International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 35

explanations on the way that delinquency was distributed between social groups but also
the factors that made the curve of delinquency rise or fall.” 4
And, as Jan Van Dijk noted in 2012, “The historical links between the launching
of victimization surveys and the elaboration of various versions of criminal opportunity
theory have to my knowledge remained largely unnoticed. But they seem obvious
nevertheless” (Van Dijk 2012, 6).
By allowing a determination of the most affected portions of the population and
the causes of this overexposure, “victimization surveys have taught criminologists to look
at the other side of crime.”
Evidence from the BCS
International Journal on Criminology
In practice, when using the results of victimization surveys (BCS or ICVS), this
approach has most often been applied to two categories of property crime: vehicle-related
theft and burglaries.
Burglary is an offense that, contrary to what one might believe, covers more than
the French term cambriolage alone. This term refers to theft with forced entry, while
burglaries include any entry, forced or otherwise, with the intention to commit a crime.
As a result, while all cambriolage (other than attempts) is by definition burglary, an
attempted cambriolage, or an attempted theft with forced entry, could either be a burglary,
in the case of entry without theft, or an attempted burglary, if no entry took place.
A very detailed definition was given by Tracey Budd in 1999 in an article called
“Burglary of Domestic Dwellings”:
Domestic burglary comprises the following:
• Burglary with entry—incidents in which the offender entered the dwelling as a
trespasser with the intention of committing theft, rape, grievous bodily harm,
or unlawful damage. To be classified as burglary with entry the offender must
have entered the property but need not have carried out their intention.
• Attempted burglary—incidents in which there is clear evidence that the
offender tried to enter the dwelling as a trespasser but failed.
Burglary against a domestic dwelling (burglary hereafter) therefore does not
necessarily entail the theft, or attempted theft, of property, or involve forced entry
(it may be through an open window or involve the use of false pretenses) (Budd
1999, 1).
In this study, Budd analyzed the results of the BCS, in particular to determine what factors had
an impact, “all things being otherwise equal,” on the risk of being declared a victim of “domestic
burglary.” The specific effect of each factor taken into consideration was determined using the
statistical technique of logistic regression (Lollivier et al. 2000).
4
Translator’s note: Quotations in this paragraph have been back-translated from the French-language version
of this article.
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