On the Relationship between the Public’s Worry about Safety from Burglary and Probabilities of Burglary: Some Evidence from Simultaneous Equation Models

Abstract

The increase in burglary crimes, along with the rise in the citizens’ worry about burglary crimes, has brought new challenges to the criminal justice systems in developed nations over the last decade. Crime surveys often point to a substantial dissonance between the actual likelihood of burglary and the perceived likelihood of victimization. This paper utilized data from the British Crime Survey to examine the relationship between (actual and perceived) probabilities of burglary and respondents’ worries about burglary by means of a system of two-stage least squares models. The empirical results show a strong relationship exists between households’ worries about burglary and their actual likelihood of being victimized by burglars in England and Wales. These findings suggest that households’ worries about burglary may not, afterwards, be misplaced.