International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 48

What recent property crime trends in Western Europe tells us about the crime drop
From 2006 to 2010, the number of home thefts and attempted thefts with forced
entry victimizations was never estimated to be more than 475,000. It increased by
28.2% between 2006 and 2011. In 2011, 201,988 cambriolages de locaux d’habitations
principales were recorded by the police forces in metropolitan France. This number
increased by almost 25% in five years ( +40,234 reported cases). In 2006, it was at
161,764 (Rapport annuel, ONDRP 2012).
Moreover, the two sources compared agree on the year when the trend began to change
(Graphs 3a and 3b):
According to the two sources, the Cadre de vie et sécurité survey, and État 4001 [police
forces statistics], between 2006 and 2008, the numbers observed were in decline: the
number of home thefts and attempted thefts with forced entry victimizations per
hundred households went from 1.8 in 2006 to less than 1.5 in 2008, which represents
a significant drop. The number of cambriolages de locaux d’habitations principales
recorded by the police forces dropped by 6.1% in those two years (−10,027 reported
cases). Since 2008, still according to the two sources, the increase was constant: the
estimated number of home thefts and attempted thefts with forced entry per hundred
households increased by 0.1 points over one year in 2009 and 2010, then by 0.3 points
in 2011. Their estimated number, which was at less than 405,000 in 2008, increased by
almost 50% in three years. The reported cases of cambriolages de locaux d’habitations
principales grew successively by 8.2% in 2009, by 5.1% in 2010, and by 17.1% in 2011,
resulting in a 33.1% rise in three years. Their number went from less than 152,000 in
2008 to more than 202,000 in 2011 (Rapport annuel, ONDRP 2012).
The ONDRP concluded that:
In light of the multisource evolutions described, . . . the ONDRP considers that in
metropolitan France, starting in 2009, the number of home thefts and attempted thefts
with forced entry has changed to an upward trend. In 2011, the phenomenon increased
in such a way that over three years, the variation may go above +33%, and maybe very
far above (Rapport annuel, ONDRP 2012).
As a reminder, cambriolages of home residences and attempted cambriolage in the sense
used in the Cadre de vie et sécurité surveys do not correspond to what the BCS calls “domestic
burglary.”
It is a specific case that has been called “home theft with forced entry,” with the caveat of
including by extension thefts with entry by climbing or the use of fake keys.
In this respect, it is useful to mention that according to the statistics on the “Method
of entry in incidents of burglary” (“Nature of Crime Tables 2012/13—Burglary”) published by
Britain’s National Statistics based on the results of the “Crime Survey for England and Wales” (the
new name of the BCS) for 2012/13, burglary with forcible entry corresponds to the most frequent
case of burglary.
In metropolitan France, the proximity between variations in the number of cases
of cambriolages de locaux d’habitations principales recorded by police forces and home
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