Effectiveness of burglary security in England and Wales

This research was undertaken by researchers at Nottinghham Trent University using linked administrative data provided via the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Secure Research Service (SRS), which is being expanded and improved with ADR UK funding.

This research was led by Professor Andromachi Tseloni, and explores the security hypothesis concerning the domestic burglary drop in England and Wales since 1993.  

It is common to use burglar alarms as a deterrent against domestic crime, and previous research has suggested that this has been proven to be effective. This study looked to corroborate these findings by linking data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (2011/2012) and the British Crime Survey (1992-2010/2011) to compare security profiles of burgled households against all households, based on the CSEW Crime Prevention and Victim modules data.

It was found that a combination of window locks, indoor lights on a timer, door double locks or deadlocks, and external lights on a timer or sensor proves 49 times more protection than no security. A surprising discovery was that homes with just a burglary alarm and nothing else have a slightly higher burglary risk than homes with no security at all. Homes with no security experience a four-fold in incidents compared to homes with a combination of security devices. 

This research won the ONS Research Excellence Awards 2019. It has already made a positive impact on the Neighbourhood Watch, the Rosetta Burglary Task Force, Nottinghamshire Police, Leicestershire Police, and Nottingham City Council.