NCJ Number
133680
Date Published
1991
Length
38 pages
Annotation
Interviews conducted by police personnel with 106 male burglars in the Netherlands gathered information about the motives for residential burglary as well as the methods of committing burglary, the selection of the households to burglarize, and the effectiveness of various residential security measures.
Abstract
Eighty percent of these voluntary interviews took place following police interrogation in the police station; the other 20 percent took place in prisons. The burglars reported lack of money, peer pressure, and the need for money to buy drugs as their main motives. Forty-three percent were drug addicts, 23 percent were compulsive gamblers, and 18 percent were alcoholics, with the cost of addictions exceeding the legal income. The burglars used the same criminal methods for their burglaries, preferring detached single-family houses and corner houses, generally in their home town but not their home neighborhood. They usually entered homes from the rear. Alarm systems, watchdogs, solid locks, and the presence of occupants were all deterrents. A failed burglary attempt led to selection of another nearby house or another weak spot in the same house. Results indicated the presence of crime displacement and substitution and the need for prevention efforts that strengthen social control, increased visibility, hardened targets, and focused on peer groups and on potential offenders before and after the first attempts at residential burglary. Figures