ABSTRACT
Evidence from the 1996 International Crime Victims Survey revealed England and Wales to have the highest burglary rate of the countries sampled. At the individual level, two thirds of adults questioned for the 1996 British Crime Survey were very or fairly worried about burglary, with 20 per cent of the sample regarding themselves as very or fairly likely to be the victims of burglary. There are important socio-economic differences between victims of burglary. The social consequences of criminal activity are a serious concern for public policy makers, as is the public's anxiety about crime, particularly that involving attacks on property and the person. Empirical analysis of property crime victimisation has tended to focus on a single year of the British Crime Survey with area characteristics taken from matched Census data. The General Household Survey provides a particularly rich data set with which to analyse the burglary experience of households.
