Crime Reduction Program
The Reducing Burglary Initiative
Whilst the number of recorded domestic burglaries (including attempts) has fallen by more than 40% since 1993, they still represent a major crime problem:
437,644 such offences were recorded in England and Wales in the 12 months to March 2003;
domestic burglary offences make up around 8% of all recorded property crime;
in comparison with other countries, England and Wales has one of the highest burglary rates.
The results of the latest British Crime Survey for 2002/3 estimates that, when you take into account instances that are not reported to or recorded by the police, the domestic burglary problem is significantly higher - totalling some 974 thousand burglaries or attempted burglaries (a 23% reduction compared to 1999 and 39% less than in 1997).
For details of the recorded crime and British Crime Survey statistics for 2002/3 click here.
The Reducing Burglary Initiative, which ran from 1999 until 2002, aimed to reduce burglary nationally by targeting areas with the worst domestic burglary problems and monitoring the cost effectiveness of the different approaches to find out what works best, in which circumstances. It invested around £25 million (excluding evaluation and overhead costs) in projects in areas that had a significant burglary problem (areas or communities that had, at the time, a burglary rate of at least one-and-a-half times the national average at that time - i.e. 36 or more burglaries, including attempts, per year per thousand households). In addition, around £2m was committed to projects to reduce the problems of distraction burglary - that committed by bogus callers for example.
The Initiative reached an important target of funding projects in areas or communities containing over two million households in England and Wales. In addition to reducing burglary in these areas, the lessons learnt from the Initiative are already proving to be of wider benefit to all local crime and disorder reduction partnerships seeking to improve their own anti-burglary strategies, and to the Home Office in planning its crime reduction work.
The Initiative was divided into 3 rounds. In rounds 1 and 2, crime and disorder partnerships were invited to submit applications for funding to run projects aimed at reducing local burglary problems in areas or communities that suffered twice the national average burglary rate over the previous 3 years.
Round 1
Under Round 1, 63 Strategic Development Projects were funded covering about 220,000 households which suffered around 18,000 burglaries in 1998. A wide range of approaches was employed. Round 1 projects were initially granted around £60k each, irrespective of the scale of the problem. In later rounds, applicants could bid for £100 for each burglary that occurred in the area or community over the previous 3 years. Those round 1 projects that would have been eligible for more than their original grant under this criteria, and that had made good progress, were allowed to bid for the extra money. Early findings from an evaluation of 55 of the round 1 projects indicate that, on average, they reduced burglary by 20% (7% net if you take into account changes likely to have happened without the projects).
Round 2
Round 2 was launched in October 1999 with a series of seminars at which those police forces, and their crime and disorder partners, interested in taking part were given advice on how they could analyse their burglary problems and prepare their applications. Participants were also introduced to a consortium from Crime Concern and NACRO, which has been funded by the Home Office to help partnerships develop, implement and run Round 2 projects.
In total, 173 applications were received, of which 161 were approved. Together these covered nearly 600,000 households that suffered nearly 44,000 burglaries per year.
Click here for summaries of the 161 round 2 projects.
Round 3
Round 3 was launched in April 2000. This round was broadly similar to round 2 but with three significant differences:
it was a rolling round - i.e. applications could be submitted, and were assessed, as and when they were ready with the one proviso that all bids had to be submitted by the end of January 2001
the burglary rate criteria was relaxed from twice the national average to one-and-a-half times the national average, allowing areas that did not qualify for the earlier rounds to submit bids
projects were not limited to 12 months' duration
The Crime Concern / NACRO consortium remained available to help successful applicants implement and run their projects. 23 projects covering around 1.3 million households were approved.
Click here for a list of the round 3 projects.
Click here for a list of the projects tackling distraction burglary.
Evaluation
An important part of the Initiative is to find out what works best in which circumstances. To achieve this an evaluation programme has been put in place. Eventually this will provide cost-effectiveness data for various types of intervention, but in the meantime some important lessons are already emerging on how to develop and run crime reduction projects and on how to implement different types of intervention. These will help others running similar projects avoid some of the common pitfalls and make best use of the available resources.
Click here for more information on the evaluation programme and the material emerging from it.
Crime and disorder partnerships seeking further information on this Initiative should contact the appropriate Government Office for the Regions.
Last update: Wednesday, September 13, 2006