Burglary Victims - Causes, Prevention, and Response (From Burglary - A Social Reality, P 121-146, 1985, Satyanshu K Mukherjee and Leona Jorgensen, eds. - See NCJ-102649)

• NCJ Number: 102654
• Author(s): I Waller
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 26 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: Australia

Annotation

Relying on research from the United States, Canada, and England, this paper discusses burglary causes, ways to reduce burglary, and services to burglary victims.

Abstract

Burglary rates have increased dramatically in Western industrialized democracies largely due to the presence of more material goods, smaller households, more unoccupied residences because both husbands and wives work, and a deterioration of the community structures required to prevent burglary. Successful community crime prevention programs, most notably the one in Seattle, Wash., have reduced burglary through methods of making unoccupied houses appear occupied, block watch, security precautions, property identification, social development, and improved criminal justice sanctions. The Seattle program reduced burglary by 50 percent. Burglary victims suffer property loss, occasional physical injury, and emotional trauma. Among the services that could address these victim needs are community medical and psychiatric services, insurance, police referral services, victim support centers, general services (home repairs for damage caused by burglary), efforts to involve victims in case processing, and restitution. 3 tables and 46 references.