FAQ   

 

 

Laws that require scrap processors to notify law enforcement officials of every transaction that they make have not proven to be an effective means of tracking stolen materials. Such notifications would overwhelm and overburden the law enforcement agency tasked to keep track of the notifications. In many cases, maintaining the records that would be generated by this requirement would force the law enforcement agency either to incur significant overtime from law enforcement personnel or to hire additional staff. Either way, it would impose significant costs on the municipality.

 

 

In addition, these notification requirements cause the scrap processor to become, in effect, an adjunct to the law enforcement agency. Scrap processors are private citizens and as such, do not have a law enforcement background. As private citizens, they should not be required to do investigations on material a law enforcement agency has not notified them about. If informed by law enforcement of stolen material, scrap processors will voluntarily notify the appropriate law enforcement agency if they believe they may have seen the material. Lastly, ISRI’s national headquarters sends out ISRI Theft Alerts by email on a regular basis to scrap processors in the areas surrounding where the material was stolen. ISRI Theft Alerts have been successful in recovering stolen material in the past.