Abstract
Burglary continues to yield low detection rates, and although the characteristics of how burglaries are committed has been investigated in some detail, less is known about how burglars avoid detection generally and in particular the activities of non-apprehended burglars. To investigate this issue, one can at least in principle investigate the special case of burglars who claim to have avoided apprehension in spite of the fact that they have committed a large number of burglaries over time. The approach taken here was to thematically analyze the interview data from a previous study comparing the crime scene movements of a small group of non-apprehended burglars with experienced but apprehended burglars. The results here from a thematic analysis of that previous study revealed marked differences in the rationales between the experienced, apprehended burglars and the experienced non-apprehended burglars when implementing different crime scene behaviors. A series of techniques and strategies emerges, which appear to aid in avoiding detection around the burglary scene and are summarized with implications discussed.
Highlights
Burglary is one of those offenses that repeatedly results in a relatively low detection rate
The difficulty for the taking into consideration” (TIC) scheme is that it relies on apprehending offenders in the first place and persuading them to admit to as many burglaries as they can remember committing, admissions often depend on the perceived strength of the evidence against the suspect
The results showed that the non-apprehended burglars engaged in a pattern that was quite different from the apprehended burglars
Summary
Habitual offenders must be non-apprehended for a period of time to be able to become “habitual.” An issue is whether some habitual offenders behave in a way, both at the crime scene and perhaps during the post investigation phase that enables greater capacity in evading detection until they desist from offending or switch to “lower” risk activities (Halliday, 2001) To explore this in the context of burglary, Hockey and Honey (2013) compared the hypothetical movements generated by the non-apprehended group and the experienced but apprehended group during a burglary scenario. They used a lag-sequential analysis, which revealed that the nonapprehended offenders took more steps to progress through the different stages (i.e., prior to entry; during the acquisitive phase and withdrawing from the scene). Such an analysis may bring additional clarity to earlier findings regarding hard to catch burglars
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