ISRI Sets Up Police, Scrap Industry Cooperation

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI), Washington, D.C., has been taking measures to convince law enforcement agencies that it takes the problem of metals theft seriously.

At a joint meeting of two of its regional chapters in January, ISRI Director of Metal Theft Prevention Gary Bush provided an overview of programs created by the organization and how they have developed.

Bush, who is also ISRI’s national law enforcement liaison, is a former detective and patrol officer in Florida, where he still lives. He addressed a group of more than 50 people that consisted of scrap company owners and managers as well as law enforcement officers from two states—Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The Metal Theft Symposium at which Bush spoke took place before a joint meeting of the Northern Ohio and Pittsburgh Chapters of ISRI that took place near Sharon, Pa.

Part of Bush’s presentation focused on the www.ScrapTheftAlert.com Web site and the notices and bulletins stemming from that site.

According to Bush, the Web site started in December of 2008 and in January of 2009 had an initial group of 47 law officers registered to the site. Now, says Bush, there are 1,100 law officers among the 6,000 total users registered to the site.

One of the system’s functions is to allow both law officers and scrap dealers to create “alerts” for stolen material that can be broadcast e-mailed to ISRI members and other registered scrap dealers within a 100-mile radius. Bush says nearly 650 such alerts were broadcast in 2009.

When a law officer enters an alert, “it goes directly onto the site,” said Bush. Reports registered by scrap dealers are reviewed by Bush or another staff member, but ideally also are turned into alerts as soon as possible. “Getting the alert out as soon as possible is critical,” says Bush, who added that criminals most often try to sell stolen metal or scrap within the first 24 hours.

In the question and answer portion of the symposium, Bush acknowledged that recyclers are often “the second victim” in scrap theft incidents, because they may have paid for the material and then will return it to its rightful owner (or watch as it is seized as evidence) without receiving compensation.

Several recyclers and law officers shared success stories of cases where ISRI alerts in particular helped snare metal thieves.

Bush urged those in attendance to continue to build good relationships and open lines of communication between the scrap industry and local law enforcement agencies. “I urge recyclers to contact your local law enforcement agencies and establish a relationship with them,” he stated.

Following the symposium, nearly 250 people—including recyclers, equipment and service providers and guests from the law enforcement community—attended the Vendor Expo held annually by the two ISRI chapters.