took off with two school computers out of Zimmerman library too. And it's not just property at the main campus that's been walking away.

“There were some televisions stolen from the Pit several months ago,” said Haarhues.

The university has had enough and is making big changes; like consolidating classes in different subjects into a few buildings.

“At night instead of having buildings open we tried to consolidate so we only have 9 or 10 buildings open,” said Haarhues. “That way those buildings aren't open all night waiting for the students.”

The university is also limiting how long some buildings are open during the day so they aren't open very early in the morning or very late at night to make sure there aren't just a couple of people in there, which makes it easy for thieves to go in get what they want and bail.

The university says there are a lot of transients and random people on campus.

“It's an open campus so people can come and go,” Haarhues said.

And that most of these crimes are just crimes of opportunity.

The university police department will put out a report next month that hopefully shows the changes have made a difference. On top of university property, the campus does see a lot of theft when it comes to students' belongings.