BEND, OR -- The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office hopes a new daily effort on social media will help prevent crime.

Sgt. William Bailey says the #9PMRoutine posts on Facebook and Twitter are part of a national campaign, "Encouraging citizens to, ‘hey; did you lock your cars, did you remove valuables, is your garage door closed, is your house locked up and secure?’ And, we’ve had feedback from the citizens that they saw the reminder and said, ‘oh, dang! I did forget to lock the car'." Sgt. Bailey tells KBND News, "There’s really no way to quantify how successful it is, because crime prevention is difficult to get numbers on. But, if it helps one person - if it prevents one person from becoming a victim, then all the better and it’s worth the effort."

He says it's important to be pro-active because what starts as a simple car prowl case can have far-reaching impacts for the victim, "We find that most thefts from vehicles during the nighttime is unlocked vehicles. Recently, we’ve had a string of thefts from vehicles that were locked but valuable were left in them while at trailheads. The crime doesn’t end at breaking through the window and taking the property. Then we’re dealing with fraudulent use of a credit card, checks."