Burglary performance

Report: 14
Date: 22 July 2002
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report sets out the performance achievements of the MPS on the various forms of burglary and highlights the areas of good practice achieved by boroughs.

A. Recommendations

That members are asked to note the paper.

B. Supporting information

MPS burglary trends

1. Chart 1 (see Supporting material) shows the monthly trends in residential and non-residential burglaries across the MPS over the last four years.

2. Examination of burglary data shows that residential burglary data is seasonal, peaking in the winter months, whereas non-residential burglaries are not seasonal. The recent increase in residential burglary is from a 20-year low, for the year April 2000 to March 2001. Since April 2001 the seasonal trend has been upwards; it can be seen that the winter peak and summer troughs have shown higher figures over the last year.

3. To assess in greater detail residential burglary changes, a Boston box presentation is attached at Appendix 1 (see Supporting material), comparing boroughs' performance over the last two years.

4. Comparing inner and outer London boroughs, the numbers of residential burglaries vary between 10-25 per 1,000 households for outer and 20-42 for inner.

Poor performers

5. Lambeth, Haringey, Islington, Camden and Hackney had the highest number of residential burglaries per 1,000 households in 2001/02 and the first four of these boroughs saw increased levels on the previous year. Waltham Forest, Sutton, Enfield and Haringey had the largest year on year increases in residential burglary. With the exception of Sutton, this shows a cluster of residential burglary growth in North London.

6. It is of note that only three of the original nine Operation Safer Streets boroughs achieved burglary reductions, and only one (Westminster) has a below average residential burglary levels per 1,000 population. Similarly, six of the twelve 'below average and declining performance' boroughs identified in the Boston box are original OSS boroughs and it may be that their focus on street crime is linked to increases in burglary.

Good performers

7. Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames had the largest decreases in residential burglary in 2001/02 compared with the previous year. All of these boroughs have below average levels of burglary per 1,000 households.

Good practice

8. Kensington and Chelsea is the only borough in central London displaying a downward trend in residential burglaries and the only borough recording a reduction of more than 10%. The borough has recorded a 26.7% reduction in residential burglaries in 2001/02 compared with the previous year. April and May continue this trend with a further 30% reduction. Comparing this trend with non-residential burglaries and street crime it appears that both of these types of crime also began falling at the same time (around October/November 2001), but at a slower speed.

9. There are a number of potential reasons behind these improvement including:

• Targeted briefing. Team Sergeants are given direct tasks, which include the execution of warrants.
• Court conditions are circulated the same day and officers tasked to enforce conditions. This has increased arrest rates and encouraged courts to impose custodial sentences.
• The intelligence unit monitors surrounding boroughs' briefings and liaises with these boroughs directly, to ensure offenders moving across boundaries are detected and targeted.
• A new 12hr shift pattern for uniformed officers has recently been adopted, where sector style policing is being used. Evaluation will be essential in order to assess its impact on performance.
• The new Borough Briefing Strategy co-ordinated by the Policing Model team will affect some of these practices and its impact must also be evaluated.

Artifice and aggravated burglary

10. A small proportion of MPS residential burglaries can be seen as 'specialist' burglaries, with 6.5% of residential burglary being artifice and 1% aggravated.

Artifice burglary

11. There were a total of 4,806 residential artifice burglaries committed in the financial year 2001/02, which accounts for 6.5% of all MPS residential burglaries. This is an increase of 17% from the previous year.

12. The Distraction Burglary Taskforce have suggested that as few as 10% of these crimes are actually reported. Although underreporting of crime generally is well documented, the elderly profile of these victims may make underreporting of this crime even greater.

13. Artifice burglary is very much a cross-border crime and is very difficult for boroughs to target. There are no consistently affected boroughs, however the boroughs that have been significantly affected this year include:

• Waltham Forest was among the boroughs recording the highest number of artifice burglaries in 2001/02, accounting for 5.5% of the MPS total. The borough also recorded a high increase from 2000/01 at 75.7%. This is an average of 22 offences each month, however in April 2002 this reduced significantly to 9 offences. This improvement is likely to be a result of the arrests of two prominent artifice burglars, one of which was a result of a surveillance operation.
• SO11 have recommended that a guide to best practice is needed to assist in the reporting and recording of artifice burglaries, because there are often discrepancies on CRIS or missed fields that leads to difficulty in identification and analysis of this crime type.

14. Other UK forces including Essex and Avon and Somerset have also been experiencing an increase in this type of offence. This is in contrast to Thames Valley who reported a decrease in January 2002, which they attribute to a successful operation in Reading, resulting in four arrests.

Aggravated burglaries

15. There were a total of 951 residential aggravated burglaries in 2001/02, which is an increase of 21% on the previous year. The proportion of all MPS residential burglaries that are aggravated however, has remained consistent at 1%.

16. Overall the average number of offences recorded by boroughs are relatively low, 40% of the boroughs will not record more than two offences a month.

• Lambeth recorded the highest number of offences 2001/02 (108), which was a 36% increase from last year and accounted for 11% of the total
• Southwark and Haringey recorded 50-56 offences compared to the lowest number reported as five. However, Haringey has seen a 27% reduction from last year and recent months continue to reduce at a steady pace.
• The borough that has shown the greatest increase from last year (40%) and continues to increase in 2002/03, is Enfield.

17. TPHQ commissioned SO11 to investigate aggravated burglary allegations in North London recently, following slightly higher levels in January and February 2002. Levels have since returned to those previously seen and this has been linked to the imprisonment of a single individual.

18. Many of these offences will be a result of cross-border teams. The general level of awareness of aggravated burglary series on the boroughs appears to be very good and there does not appear to be any major series of cross-border aggravated burglaries going undetected. Consequently linked series crimes are being identified to a greater degree and are being dealt with appropriately. For example a number of operations have been established to target this type of violent crime which include:

• Operation TERDAD (Brent, Hornsey, Camden and Marylebone) have linked 9 offences were expensive jewellery is targeted.
• Operation VIXEN (Ilford) has linked 2 similar offences.
• Operation FOXLAND (Brent) has linked 2 offences where victims have been forced to hand over keys and their cars were stolen along with other property.

Hotel burglaries

19. Hotel burglaries have accounted for 1.6% of all burglaries for the last two years. This type of crime has the potential of accounting for 2.6% of residential burglaries and 4.5% of non-residential if they were all recorded in one particular category. Prior to 2001/02, 70-75% of these offences had been recorded as residential, but in 2001/02 a significant shift took place and only 33% were recorded as residential.

20. A borough breakdown highlights significant recording differences across boroughs for this type of crime and consequently identifies an potential need for further clarity as to the definition of a hotel burglary. For example, although Westminster is one borough, the five divisional areas are recording this type of crime in very different ways. AB and CD have always and continue to record the majority of these offences as residential burglaries, whilst CX has always and continues to record the majority as non-residential. DM and DP however have significantly changed their recording practices since 2001/02. Both divisions used to record over 85% as residential, but last year only 28% were classified in this category. Similarly Kensington and Chelsea (from 80% - 40%) and more noticeably Camden (80%-15%) have changed from recording hotel burglaries as residential to non-residential.

21. The Home Office counting rules for hotel burglary are:

• A burglary in a 'long-stay hotel' whose rooms are let out on a permanent basis (i.e. so that the hotel is the residents' permanent address) should be recorded as a burglary (or aggravated burglary) in a dwelling.
• A burglary in a hotel whose rooms are let out to guests on a 'short-stay' basis (i.e. so that the hotel is not the guests' permanent address) should be recorded as a burglary (or aggravated burglary) other than in a dwelling.
• A combination of the above two types should be classified according to the victim or victims. In general, burglary of common areas in hotels should be classified as burglary other than in a dwelling; and burglary of living quarters inhabited by the proprietor, manager or employees should be recorded as burglary in a dwelling.

22. If this shift was a recording shift rather than an offence shift, which appears likely, it would have had the impact of understating the increase in residential burglary during 2001/02. On Kensington and Chelsea, around 5% of the residential burglary reduction appears to be due to a recording shift, however the borough would still have the highest reduction in the MPS.

Entry points

23. It must be taken into account when discussing entry methods, 11% are unknown or unrecorded or are walk in burglaries where no forced entry can be detected. Corporate CRIS data cannot identify when the premises have been surrounded by scaffolding, because this is only noted in the DETS screen. This can assist climbing burglars and opportunists.

24. Around 50% of entry points are doors and a further third windows. It would have been expected that entry through windows and patio doors would be proportionally higher during the summer months however this did not happen last year.

25. It is interesting that letterbox burglaries (often to steal car keys) began to increase rapidly at the beginning of 2001/02, peaking significantly between September and November. However even at its peak letterbox burglaries accounted for only 1% of the MPS total residential burglaries. After this three month period this type of method saw a rapid reduction and to the end of the year it was used less than 50 times a month.

Property targeted

26. There have been no specific shifts in property targeted across the MPS.

27. There have been media reports of increases in garden burglaries. Looking at this type of property removed from both residential and non-residential properties there were an average 8-9 thefts each month, therefore the MPS does not appear to be particularly affected. Intelligence in this area has indicated that a team of three do operate around the central area specifically targeting this type of property. One member of the team was recently released from prison after a short term for this type of burglary and has been sighted on various boroughs.

Processes

28. A recent report from TPHQ identified that there were 500 suspects identified for burglary offences in May 2002, and that the number of outstanding and wanted suspects for burglary have risen since December 2001. The rise has been more rapid in recent months.

Conclusions

• Following low residential burglary levels in 2000/01, 2001/02 and the early months of 2002/03 have shown increases.
• A number of possible problems with burglary recording have been identified, these include the classification of hotel burglary and guidance around recording of artifice burglary.
• Good practices that appear to have improved performance in both the areas of burglary and street crime have been identified in Kensington and Chelsea. This involves targeted intelligence briefings, direct tasking, and the immediate execution of warrants and court conditions.
• Increases have been seen in artifice and aggravated burglary, however it appears that processes to identify linked series and generate operations are working well.
• There are no particular trends attached to entry points or property targeted during residential burglaries across the MPS.
• Processes for dealing with identified suspects have lapsed, particularly since February 2002.

C. Financial implications

There are no financial implications arising directly from this report.

D. Background papers

• MPS Burglary Artifice October 2001-December 2001 and April and May 2002 supplements, S011 Service Intelligence Unit.
• Aggravated Burglary October 2001-March 2002, S011 Intelligence Unit.
• TPHQ Burglary Briefing Paper June 2002.

E. Contact details

Report author: Karen Turner, Corporate Performance Analysis Unit, MPS.

For information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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