Australian Government Attorneys General's Department - Crime Prevention and Community Safety

Preventing Repeat Residential Burglary:

A meta-evaluation of two Australian demonstration projects

Executive summary

Residential break and enter was identified as a priority area for crime prevention in 1997 through a collaborative process between the National Anti-Crime Strategy Lead Ministers from all States and Territories and the Commonwealth Attorney-General. Two demonstration projects began in 1998, supported by funding from the Commonwealth Government.

One was conducted in Queensland, designed and administered by the Criminal Justice Commission and managed in partnership with the Queensland Police Service. The programme aimed to provide an enhanced police response to residential break and enter, with a specific focus on repeat victimisation. The other was established in South Australia. It was designed to prevent repeat victimisation through a range of local community resources and services that are alternative and additional to current practice in preventing and reducing residential break and enter. It included the use of trained community volunteers to deliver services. It was developed and managed by the Crime Prevention Unit of the South Australian Attorney-General's Department.

Each programme continued for at least 12 months and was evaluated by the relevant jurisdiction. Queensland and South Australian reports were completed in 2000 and 2001. The key outcomes of those evaluations are summarised in the current report. More detailed information is available in the jurisdictional evaluations¹.

This report provides a meta-evaluation of the two Australian demonstration projects. It includes a programme guide based on the lessons learnt from the projects and informed by wider research and practice literature.

The features of repeat victimisation have been documented in international literature but there are relatively few Australian studies to date. International research shows that a very small proportion of victims (two to six per cent) generally accounts for a very large proportion of crime (one-quarter to half of total offences and up to two-thirds of particular crime types). About 20 per cent of residential burglaries are repeats. Repeats occur relatively quickly after the first crime. One-quarter to half of repeat burglaries happen within a month of the initial incident, often within the first week. Certain groups and local areas have a higher risk of repeat victimisation. The available Australian research shows similar trends in the extent, time course, and risk profiles for repeat victimisation.

International research also demonstrates that repeat victimisation can be prevented, and that doing so can have a significant effect on overall burglary rates. One of the most widely reported British repeat prevention projects reported an 80 per cent reduction in repeat offences and decreases of 75 per cent in the total residential burglary rate.

The Queensland and South Australia demonstration projects both aimed to reduce break and enters through a focus on repeat victimisation. The approach taken by the Queensland project was a police-based crime prevention response. It involved three levels of intervention provided by police. All victimised addresses received a Stopbreak response. Repeat addresses received a Hot Dot response. An area- level Hot Spot response was provided to residents in selected small areas with very high rates of break and enter. The approach taken by the South Australian project was a community-based crime prevention response. Trained volunteers provided prevention services, involving five elements: informal support for victims, security advice, property marking, neighbourhood contact, and referral to other agencies for support.

The evaluation reports from each jurisdiction reported successful outcomes for repeat victimisation but not for overall break and enter rates. The jurisdictional reports also identified various implementation issues that would need to be considered in establishing similar programs in other locations.

The meta-evaluation concluded that repeats are preventable in the Australian context, but that programs should be introduced for reasons other than overall break and enter reduction unless specific preconditions are met. This includes selecting intervention sites with much higher levels of repeats than those found in the two Australian projects. The programs appeared to provide a cost-effective response to repeat break and enter and the models trialed were considered to be sustainable. There was no definite evidence of spatial displacement, that is, of the problem simply moving to an adjacent geographic area outside of the intervention sites.

The meta-evaluation also concluded that there is no single best model to adopt in preventing or reducing repeat break and enters. Instead, the strategic approach and the management and implementation of the programme should be tailored to local circumstances.

The results of the two demonstration projects do not provide enough evidence to make a definitive decision on whether a repeat victimisation approach to break and enter should be widely adopted in Australia. However, the outcomes reported indicate the approach has promise.

Based on the experiences of the Queensland and South Australian programs, and the conclusions of international research and practice literature, ideal preconditions and good practice features for an effective repeat break and enter prevention programme were considered to be:

high pre-existing levels of repeat offences in the target area(s)
programme objectives that relate to prevention of repeat offences, rather than total break and enter reduction
programme development using a suitable planning and problem-solving approach that recognises the scope of the problem and develops locally appropriate solutions
programme development and management through a partnership between government and the community to optimise community resources and commitment, with expertise from the criminal justice sector, police and crime detection responses
strong programme management (preferably with a full-time, appropriately qualified coordinator)
appropriate training (initial and ongoing) in service delivery, extending over sufficient time to develop high levels of competence, and involving practice with a mentor in real situations
monitoring processes that address both procedural compliance and competency development from the beginning of the programme and operating throughout its life
information systems that support programme operation and evaluation accurately and readily identify repeat incidents, and wherever practicable, include mechanisms for taking unreported incidents into account
effective procedures, continuously monitored, for transferring information between those areas responsible for recording crime, for identifying repeat locations, for allocating tasks to officers and volunteers to provide services, and for delivery of the intervention response
intervention measures combining crime prevention measures at individual residences to increase offender effort and risk while reducing rewards - intervention responses that include near neighbours of victims, area-level approaches to identified hot spots, enhanced police investigation and offender detection processes, and strategies to target offenders and disrupt stolen goods distribution channels
a repeat prevention programme which is integrated or coordinated with a wider break and enter reduction strategy to minimise the potential for offenders to simply change their targets
hot spot interventions designed and adequately resourced to provide high intensity and high coverage of prevention activities
a timeframe for operating and evaluating any trial programme that is long enough to establish and assess long-term outcomes of the intervention
ensuring that any trial programme can be sustained, by taking into account local context and capacity issues, so that if the programme is evaluated as successful, the model could be continued at that location or used elsewhere.

A programme guide was developed, based on the lessons learned from the two Australian demonstration projects and taking into account wider research and practice literature. The guide is included with this report.

Structure of the report

Chapter 1 provides an overview of repeat victimisation and key research on this issue to provide a context for the demonstration projects.

Chapter 2 presents a summary of the Queensland and South Australian project operations and outcomes. Detailed information is available in the individual evaluation reports prepared by each jurisdiction.

Chapter 3 discusses meta-evaluation issues, drawing on both the specific results of the two demonstration projects and on other Australian research and international literature to identify implications for policy and practice.

Chapter 4 is a programme guide and selection of resource tools.

Although different legal definitions apply across jurisdictions and countries², a residential burglary, break-in, or break and enter generally relates to the unlawful entry of a dwelling with the intention of committing a theft from the property. The terms 'burglary' and 'break and enter' are used interchangeably in this report. Both terms are used in chapter 1, depending on the particular wording used in the reference cited. For convenience, chapters 2 and 3 consistently use the term 'break and enter', given its common use across all but one of the jurisdictional evaluation reports. The programme guide uses 'burglary', for consistency with the majority of the national and international research and practice literature.

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