ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses national and international trends in levels of burglary. It provides a brief review of the research literature on burglary, with a particular focuses on that which investigates patterns of burglary. The chapter argues that burglary concentrates in time and space on particular individual targets and those nearby has implications for the method by which this form of crime might be best controlled. It explores contextual variations in terms of different types of burglary problem, focuses on residential burglary, by way of contrast and discusses patterns in non-residential burglary. The chapter also discusses how environmental factors such as the type of building and the social and economic characteristic of the neighbourhoods within which targets are located moderate the form that burglary problems take. The illustration given is necessarily a caricature of a real attempt to use this evidence in practice. The prevention of burglary is therefore big business and a major element of the private security sector.
