"An Act relating to certain persons who buy and sell secondhand articles, to certain persons who lend money on secondhand articles, and to certain persons who seek or receive loans on secondhand articles."

One of the ways thieves can profit from items they have stolen is by selling them to a pawnshop or secondhand dealer. Dealers don't want stolen merchandise in their stores, but it is easy for a thief to appear to be the true and rightful owner of the item in question.

Alaska Statutes require that secondhand dealers, including pawnshops, keep records of the items that they receive and that these records be open to any representative of a law enforcement agency that asks to see them. When municipal police or state troopers receive reports of stolen goods they can match them to these written records, helping return stolen items to their rightful owners and identify thieves. Unfortunately, this system is labor intensive, and it is not unusual for the property to have been sold by the dealer or pawnshop before it has been identified as stolen.

House Bill 66 addresses this problem by requiring secondhand dealers and pawnshops to enter their records into an internet-based database that law enforcement can access at will, or in areas without Internet access to provide weekly reports to their local police department or state trooper post. The bill also requires that items a dealer buys or takes in pawn be held for 30 days before the items may be sold or transferred to a new owner. Break-ins often occur while the victim is out of town, and this hold period will allow them time to discover their loss and report it to police while their belongings can still be retrieved.

These changes will allow burglary victims to get back more stolen items, apprehend more thieves and even prevent future property theft crimes.

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