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Get in get out, get away
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| Diana Whitty met the experts when
she attended a seminar on the tactics of burglary with eight convicted
exponents. |
"YOU can usually tell if an
alarm is a real one," said the convicted burglar to the policemen. "But if
in doubt, you leave it alone. There's always next door."
This comforting piece of information for all of us with a box on the
wall came when a panel of eight men, all career burglars, faced an audience
of shopkeepers, policemen and press in March to answer questions about why
they burgle and how they go about it. The venue was Coventry Police Station;
the occasion a seminar organised by City Centre Company, which runs the
city, and run by retail security consultants StopLoss.
It quickly became clear that burglary is a well organised, thoroughly
researched profession. A market for the stolen goods is fundamental, and
many panel members stole only to order. |
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Research and
planning
A burglar, they explained, will inspect the target premises in advance,
checking on access points, alarms, locks, security staff and escape routes.
Police response time is critical, and is tested by the burglars in a hoax
incident before the date of the actual crime.
"Response time is often three or four minutes," observed one member of
the panel. "This is plenty of time to get in, get out and get away." The
same man, a veteran of 357 successful burglaries before capture, pointed out
that burglars often looked for targets situated close to public parking
areas where a vehicle might be left unnoticed. "You might lose your stock
and not realise that it's still sitting round the corner in a van until next
day!"
Stores outside secure shopping malls are vulnerable to burglars,
whatever security measures they take. But they can cut the risk
substantially. Alarms can make a burglar think twice; smoke screens can be
an inconvenience; but the panel considered that the presence of security
guards presented a greater challenge than electronic devices.
CCTV they felt was a small threat, particularly since many private
organisations use and re-use the tapes until they are worn out and worse
than useless. To be of any value, CCTV must be clear and correctly angled.
One of the younger burglars voiced contempt for systems that record only a
vague impression of a person, mainly by age, observing quite reasonably that
"there are a lot of young people about."
One member of the audience represented a home for the elderly. Would
CCTV deter a burglar from attempting entry to such premises? Only three of
the panel felt it would, although the group was unanimous in declaring this
type of establishment out of bounds. Lest we believe that this reluctance
was born of out of sentiment, they stressed that the presence of care staff,
on duty and awake throughout the night, would be the determining factor.
All panel members identified the hours of darkness as |
prime time for burgling. One preferred the two
or three hours after closing time, especially on Saturday nights. He felt
the odds swung dramatically in his favour when the police were busy sorting
out brawls between folk who may even be his victims.
The retired domestic burglar had operated later into the night, always
on foot, tiptoeing softly about the houses, never touching anything upstairs
if there were sleepers tucked up for fear of giving them a heart attack. He
sounded very kind, benevolent even. He offered a generous endorsement of
Neighbourhood Watch, and confessed to a feeling of sadness when his
application to join his local scheme had been turned down.
A chilling note
On the tricky subject of violence, the panel divided. No-one had ever
carried weapons on a job with a view to using them, but there was some
ambivalence about what would happen if they were confronted. Seven out of
the eight, including the kind one, were prepared to use violence in order to
get away.
There can be little doubt, on the evidence of these eight, that there
is no substitute for a human security presence when looking at how to keep
burglars away. Only one presence is more threatening - a rottweiler. Of
other security measures, shutters came out on top, along with bollards to
foil ram raiders.
Of those burglars who had mended their ways, a conscious decision to
reform, possibly for family or other strong personal reasons, was the one
thing that would stop them offending. Asked what would stop him stealing,
one of the younger members observed somewhat inauspiciously: "They'd have to
cut my hands off."
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We would like to thank Crime Prevention News
for allowing us to use their article
"Get in, get out, get away"
is taken from CPN Apr-Jun 1999.
CPN FEATURE
P.17
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