Residential burglary

10/08
23 June 2008
MPA briefing paper

Author: the Strategic Analysis Unit, MPS

This briefing paper has been prepared to inform members and staff. It is not a committee report and no decisions are required.

Summary

Residential burglary declined by less than 1% (-0.2%) between 2006/07 and 2007/08. Members were concerned that this small decline masked large increases in some boroughs. This paper sets out the changes in residential burglary levels between 2006/07 and 2007/08 and sets out the actions that are being taken to deal with these local increases. The note also provides a table that shows that residential burglary fluctuates within boroughs from year to year.

Residential Burglary

(i) Appendix 1 is a map that shows the change in residential burglary in this performance year by borough. The boroughs with the biggest increases are Sutton (23%), Hillingdon (20%) and Harrow (16%) with 11 boroughs showing increases of more than 5% and 13 showing some increase.

(ii) Appendix 2 shows changes in residential burglary at borough level over the past five years. This is to illustrate that the type of crime fluctuates from year to year. For example, although Sutton is the worst performing borough in 2007/08, that was after four consecutive annual decreases. Similarly, Hillingdon has not had an increase of more than 2% in the previous four years.

Offence levels in Kensington and Chelsea have also fallen year on year since 2004/05 with consecutively larger percentage drops than the previous year.

Overall, Hackney is the best performing borough with no increases in residential burglary at all in the last 5 years.

2007/8 An overview of performance, how this was addressed, future challenges.
MPS Performance against Residential Burglary is managed on behalf of the Service through the TPHQ Volume Crime OCU.

This OCU performs a number of functions on behalf of boroughs.

• Collection and dissemination of best practice and advice to boroughs
• Operational control of the TP Crime Squad, a level 2/cross borough asset
• Management / guidance to boroughs on their Prolific and Persistent Offenders (PPO)
• Inspection of boroughs and advice on the management of crime recording, intelligence and tasking procedures
• Analysis of MPS wide intelligence on offenders and trends

2007/8

The early part of 2007/8 saw a gradual increase in Residential Burglary across the MPS. There was almost an even split in terms of boroughs showing an increase and those showing a reduction.

The initial MPS response was Operation Anchorage 2 commencing in June 07. This was designed to focus attention on offenders either identified as wanted on the Emerald Warrant Management System (EWMS), wanted as a result of forensic identification or wanted as a result of enquiries, i.e. boroughs were tasked to target those burglars who were wanted and had not yet been arrested. Special attention was given to those offenders deemed to be impacting across several boroughs. (One offender was actually wanted over twenty times both in the MPS and Home Counties, he was arrested soon after the commencement of Anchorage 2 in a joint MPS/Surrey operation).

Operation Anchorage 2 stopped at the end of September 07. The upward trend across MPS had ceased.

At this time, boroughs were focussing greater attention on Youth Violence related activity.

Historical analysis over many years indicates that Residential Burglary increases with the onset of autumn, i.e. as the evenings draw in, burglars take advantage of the empty homes in the late afternoon by the simple activity of seeing where the lights have not yet come on as people return from work and then forcing entry. By the end of October 2007, this was yet again proving to be the case.

As a consequence, the Assistant Commissioner TP directed that the Volume Crime OCU launch a further campaign against Residential Burglary, Operation Safer Homes. There was immediate buy in from all boroughs with hundreds of extra arrests in the first few weeks; the resuming upward trend in offences was arrested. The operation continued until the end of the Performance Year. The MPS achieved an overall reduction of 0.2%. It should be noted that this was a leap year. Had the extra day not counted the reduction would have been of the order of 0.6%

This modest improvement masks a most significant achievement by the MPS i.e. the reduction in Distraction Burglary. This offence is that committed against generally very elderly and relatively infirm females by groups of travelling criminals. The impact on these vulnerable victims is life changing; they loose their life savings and precious heirlooms.

The infirmity and often confused state of the victims, combined with the ruthless and professional approach taken by the travelling burglars means that borough based investigations have a limited chance of a successful outcome.

It is noteworthy that during 2007/8 the MPS achieved a 37% reduction in Distraction Burglaries i.e. 1440 less elderly victims. Many offenders received long prison sentences.

This success was a result of combined activity by the TP Crime Squad, SCD4, MIB and boroughs.

It should be noted that proactive operations against burglary do not demonstrate their full effect until several months after commencement; the judicial process takes some time from the point of arrest until the offending behaviour is finally stopped by a custodial sentence. (Despite CPS objections, most burglars are generally not remanded in custody awaiting trial)

Future Challenges

At present, the MPS is showing a 6.1% reduction in Residential Burglary (target 4.5% reduction). This is assessed to be part of the impact of Operation Safer Homes, i.e. the high number of arrests in November – March have removed offenders from the community.

A few boroughs as outlined above are not achieving reductions this year in Residential Burglary. The TP Volume Crime OCU is working with the borough SMTs concerned to bring about improvements.

Strategically, the present prison overcrowding situation and the move towards imposition of more community sentences may have an impact on levels of Residential Burglary. There are at present many convicted burglars residing in the community on Electronic Tags, who might once have been subject to a custodial sentence. Additionally, the introduction of the Bail Accommodation Support Scheme (BASS) has resulted in offenders remaining in the community who might previously have been remanded in custody. These present additional demands on resources.

The MPS is responding to this by introducing robust mechanisms to monitor the activities and compliance of such offenders.

Additionally, concerns about Youth Violence are resulting in resources once tasked against Residential Burglars being diverted to protect Young People.

Summary

Mechanisms are in place to manage MPS performance against burglary. Boroughs are planning to manage the predicted autumn increases. With a few exceptions, MPS performance against the reduction target for Residential Burglary is good. There is at present a 6.1% reduction.

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback