NIXA, Mo. — There has been a recent surge in thefts in the Nixa community and the police department has a way for you to protect your possessions.

“ReportIt“ is a free program where you can create an account that only you can see and if your property is stolen, it is an excellent tool for the police to use to get your possessions back.

“You can put all of your receipts, pictures of your property, and all of those things while they are still in your possession, and if they are stolen, lost, damaged, or anything like that, you can check a few boxes that you need to report and it generates a sheet with pictures and everything,“ said Nixa Detective Noel Young.

Nixa police said they are investigating a series of burglaries, thefts and vandalism. Young said this time of year is when these types of crimes start to ramp up. She said that’s why a program like Report-It is helpful.

“It is a lot easier to recover stolen items because of technology. If someone were to steal something, they have to find a way to sell it if they want to make money off of that, so they’re going to typically sell it online, and that’s how we recover items,” said Young.

Young told me that they have been able to recover a lot of stolen items because residents used Report-It. The program made it easier for police to track down their possessions.

 “Weapons get stolen from people from time to time so we have been able to recover those because of the serial numbers and get them back to the person who owned them,” Young said.