Purse Your Lips, Then Take A Bite Out Of Crime

Fight crime. Throw away your purse.

This is the advice Sandy Richards gives women. “Carrying a purse makes you a target for crime,” Richards explained a few days ago. “You might as well put a big bull’s-eye on it.”

Two years ago Richards was vacationing in London when she looked down and saw a man’s hand in her purse.

“It was 10 a.m. and I was waiting for the tube. Women tend to think crime happens at 10 at night when you are all alone. Mostly, that’s wrong,” she said.

The purse snatcher had managed to unzip her purse and was rifling it as she stood in line.

She pulled back, looked around, but he was gone.

That was it. No more purse.

“Carrying a purse put me in the arena of being a victim,” she said. “I didn’t like that. I don’t want to be a victim. I won’t carry a purse anymore.”

Her shocking declaration offers a refreshing cut-the-bull perspective on crime, victimhood, and ways each of us can take steps to feel safer and actually cut the crime rate.

Sandy Richards wears the title of Crime Prevention Practitioner for the Spokane Police Department.

Her work sounds like some branch of home economics, as if she were telling kids not to touch a hot stove.

But she is a no-fuss, back-to-basics instructor, a practical civilian who believes crime control starts at home.

But asking women to quit carrying a purse? Stopping drug addiction might be easier.

“Hey, it’s a crusade, but I’m sticking with it,” she said, holding a small wallet with her valuables inside. “Giving up the purse is the best way I know for a woman to cut the chances she will be victimized.”

Richards estimates 20 to 30 purses are snatched every week in Spokane. Many more are stolen from cars.

“Women are losing them at the grocery store, at the movies, even in the restroom when people reach over the door and take purses off the hook,” she said.

Richards carries her checkbook to shop.

She stashes lipstick in her car, and puts cheap pairs of reading glasses all around the house and the job.

What 12-step program does she recommend for breaking the purse habit?

“I ask women to go through their purses and look at how many things they actually use every day,” Richards explained.”There aren’t that many. Most of these items, like ID, money, driver’s license, can be carried in pockets or in a small wallet.”

Her mission to wean women from their purses is typical of the larger get real approach to crime that has made Sandy Richards a hot ticket on the luncheon speakers circuit.

“There are all kinds of things each of us can do to fight crime,” she said with a laugh. “Men need to quit sticking their wallets under the floor mats of the car thinking the crooks won’t find it.

“And if we would just think about crime five minutes before it happened rather than five minutes afterward, it would make all the difference.

“Say you have your car window broken out at night and something is stolen. Ask yourself, ‘How can the police make that not happen and how can I make it not happen?’

“The police could have stayed there all night and watched your car. You could have taken everything out of your car and put it in the garage, or your house, where it likely wouldn’t get stolen.”

But we don’t always do that.

Instead, we go out in the morning, see the broken glass and call the police. Once the bikes have disappeared from the garage, we think of buying a lock.

“Don’t forget that 51 percent of all garage thefts are through unlocked back doors,” Richards said.

Richards doesn’t hand wring over the fact that people basically don’t watch out for one another the way they once did. She knows volunteerism is down, neighborhoods are less friendly, and that the cult of individualism is inflicting serious body blows on the notion of community.

So be it.

Rather than be victims of a society where police are fewer and fears are greater, Sandy Richards thinks we should get real.

Truth is, cops are focusing on violent crime and violent crime is down across the country and in our region.

New York City’s crime rate dropped 17 percent last year. Spokane’s crime rate went down 8 percent year-over-year.

But little crimes, those involving small-dollar thefts to support drug habits, are blooming like spring gardens.

For $25 a crack head or methamphetamine addict can get high. So, they want your pocket change. They wants your purse.

The police are focusing on the homicides. Their work is paying off.

That leaves small-time crime fighting for us.

We desire to be rugged individualists. Our homes are our castles. Government is getting smaller and less intrusive and we cheer. Crime fighting has become a personal growth opportunity.

It’s time to chuck the purse.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the Editor of The Spokesman-Review