PROVIDENCE — Copper piping, a boiler and sink fittings torn from an abandoned house at 57 Hendrick St., Mount Pleasant.

Copper gutters stripped from the 19th-century James Humphreys House at 147 Benefit St. on College Hill.

And copper piping missing from a house at 51 Warrington St., Elmwood, where the basement was left partially flooded.

These are some of the properties that copper thieves have badly damaged recently, according to police records.

The copper crime wave is continuing, according to the police, but perhaps with less intensity since detectives began pressing local scrap dealers about doing business with copper thieves.

An analysis by the research organization known as the Providence Plan shows that in the first quarter of the year, there were at least 81 break-ins at buildings in Providence where copper was the target. That is 18 percent of the 439 reported break-ins during that period.

In the first seven weeks of the year, the police took reports of at least 57 thefts or attempted thefts of copper, or an average of eight per week. For the entire quarter, however, the tally of police reports by the Providence Plan shows there were fewer than five thefts per week, possibly demonstrating a slowdown after detectives warned scrap dealers.

A confluence of high prices for commodities on world markets, including copper, and an increase in the number of vacant houses in the city, according to city officials, have led to a rash of copper thefts. More houses have become vacant due to the national mortgage-foreclosure crisis.

“This type of burglary is particularly devastating for neighborhoods because the increased cost of repairing stripped properties makes them less desirable rehabilitation candidates,” the Providence Plan said in its May-June newsletter.

A bill that was passed by the General Assembly this year — the Rhode Island Foreclosed Property Upkeep Act — would help to address the theft problem, said Detective Lt. Paul Campbell. One of its provisions would require scrap metal dealers who buy old or used metals, including copper pipes, to obtain certain kinds of information from sellers in an attempt to discourage illegal sales.

Governor Carcieri vetoed the bill for stated reasons having nothing to do with the copper-related provisions. Assembly leaders have not said yet whether they intend to reconvene in an attempt to override this and other vetoes before their next regular session.

The City of Providence already has ordinances that require dealers in junk, old metal and secondhand items to be licensed and to keep records of each of their purchases. They must demand and keep a record of photo identification from each seller, including sellers of copper.

A right thumbprint is supposed to be taken from each seller, too, but for the time being, the police are not enforcing that requirement because they doubt the dealers’ capability of obtaining useful prints.

Violators are subject to a loss of license, imprisonment for up to 30 days, a maximum $500 fine, maximum restitution of $2,500 and community service.

The Rhode Island Foreclosed Property Upkeep Act would add some requirements not in the ordinances: That the buyer obtain an ID that includes the seller’s date of birth and current address, that the seller sign a document stating that the seller is the legal owner of the property or is the agent of the legal owner and is authorized to sell the property, and that the signed document states when, where and in what manner the property was obtained. The document would have to be kept for at least two years.

Junked autos or auto parts, however, would be exempt.

The more obstacles placed in front of people selling stolen copper, the better it will be for potential victims and law enforcement, Campbell said.

Detectives question copper thieves when they are caught about how and where they dispose of their loot. But Campbell declined to reveal what the detectives have learned.

The trade in stolen metals is nothing new.

“There [have]always been people stealing copper or aluminum to sell,” Campbell said. “They are bold [now]. They’re going in in broad daylight,” not just after dark.

In the 1980s, Massachusetts changed its specifications for the posts that hold up chain-link fences along highways because so many aluminum posts were being stolen for their scrap value.

Providence Police Chief Dean M. Esserman recalled his work as general counsel for the New York City Transit Authority police in the 1980s, when homeless people in search of copper would cut into live electrical wires by mistake and be electrocuted.

The transit authority began stamping its name on the wiring.

“So then the homeless started making fires and burning the insulation off the copper that they cut so that they could sell it to scrap metal dealers with no identification” of its origin, Esserman said.

The authorities took yet another step. “We created threaded wire in the subway system so it wouldn’t part” and thieves would be frustrated, he said.

Esserman said that he accompanied transit police Chief William Bratton to the scrap metal dealers’ annual Christmas party at Tavern on the Green in Central Park to deliver a get-tough message and to request their cooperation. Only then, he said, did the problem seem to diminish.

Catalytic converters, the antipollution devices in the exhaust systems of autos, are also a potential theft item because they contain platinum and copper and other metals that have substantial value. Although there have been thefts of catalytic converters in communities outside Providence this year, the police in Providence say they have not had a problem with it.

One exception was the case of Justin Doyle, 31, of 46 McKinley St., whom the police allege was caught tampering with autos at Mel’s Motors, 1210 Elmwood Ave., Elmwood, on Feb. 28. Doyle was charged with tampering.

Campbell said the police suspect that Doyle was going after catalytic converters because he was arrested and charged about a month earlier after allegedly having been caught while trying to make off with copper piping that he had cut free in a commercial building at 25 Eagle St. in the Valley neighborhood.

The Assembly thought that the theft of catalytic converters had become enough of a problem that legislators passed a bill this year that would add the converters to a list of goods such as gold and silver whose purchase is regulated by the state’s precious metals law. Scrap dealers, in order to buy them, would have to have a particular license, keep certain records, and in certain cases, hold the property for a while.

The bill became law without the governor’s signature.

gsmith@projo.com