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The Role of Security in Causing Drops in Domestic Burglary

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Reducing Burglary

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of security in generating falls in domestic burglary. It begins by briefly outlining some general theories that have been advanced to explain the international crime drop, the basic requirements that must be met by any satisfactory theory and the reason why security improvements comprise the most plausible explanation advanced so far. It then goes on to outline the security hypothesis in more detail and to show how it applies specifically to reductions in domestic burglary. Next, it spells out the data signatures that would be expected were the theory to be adequate and then indicates how the theory fares when confronted by victimisation survey data from multiple sweeps of the Crime Survey for England and Wales going back to 1981. The chapter acknowledges that not all security measures are effective; indeed, it highlights that burglar alarms seem to have lost the crime-reducing efficacy they once enjoyed. It also acknowledges that some security measures have serious downsides and emphasises the importance of designing security measures that are both effective and ‘elegant’.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Farrell et al. (2016) for an explanation of our use of ‘data signatures’ as our method for testing the security hypothesis using CSEW/BCS data.

  2. 2.

    The CSEW has incorporated this question in recent sweeps.

Abbreviations

BCS:

British Crime Survey

CSEW:

Crime Survey for England and Wales

DAPPER:

Default, aesthetically pleasing, powerful, principled, effortless, rewarding

ICVS:

International Crime Victims Survey

SPF:

Security Protection Factor

WIDE:

Window locks, internal lights on a timer, door double or deadlocks, external lights on a sensor

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jill Dando Institute, Department of Security and Crime Science, University College London, London, UK

    Nick Tilley

  2. School of Law, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Graham Farrell

  3. Quantitative and Spatial Criminology, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    Andromachi Tseloni & Rebecca Thompson

Authors
  1. Nick Tilley
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  2. Graham Farrell
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  3. Andromachi Tseloni
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  4. Rebecca Thompson
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Correspondence to Nick Tilley .

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Tilley, N., Farrell, G., Tseloni, A., Thompson, R. (2018). The Role of Security in Causing Drops in Domestic Burglary. In: Reducing Burglary. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99942-5_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99942-5_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99942-5

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