Which burglary security devices work for whom and in what context?

Domestic burglary is a high volume crime affecting many households. As well as substantial financial loss and damage to property, it causes high levels of anxiety about the possibility of being burgled. Surveys documenting public priorities about crime place burglary at the top. Burglar alarms and other security devices in principle deter potential burglars. Insurance premiums are discounted when a fully operating burglar alarm exists in the home due to claims about the effectiveness of burglar alarms and other security devices in the marketing literature, but no systematic research studies have been undertaken to assess their effectiveness in different areas, accommodation types and occupants' characteristics. The research proposed is precisely concerned with such an assessment. The primary research question is: Which burglary security devices work for whom and in what context?

This study will identify the individual and combined security devices that offer cost-effective burglary protection to (a) the population in England and Wales overall; (b) specific population subgroups according to their socio-economic attributes; (c) the residents of Wales, each of the nine English regions and area types according to population socio-demographic profile and density; and (d) area types and population subgroups plausible combinations.

The urgency to gain insights about the cost-effectiveness of burglary devices for tailor-made preventive interventions cannot be exaggerated: at a time of massive public spending cuts and declining disposable incomes the latest Home Office figures show a 14% annual increase in domestic burglary in 2010/11 after an extended (fifteen years) period of falls (Chaplin et al. 2011). The Department for Communities and Local Government (2012) has recently highlighted the need of research evidence on cost-effective burglary security devices to inform the on-going deliberation on national building regulation for minimum standards for security in homes.

The proposed research will:
-Make a major scientific contribution with immediate and high societal and economic impact. Its theoretical and methodological advancements will inform future research developments in criminology. The current gap in knowledge impedes cost-effective burglary prevention not just in the UK but across the world at a time that wasteful financial decisions are unaffordable.
-Engage throughout with high level research users in the public sector and civil society organisations and inform national and international guidelines on burglary prevention. The research results will be regularly conveyed to users in the private sector (the security and insurance industry) who however will not contribute to their development to avoid conflict of interest.
-Analyse two decades of a formidable existing data source, the British Crime Survey (BCS). The BCS is a large and complex dataset with currently some 40,000 respondents annually that exists in the public domain, and has been run for three decades. Yet, relative to both data generation cost and its impeccable quality, it has been extremely under-explored.
-Employ innovative research techniques for the deeper exploitation of the BCS, including the Security Impact Assessment Tool, pioneered by the co-applicants with ESRC support to assess the effectiveness of car security devices, as well as the multivariate multilevel logit modelling, to investigate the effect of context on trends of related crime types.
-Build the national skills base in the analysis of large and complex datasets and expand the limited secondary data analysis capacity in criminology via actively seeking to employ a full time researcher from disciplines (mathematics, statistics, sciences or engineering) beyond traditional BCS users.

Therefore the proposed research fits the ESRC-SDAI call specification. The co-applicants' theoretical, methodological and policy contribution to date ensure its successful delivery.

Burglary has both financial and intangible costs to individuals, local communities and society in general. Costs include, for example, immediate losses, damage to property, distress and days lost from work. This research has been designed to inform future policy guidelines in ways that could lead to considerable financial savings and produce direct benefits to the following groups:
- Local authorities as housing providers and as responsible members of Crime Reduction Partnerships, working more effectively and efficiently to discharge their responsibilities
- Private and housing association landlords, working more effectively and efficiently to improve security of tenants
- Victims and repeat victims of burglary, by informing them of how best to reduce their future risks
- All households, by informing them of cost effective security investments
- The insurance industry, by enabling them to offer incentives for households who actively seek to reduce their risk by taking effective security measures;
- The security industry, by enabling them to improve products and better target them according to clients' socio-economic and area profiles
- Public information by suggesting improvements to the household security questions of the Crime Prevention Module of the British Crime Survey; and
- Public policy by informing the Department for Communities and Local Government on minimum standards for home security.

In an indirect way the proposed research will also benefit:
- The police, by reducing workloads (and thus costs) through reduced burglary and by enabling more informed advice to be given to community members on general and burglary victims in particular
- The society at large, by reducing burglary and its impact;
- The economy, via increased tax revenues (from the decline of illegal markets due to weak stolen products' supplies).

Public engagement at the start-up, intermediate and final stages of the proposed research has been planned to maximise its impact to all research users groups (see Pathways to Impact). In addition users from the public and voluntary sectors will be actively involved in the development of the research throughout its duration via the work of high ranking representatives who have agreed to participate in the Advisory Committee (see Pathways to Impact, Case for Support and Project Partners).

Criminology is currently undersupplied with trained secondary data analysts. This is a particular problem: there is a wealth of existing large and complex datasets. Their deeper examination would offer invaluable theoretical insights and assist crime prevention and criminal justice policy. An important outcome from our research will be to increase that capacity within criminology via employing an RA from another discipline and training her /him to undertake secondary data and advanced statistical analyses on the British Crime Survey data.

As seen in their respective CVs members of the research team already enjoy close contacts with and serve in bodies responsible for crime measurement and prevention. They are thus accustomed to communicating findings to non-specialists in ways that draw out their policy and practice significance. Past work has already had a substantial impact. For example, Farrell's work on repeat victimisation has found its way into routine policy and practice. Grove's recent work on heritage crime has received substantial media coverage. Tseloni's work has played a pivotal part in official reports of crime statistics and patterns. Tilley wrote the original guidance for analysis for the Crime and Disorder Act (Hough and Tilley 1998) and his work on problem-oriented policing and partnership has likewise had a substantial impact on the work of local police services and partnerships.