International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 54

What recent property crime trends in Western Europe tells us about the crime drop
abroad. By choosing methods of operation with lower gravity—in the penal sense
of the term—such as pickpocketing, shoplifting, and nonviolent burglary, the
organized crime networks may have invested more strongly in recent years in an
illegal activity for which the profitability relies on the volume (numerous thefts
with smaller loot) or value (theft of gold in homes and minerals, for example
copper, in infrastructure or construction sites) (Rizk 2013, 22).
When it analyzes all of the data at its disposal together, the ONDRP predicts a
process that is in conformance with the theory of rational choice:
According to the ONDRP, the “risk/benefit” relationship of some thefts changed
over the course of the 2000s due to the strong increase in the price of metals and
especially gold. The increase in thefts and attempted thefts in homes may be the
domestic variation of the growing phenomenon of the thefts of metal to which
business and industries are exposed. . . . By bringing together the hypotheses
suggested by the available data, it can be supposed that the gold present in homes,
and more generally any object of high value on the current stolen-goods market,
exposes these places to an increasingly high number of thefts, especially in the
context of organized crime, and including that originating in foreign countries
(Rapport annuel, ONDRP 2013b, 8).
The question of the relationship between the level of protection of homes and
the change in the rate of cambriolage of home residences (burglary with forcible entry or
attempted burglary) and especially of burglary (entry with or without forcible entry and
attempted burglary) will soon be dealt with by the ONDRP.
Another observation by the Belgian Federal Police can already provide us with a
connection to the theory of opportunities: “The increase is found mainly in burglaries with
forced entry of houses (and not apartments, where the opposite trend has been observed)
and in rural communities.”
This observation suggests that houses, especially those outside urban areas, may be
the main target of burglars, since apartments located in cities are much less accessible.
Two results published in December 2013 based on the results of the “Cadre de vie
et sécurité” surveys allow us to expand the elements of this hypothesis to France. On the
one hand, the increase concerns houses, as in Belgium:
It is estimated that more than 3.6% of households living in a house reported being
victims of a home thefts or attempted thefts with forced entry over two years. This
proportion underwent a very significant increase compared to the one measured
over the previous four years (+0.5 points). This variation increased the disparity in
the frequency of victimization of different types of residence, house, or apartment
that was already observed in the Cadre de vie et sécurité surveys of 2007 to 2010:
3.1% of households living in a house reported having been the victim of home
thefts or attempted thefts with forced entry over two years, compared to 2.7%
for households occupying an apartment. Moreover, in the last three Cadre de vie
et sécurité surveys, the home thefts or attempted thefts with forced entry rate for
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