Burglary

This article addresses burglary in various countries and jurisdictions, in criminal law as well as in victimization survey questions. It discusses victims, offenders, and the police as sources of information. It presents data on the current prevalence of burglary in the United States, England, and Wales. This article discusses burglary targets and reviews data on the people who commit burglaries. Burglars are described in terms of their demographic attributes, motivations for burglary, co-offending patterns, and level of planning involved in the commission of a burglary. The burglary daily time cycle and its relation to target choice are also mentioned. The next section is dedicated to the issue of repeated burglaries against nearby addresses and is a phenomenon that has received considerable attention during the past decades. It discusses evidence on the effectiveness of situational burglary prevention measures and concludes by enumerating future research priorities.