Domestic burglary drop and the security hypothesis

This study examines the role of household security devices in producing the domestic burglary falls in England and Wales. It extends the study of the security hypothesis as an explanation for the ‘crime drop’. Crime Survey for England and Wales data are analysed from 1992 to 2011/12 via a series of data signatures indicating the nature of, and change in, the relationship between security devices and burglary. The causal role of improved security is strongly indicated by a set of interlocking data signatures: rapid increases in the prevalence of security, particularly in the availability of combinations of the most effective devices (door and window locks plus security lighting); a steep decline in the proportion of households without security accompanied by disproportionate rises in their burglary risk; and the decline being solely in forced rather than unforced entries to households. The study concludes that there is strong evidence that security caused the decline in burglary in England and Wales in the 1990s. Testing the security hypothesis across a wider range of crime types, countries and forms of security than examined to date, is required both to understand the crime drop and to derive lessons for future crime prevention practice and policy.