Security issue: Burglary

Security issue: breaking and entering

Breaking and entering is the crime of illicitly entering a building with the intent to committing an offense, particularly (but not limited to) theft.

Attributing circumstances

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Socio-economic causes

Although there is no real scientific consensus with respect to the causal relationship between the socio-economic background and property crime like breaking and entering, Australian research for example shows that long term unemployment amongst young male adolescents has a substantial effect on property crime rates.

Enthorf and Spengler(2002) find that planning-intense offences like breaking and entering, robbery and violent respond relatively slow to changes in the socio-economic conditions compared to other types of crime like drug and alcohol abuse and violent crime. According to the authors, this may reflect that in a first response to unfortunate social and economic developments some of the affected might become attracted to alcohol and drug abuse, which in a later phase has to financed with criminal activities by committing property crimes like breaking and entering.

Impacts

Social impacts

• Perception of unsafety
• ...

Economic impacts

The primary economic impact of breaking and entering exists of:

• Prevention costs
• Insurance costs
• Costs due to damage
• Costs due to harm
• Costs due to the detection and prevention
• Costs due to persecution
• Costs due to trial
• Costs of enforcement
• Costs due to support

In the Netherlands, property crimes make up about 52.0% of all criminal offences. This includes all kinds of property crimes such as breaking and entry, car looting and bicycle thefts. In 2005 there were almost 70,000 registrated cases of breaking and entry in the Netherlands. This is 0.6% of all criminal offences that year.

The costs of breaking and entering for Dutch society are estimated to be about EUR 1,400 per offence. A UK-study estimates these costs at EUR 1,900 per case. This is relatively much compared to the average costs of e.g. vandalism (EUR 700 – EUR 950 per case), but far less than sexual offences (EUR 48,000 per case), murder (± EUR 3.2 million) and physical assault and battering (EUR 5,500 – 6,700). Furthermore, there are the costs aimed to prevent breaking and entering. An average Dutch business affiliate, for example is spending annually 891 EUR on security.

Last but not least, the secondary economic impact of criminal offences has to be considered.

Mobility impacts

Normally, breaking and entering does not have mobility impacts, though mobility is a necessary condition for the person(s) breaking and entering in order to reach and get away from the location of issue.

A secondary impact could be that if the police would chase the suspect, the traffic would be disrupted, since the normal traffic needs to give way to the police car. Also the suspect could disrupt the traffic when fleeing.

Safety impacts

• Loss of shelter by damages (broken windows, etc)
• Loss of privacy
• Wounded, dead
• ...

Measures

Potential measures that can mitigate the likelihood or impact of breaking and entering include:

• Surveillance
• Reaction force
• Designing out crime
• Environmental design
• Planning for Real
• Prevent secluded areas (mobility)
• Making it difficult to reach or get away from critical buildings (mobility)
• Making it difficult to enter critical buildings

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