Why Is the City of Sioux Falls Asking You to Lock Your Car Doors?

When I was growing up in the late 70s and early 80s in Sioux Falls the city's population at that time was a hair under 82,000 people.

Flash forward 42 years, and now, the most recent estimates have Sioux Falls at just over 202,000 residents. To say we've had a growth spurt over the past four-plus decades is putting it mildly.

The small town many of us remember Sioux Falls being in our youth is needless to say in the rearview mirror to stay.

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A surge in population like the one Sioux Falls has experienced over the years can be both a good and bad thing. There are more job opportunities, more entertainment and dining options, better public transportation, etc.

On the flip side of that coin comes a higher cost of living, more noise, increased traffic, and parking problems, and of course a big jump in crime.

Right now, Sioux Falls is experiencing all those things, and in particular an increase in crime.

The city is being proactive, and looking to take steps to nip our crime problem in the bud by better educating residents on the awareness of crime and how to prevent it.

On Tuesday night, (June 13) the Sioux Falls City Council conducted the first reading for an ordinance that would earmark $50,000 to the police budget for a community awareness campaign. As Dakota News Now reports, if passed, the new campaign would set its sights on helping to take a bite out of the theft problem that is currently on the rise in the city.

Check these numbers out, over the past five years, Sioux Falls has seen a twenty-nine percent increase in the number of larcenies, and according to a Dakota News Now story, the number of car thefts has doubled in size since 2018.

That's a big reason why the city is looking to create a new crime awareness campaign that will take aim at the importance of locking your car doors when your vehicle is unattended.

Sioux Falls has seen a rash of vehicle theft in recent years, with valuables, money, and oftentimes guns that are left unsecured being stolen from cars.

A lot of folks that visit Sioux Falls from smaller communities fall victim to this type of crime. Many people living in smaller towns still are not accustomed to locking their car doors when they leave their vehicles. They don't need to, because crime is still not a problem in most small-town communities. So they come to Sioux Falls, visit the mall to do a little shopping, and return to their car, only to find out that some human skidmark has helped themselves to a five-finger discount.

Welcome to South Dakota's largest city my friend!

If the new crime awareness campaign ends up passing, the PD will look to get this important message out through a series of billboards, radio ads, and other forms of in-house advertising.

Dakota News Now reports that the city plans to revisit the campaign again during a second reading scheduled for next Tuesday (June 20) at Carnegie Hall.

Source: Dakota News Now