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From Research to Policy: Preventing Residential Burglary Through a Systems Approach

NCJ Number
184471
Journal
American Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 24 Issue: 2 Dated: Spring 2000 Pages: 169-179
Author(s)
Matthew B. Robinson
Date Published
2000
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This article examines environmental changes which can lower risks of residential burglary victimization.
Abstract
The paper discusses burglary prevention strategies at different levels of analysis, including individual, group, community, organizational, and societal levels. The article reviews studies of surveillability and residential burglary; accessibility and residential burglary; non-occupancy and residential burglary; and lifestyles, routine activities, and residential burglary. It then advances several crime prevention policy implications using a systems approach derived from those studies. The strategies, which describe actions at all five levels mentioned above, might include promoting higher volumes of irregular pedestrian and automotive traffic; decreasing the regularity or predictability of periods of non-occupancy; increasing interaction and socialization among neighbors; not leaving flyers or other advertising on doors, which might alert a burglar to the fact that there is no one to remove them or to guard the property inside; and establishing neighborhood watch programs. References