Crime Prevention

The mission of the crime prevention unit is to assist the Scott County Sheriff’s Office in the overall effort of reducing crime, and to increase citizen safety through crime prevention information, training and services to the community.

When a crime happens, the Scott County Sheriff’s Office will be there for the victim. However, wouldn’t it be better if we could prevent crimes from happening? To some degree, we can, by working together.

CRIME PREVENTION TRIANGLE

This concept simply states that in order for a crime to occur all three of these triangle elements must exist. If we can eliminate any one of these elements, a crime cannot occur.

• Desire – the desire of a criminal to commit a crime. We, as citizens, can’t effect or remove a criminal’s desire to commit a crime. If someone really wants to commit a crime, he or she will.
• Ability – the criminal’s ability to commit a crime. We can’t effect the ability of a criminal to commit a crime but we can make the commission of the crime more difficult (increase the need for special abilities).
• Opportunity – the criminal’s opportunity to commit crimes. This is where we can take action to prevent crime. By removing opportunity, we have broken the Crime Prevention Triangle.

Helping prevent crime is a job for everyone.

Law enforcement and the judicial system alone can’t solve the crime problem. Citizen efforts are the key to crime prevention.

We encourage you to use this website and the links at the left to protect your property, your family and yourself. If you have questions regarding crime prevention not mentioned here, please feel free to call Deputy Dennis Tietz at 952-496-8724 or by email at dtietz@co.scott.mn.us