Tuesday 30 October 2012

New Crime Figures Show Home Burglaries Falling in England and Wales

A couple of weeks ago the Office for National Statistics released their crime figures for the last year, showing that the number of reported crimes has gone down in almost all categories, including home burglaries.

Reported instances of crime as a whole had decreased by 6%, and the number of burglaries decreased by over 9%, from 743,000 cases in 2010/11 to 677,000 cases in 2011/12. Burglaries are now at historically low levels, with the yearly total almost a third lower than what it was a decade ago.


Burglary falling in England and Wales

Burglaries by year 2001-2012
This is obviously great news, especially when you consider our economy has been in a serious recession, a time when you would expect crime to be going up! So what accounts for these positive figures?

Home Office criminologists believe that the reduction in burglaries can be explained by the introduction of greater home security measures in recent years. Window locks, burglar alarms and other security features are becoming ever more commonplace in UK households, and that is making the job of thieves that much harder to do.

What this tells us is that good home security really works, and is well worth the effort and investment to keep the burglars out. There are a great many ways to make a home more secure, and it comes down to things like...

•    Getting a motion sensor light alarm mounted outside the house
•    Fitting window locks
•    Fitting bolts and chains to the front door
•    Using a sturdy, reliable padlock for the shed door
•    Fitting a British Standard lock to the front door

Our locksmiths regularly perform security checks on households across the UK, identifying and showing homeowners the weak points of their home security and helping them get it all up to scratch. The more people we are able to help to adopt these security measures, the harder the job is for burglars, and the more we are likely to see the burglary rate fall in years to come!