Responses to the Problem of Burglary of Single-Family Houses

Your analysis of your local problem should give you a better understanding of the factors contributing to it. Once you have analyzed your local problem and established a baseline for measuring effectiveness, you should consider possible responses to address the problem.

The following response strategies provide a foundation of ideas for addressing your particular problem. These strategies are drawn from a variety of research studies and police reports. Several of these strategies may apply to your community's problem. It is critical that you tailor responses to local circumstances, and that you can justify each response based on reliable analysis. In most cases, an effective strategy will involve implementing several different responses. Law enforcement responses alone are seldom effective in reducing or solving the problem. Do not limit yourself to considering what police can do: give careful consideration to who else in your community shares responsibility for the problem and can help police better respond to it.

Burglary prevention efforts typically involve a variety of responses; it has been difficult to assess individual response effectiveness. However, the following section describes specific responses that might be combined to form an effective burglary prevention strategy. Despite the importance of multiple interventions, you should avoid trying a little bit of everything; instead, you should use complementary tactics.

Situational Crime Prevention Responses

A range of burglary prevention responses involve target-hardening, increasing the risk—or presumed risk—of detection for offenders, and reducing the rewards. While police have historically recommended many of these responses, they are increasingly used in tandem with one another and with other strategies. Most research suggests it is the combination of responses that is effective.

Burglar alarms have a high rate of false alerts—perhaps as much as 95 percent. Despite that rate, alarms are often recommended for crime prevention. The National Crime Prevention Institute recommends installing alarms, and some insurance companies offer urban policyholders discounts for doing so. (For more detailed information on alarms, see Guide No. 5 in this series, False Burglar Alarms.)

Most studies of burglars indicate that many will avoid residences with alarms, but alarm effectiveness has not been well evaluated.† As alarms become more prevalent, their effectiveness may change. If most residences in an area have alarms, burglars may tend to avoid the area. Even if a burglar tackles an alarm, its presence may cause him or her to be hasty; burglars steal less property from houses with alarms.80

† The electronic industry cites a study of three suburban locales. Residences with alarms faced a 1.4 percent risk of burglary, while residences without alarms faced a 2.3 percent risk (Hakim and Buck 1991). Due to research limitations, these findings should not be presumed to hold true for all jurisdictions.

Portable burglar alarms have been effectively used for crime prevention. Police agencies have issued them temporarily to detect offenders. In one burglary prevention project, a small pool of portable alarms were allocated on a rotating basis, according to risk.81

† See Painter and Tilley (1999) for a description of CCTV in a variety of settings.

Security assessments typically include target-hardening advice related to locks, windows and doors. Importantly, such advice—provided immediately after a burglary—also helps the victim secure the break-in point, to deter a repeat offense.

Target-hardening makes getting into houses more difficult for burglars, and includes installing the following: sturdy doors with dead bolts; window locks, rather than latches; double-pane, storm or divided light windows, or laminated glass that is forced-entry resistant; pin locks on windows and sliding glass doors; and sliding glass door channel locks or slide bolts. Generally, moderate lock security should suffice, as there is no evidence that more elaborate lock security reduces burglary.84 Door security may be influenced as much by the door's sturdiness as by its lock. Regardless, residents should use, rather than simply install, security devices.

Some residents install bars and grills on windows and doors, but the aesthetic costs deter many residents from doing so. Installing them may violate building codes and pose a safety threat by blocking fire exits.

If target-hardening is too expensive, corporate sponsors may be solicited to fund it.† New construction may also incorporate target-hardening (see response 9).

† In seven cities in Britain, an insurance company funded target-hardening measures for low-income areas; burglaries declined as a result (Mawby 2001). In Huddersfield, England, burglary victims were given a discount voucher to buy security equipment (Chenery, Holt and Pease 1997).

Target-hardening can be enhanced through victim education, as well as public awareness campaigns that encourage likely victims to take precautions, and that increase offenders' perceptions of risk. Such efforts may be carried out through the media, through the police (e.g., going door-to-door), or through Neighborhood Watch or other community groups.

‡ Police in New South Wales, Australia, went door-to-door to persuade citizens to participate, and provided free marking equipment (Laycock 1991).

Since burglars seek houses with cover, residents should remove obstructions to visibility. Generally, they should trim trees and shrubs and modify fencing so that such features do not block the view of the house from neighbors or passersby. Well-planned—particularly motion-activated—lighting may enhance such measures' effectiveness.

Increased lighting may increase natural surveillance in darkness: however, its impact on crime is highly context-specific. If no one is around to spot a burglar—for example, at an isolated house—increased lighting is unlikely to stop the crime, and may actually make the burglar's job easier. In some areas, enhanced street lighting has reduced residential burglaries:88 depending on the neighborhood, it may reduce fear and encourage greater pedestrian traffic, increasing opportunities for natural surveillance. In some cases, the benefits of increased street lighting have extended to daylight hours, presumably because of increased awareness and community pride.89

Neighborhood Watch programs have not proved to be particularly effective at reducing residential burglary. Credit: Kip Kellogg

NW effectiveness can be enhanced by offering introduction kits to vulnerable new residents; publicizing the program, including posting stickers on windows or doors, and/or signs on residents' properties or in the neighborhood; educating residents through door-to-door campaigns; marking property; conducting security assessments; and keeping residents informed about crime trends. (Police departments are increasingly providing citizens access to crime data and crime maps via Internet websites.

"Cocoon watches" are a variant of NW. Neighbors living near recently burglarized houses are asked to be particularly alert. This close set of neighbors—usually, about half a dozen—form a virtual cocoon around the house,† increasing the likelihood of detecting a burglar who returns to strike again. In Kirkholt, England, with a burglary victim's consent, neighbors were informed about the offense and offered a security upgrade—increasing awareness about the crime and, perhaps, neighborhood vigilance.93

† This practice has been part of more comprehensive crime prevention initiatives, making an evaluation of effectiveness difficult (Laycock and Tilley 1995).

• Audible warnings: During Operation Bumblebee, London police drove around and issued warnings over a public address system whenever a certain number of burglaries occurred in an area.94
• Reverse 911 systems: Autodialers have been used to notify residents when burglaries have occurred, offering crime prevention tips and/or seeking information about offenders. In Baltimore County, Md., use of an autodialer resulted in the quick apprehension of offenders.95 The use of autodialers can be enhanced through mapping, to establish burglary patterns and thus set boundaries for residents who are called.
• Resident hotlines: In limited areas, residents may use hotlines to report a suspicious person ringing doorbells under the pretext of looking for someone.96
• Publicity: Media campaigns may enhance the benefits of any crime prevention initiative. Such campaigns have rarely been evaluated, but some studies suggest media coverage deters offenders and encourages citizen participation.97

† Overland Park building codes and crime prevention ordinances can be found at www.opkansas.org. Security measures are also written into Simi Valley, California, building codes; the police department inspects new houses for compliance. The measures resulted in a 52 percent decline in burglaries from 1974 to 1995 (Hoffman 1998).

Building codes vary from one jurisdiction to another, and builders may use low-quality security hardware and building materials. Forced-entry provisions in building codes can be used to improve window and door security—at relatively low cost, generally.101 The Peel Regional Police in Canada found that modifying building codes (at the provincial level) was a difficult task, but such modifications may be practical in other settings.

Victim-Oriented Responses

• Repairing and securing break-in points
• Hardening the targets
• Establishing cocoon watches
• Installing mock-occupancy devices
• Increasing police patrols
• Installing audible or dummy alarms
• Installing temporary silent alarms (lent by the police to victims for up to two months)
• Increasing outdoor lighting
• Posting window or door stickers advertising participation in property marking.

To be most effective, these measures—or others—must be taken quickly, within 24 hours if possible, before another burglary occurs.

† Poor-quality offense data—premise miscodes, incident coding errors, missing information, and the like—may impede identification of repeat offenses. A major data "cleaning" is necessary to make data reliable. See Curtin et al. (2001) for common problems with offense data. 

Offender-Oriented Responses

In cases of recurring thefts of specific property (such as laptops), more extensive property marking (such as Smart Water† or genetic fingerprinting) or tracking equipment may be used to monitor theft and stolen property's end destination.112 Recurring thefts may also point to repeat burglars.

† Smart Water is a concealed dispenser of indelible dye that can be used with a silent alarm. It may be best used to target repeat offenders or high-risk locations.

A range of strategies can be used to disrupt markets for stolen goods, especially hot products, primarily by reducing the number of markets available. Such strategies include targeting fences and publicizing arrests for selling stolen goods.113

• Improving patrol response to burglaries. In one study, in-progress calls accounted for 10 percent of all reported residential burglaries; in 90 percent of those cases, the police did not apprehend an offender at or near the scene. Of the offenders apprehended after an in-progress call, 43 percent were caught at the scene, and 34 percent were caught based on information witnesses provided. In this study, faster and two-unit responses to in-progress calls resulted in the arrests of more offenders.117 (Most burglaries, of course, are not reported in progress and police make most arrests based on the responding officer's initial actions. Cases should be screened to exclude those with low solvability.118)
• Analyzing crime patterns. Crime analysis is used to identify series, spatial and temporal patterns, type of property being stolen, and modus operandi patterns. Mapping is becoming particularly useful for detecting burglary patterns and examining local burglary problems.‡ Since burglary is often neighborhood-specific, maps should reflect neighborhood boundaries and major topographical elements that effectively separate residential areas.
• Improving physical-evidence collection. Widespread access to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System in the United States has provided new potential for matching latent prints—and increases the need for evidence collection. Although many crime scenes provide no physical evidence, those that do can lead to increased arrests of offenders, or provide supporting evidence.119
• Building intelligence databases about suspects. Using confidential informants can be a cost-effective way to get information about chronic offenders. Anyone arrested may be a potential informant; other informants may be recruited.
• Conducting surveillance. Surveillance is very expensive, but may be used strategically. For example, police in Edmonton, Alberta, mapped the geographic occurrence of 240 daytime burglaries over seven weeks, and predicted areas likely to be targeted. Using surveillance, they soon apprehended two offenders during a break-in, and subsequently linked them to more than 123 of the burglaries.120

† In recent years, the U.K.'s Home Office has produced a wealth of information about police best practices regarding burglary reduction. See, for example, Tilley et al. (1999), Bridgeman and Taylor=Brown (1996), and Chenery, Holt and Pease (1997). Much of the literature is available at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimreducpubs1.html.

‡ See, for example, Brown et al. (1998) and Reno (1998). 

Responses With Limited Effectiveness

Convicted burglars, especially habitual offenders, already face stiff penalties. Once convicted, about 80 percent of burglars are incarcerated; the average prison sentence is five years. Of all property offenders, burglars receive the longest prison sentences.122