'Armadillo Truck' Fights Crime in Peoria, Illinois

The 'armadillo truck' is a big, obnoxious, armored truck armed with infrared cameras that is being used to fight crime in Peoria, Illinois. The armadillo truck is working surprisingly well and, better yet, the armadillo truck is a low-budget solution for tough economic times.

Police park the armadillo truck in front of the homes of drug dealers and other troublemakers to shame them into obeying the law. Though the armadillo truck is left unmanned, the armadillo truck embarrasses the troublemakers by indicating that something bad is going on in their property. Within a few days, many of them either stop their activities or move away.

Citizens of Peoria are so pleased with the armadillo truck that there is a 4-week waiting list of requests for the armadillo truck's deployment.

The armadillo truck sounds too good to be true...and that might be the case. Police have noted that rather than getting rid of crime, the armadillo truck may simply cause crime to shift from one area into another. However, at the least, the armadillo truck upsets patterns of illegal crime and is a low-budget way to deal with short-term problems quickly.