Burglary
Strategic Development Projects in the Yorkshire and the Humber, East
The Reducing Burglary Initiative (RBI) aims to build on burglary prevention projects and community initiatives in order to reduce burglary. This chapter assesses the development of 20 Strategic Development Projects (SDPs), supported by the RBI , in the Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands and Eastern regions of England. The report summarises the findings of the Midlands Consortium (comprising Keele University, and the Universities of Manchester and Leicester).
Title: Strategic Development Projects in the Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands and Eastern regions
Author: Tim Hope, Jane Bryan, Elaine Crawley, Peter Crawley, Noel Russell, Alan Trickett
Series: Home Office On-line Report 41/04
Number of pages: 43
Crime prevention techniques and measures…
Specific prevention measures were devised by the local projects. While innovation and relevance to the local burglary problem were encouraged (Home Office, 1998), the projects were based upon the available knowledge base and tool-kit of good practice. These resulted in a variety of measures, split into the following categories:
area-wide situational crime prevention (SCP) – including, alley-gating, environmental improvements and CCTV schemes;
enforcement – including, gathering, analyzing and using intelligence, disrupting offending behaviour, high visibility policing and witness protection;
location-specific SCP – including, the surveillance and target hardening of individual dwellings;
tackling offender behaviour – including youth diversion and drug abuse prevention and treatment schemes;
property – primarily property marking schemes;
stakeholding – including education, public awareness and publicity campaigns, and resident involvement schemes.
Crime prevention tactics…
Were to:
Identify vulnerable burglary targets and deliver prevention measures to deter burglars.
Make all residents in these areas, aware of prevention measures.
To improve the wider communities attitude towards burglary and security not just the vulnerable targets, in order to improve burglary action in the area, which will deter burglars.
Apply prevention measures straight away to any victim at risk of being burgled again. This will not only protect the victim, but will bring down the whole area crime rate quickly.
Measuring project results…
The impact on reducing burglary was calculated for each intervention after it was implemented. For this purpose, the Home Office developed an Intervention Output Measures Form. Essentially this required the identification of targets in advance of action and an assessment of how closely those targets had been met. Yet a number of very significant practical and conceptual difficulties meant that measuring outputs in this way was at best highly problematic and, at worst, misleading.
Measuring the intensity of project outputs…
This is to determine how much an intervention has reduced crime in its operational area compared to the amount of resources (money, personnel and time) needed to implement it. This will allow is to measure the project success as a whole.
Three underlying principles for the measurement of the Intensity of Output are:
Different types of intervention require differing measurement procedures
Intensity measures should relate to what has actually happened rather than to what could have taken place
The intensity of each intervention should reflect the quantity of inputs utilised by the intervention
How to compare different projects…
All data is measured on a monthly basis and relates to three distinct geographical areas:
1. Target Area - burglary is most likely here, so is where the burglary reduction interventions will be applied.
2. Buffer Zone - the police beats immediately surrounding the target area. This area is the most vulnerable to geographic displacement, whether it be negative (e.g. more crime in this area) or positive (e.g. a reduction in crime similar to the target area).
3. Rest of the Basic Command Unit (RoBCU) - Within the SDPs area but does not have high burglary rates.
Results…
Impacts of projects on local burglaries were:
6 projects brought a significant reduction in burglary in their target areas above the local burglary trend.
7 projects reduced burglary but weren't significantly different to the burglary trends.
7 projects seemed to bring about an increase in burglary in the target area, though only one of these was significantly different from the local trend.
Impacts on crime displacement or diffusion of benefit were:
Only 3 projects out of the 13 that had successful results, appeared to have produced an overall net increase in burglary-equivalents 14 ;
8 of these projects had a positive impact on at least twice the size of their target area.
In general, then, more projects achieved an overall diffusion of benefit in their wider area, taken as a whole, than in their specific target area.
Impacts on repeat victimisation:
There were found to be no projects where the rate of repeat victimisation was reduced and were in fact some where it actually increased. This includes the areas that saw a reduction in burglary.
It emerged that part of the reason for this was that the plans for repeat victimisation prevention proposed by the projects faced considerable practical difficulties when implementation was attempted, to the extent that several, though not all, abandoned or considerably modified their targeting strategy.
Reasons for this failure:
There were too few victims/repeat victims compared to the numbers anticipated
Referral/ Delivery problems - few referral of eligible cases from the crime reporting process
Low take-up and non- compliance - many victims turned down the help, often suspicious of the project motives. Maybe in rented accommodation where the absentee property owner/ landlord is unwilling to invest in or comply with security measures.
In Summary…
Overall, only 6 projects made significant burglary reductions in their target areas. Further, there was little support for a prevention strategy focused on preventing repeat victimisation, or for the 'anticipatory benefits' effects of projects. Nevertheless, a substantial number of projects were associated with a diffusion of crime reduction benefits, and a net reduction of crime in their targeted and surrounding areas taken together.
The most successful projects were:
Those which were not isolated from other area programmes, or the crime trends in the area;
Those where interventions mutually supported each other, where a problem-solving approach to implementation was adopted; and
Those where partnership involvement was big, making use of relevant skills already employed by the partners.
The most successful partnerships were those run between local authorities and regeneration contractors, rather than those managed directly from within the police service.
The most successful group of projects spent the greatest amount of resources on Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) measures - about 70 per cent of its expenditure, while the least successful projects, spent the least, about 62 per cent. Although a greater proportion of successful projects expenditure went on area-wide SCP, this was largely accounted for by two 'alley-gating' projects.
The least successful projects spent a greater amount of its resources on police 'enforcement' activities, including 'gathering, analysing and using intelligence', 'disrupting offending behaviour' and 'high visibility policing'.
There were measurement difficulties, as there were a wide range of possible influences on local burglary rates. This made it even harder to detect the effect the project alone had on reducing burglary, especially using conventional techniques of data analysis such as analysing change over time.
The disadvantage of calculating burglary figures monthly is that figures appear more volatile than they are, especially for small areas, making them harder to justify validly. There is a danger then, that seemingly 'simple' statistical methods may be misleading.
Last update: Tuesday, September 12, 2006