Analysis of Changes in Patterns and Composition of Crimes
5.8 Crimes against Property
5.8.4 Burglary
Places of occurrence:
While discussing theft by places of occurrence, one can see a shift away from residential premises to commercial establishments and others which include banks, railways, boats and ship etc. This shift may be the result of the factors like increased commercialization.
Table 5.22
Percentage share of Theft by place of occurrence
Year Residential
Premises Highway Commercial
Establishments Others
2012 31 0.4 11.1 57.5
1990 77.5 0.7 3.1 18.7
Source : Author‘s calculation on NCRB data
The absolute numbers of burglary incident in the state have been showing some fluctuating trend on year to year bases till in the entire period. But the number has come down significantly from the highest number in 1974 and reaching the minimum in 2005, which, however, again showed a rise. It is also important to note that the rate of burglary in the state has been going down over the time. From a very high rate of burglary with more than 40 per 100,000 population in 1974, the rate declined to near around 10 by 2012.
Figure 5.20
Crime rate of Burglary per 100,000 population
Source : NCRB
Source : Author‘s calculation on NCRB data
The descriptive statistics have been calculated for the period 1974-2012 and further it has been sub divided into smaller periods to have more detail understanding of these statistics. Average for the entire period 1974 to 2012 is 4008. This higher figure is mainly because of the high burglary rates in the first period namely 1974 to 1990 which is 5095 against the comparative mean values of 3493 (1991-2000) and 2896 (2001-2012). It may be mentioned that in the first half of 2000 to 2010 there is a marked declined of burglary from 2000 to 2007 after which it is showing again increase in the incident in absolute number rather than relative position in the overall crimes against property which was around 28 percent up to 2004. This is because there is a significant decline in crimes again property in
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0 40.0 45.0 50.0
Crime rate per 100000 Population
Year
Burglary
2005 and 2006 for which the percentage share of burglary remained almost constant since other property crimes like theft, robbery and dacoity had shown significantly low figure
Table 5.23
Descriptive statistics of Burglary
Period 1974-1990 1991-2000 2001-2012 1974-2012
Mean 5095 3493 2896 4008
Max 7112 4025 3825 7112
Min 3320 2756 2255 2255
St Deviation 1261 323 484 1323
Source : Author‘s calculation on NCRB data
Share of burglary in the crime against property has been in the range of 28 to 40% during the time period under consideration, though there are occasional ups and downs by some margins.
Figure 5.21
Share of Burglary in the crime against Property
Source : Author‘s calculation on NCRB data 0
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Percentage
Y ear
Burglar y
Charge sheet and conviction rates in Burglary:
As in other crimes the experience of Assam in terms of charge sheeting burglary cases has not been up to satisfactory level. The all India C.S percentage has been significantly higher than that of Assam. For example, the rates of filing charge sheets in Assam for the years 2010, and 2012 had been 27.7, and 25.2 on percentage while that of all India rates for the respective years had been 37.7, and 42.1. It is interesting to note that from the middle of the last decade, the percentage in regards to C.S rates has been better and this is the period when the terrorist violence has been in lower scale.
The picture in conviction rate is worse than that of C.S rates when one compares this with the all India picture. For example 2012 conviction rate in Assam burglary cases was 11.9 per cent, while in all India, rate was 29.7 per cent. The percentage of Assam in relation to other states in this regard is also poor, eg. in 2012, the conviction rates for burglary cases in Tamilnadu (51.8), UP (54.1), Hariyana (31.9) were higher than that of Assam. However, Assam has done better than some states like Odisha (8.1) and Gujarat (6.9).
All these point to the need for improving the quality of investigation of such cases so that these result in conviction. It is seen that number of persons arrested has come down even when the number of cases registered has been more. Like any other types of crimes against property, it is worthwhile to note that in incidences of burglary, majority of the persons arrested belong to the age group of most productive group of people, eg. in 2012 out of the total 3281 arrested persons, 80.64 per cent belonged to the age group of 18-45 years. 141 persons were under 18 years of age. It may be noted that burglary in the state has been a crime dominated by male, there was an insignificant participation by females and total 7 women were arrested in burglary cases in 2012.
Places of Occurrence
If one looks at the burglary cases by places of occurrence, a very important picture emerges. There has been a shift away from residential premises to commercial establishments and others which include banks, railways, boats and ship etc. This shift may be the result of the factors like increased commercialization and resultant growth of liberal economy opening more possibilities for establishment of market and shopping places, increased home security through use of modern security equipments, intensive police
presence etc Whenever a structure is found unoccupied there is more likelihood of burglary being committed in the place ( Shover 1991). Very frequently burglary is seen as outcome of opportunities provided for the crime to be committed (Cook 1986). The engagement of the individuals has increased outside their homes due to professional and commercial needs.
Lifestyle (Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo 1978) and routine activities theories (Cohen and Felson 1979) relate to opportunity approach to burglary crime. The high value commercial goods are becoming more targets of the burglars leading to increased risk of trading and business places to burglary. This trend has been assisted by the facts that more elaborate security and alarm systems preferred by the householders have reduced the number of incidents of burglary in residential places. The growth of private security agencies and ongoing neighbourhood watch schemes & community policing measures as well as the night patrolling by village defense party members does add muscle to the police patrol which very often find it difficult to cover for interior areas in the rural side due to paucity of police strength. It is also a fact that construction and design of new building/structures has taken lot of state of the art preventive and hardening measures against burglary and theft like improved locking, alarms system, visual identification of witness etc.
Source : Author‘s calculation on NCRB data
From the table another important shift one may highlight is the fall in high way burglary overtime. This is more of a result of special highway patrolling by the special police party to prevent such occasions. Also since the highways are busy with more volume of traffic till late night, it is acting as a deterrent in incidents of commission of burglary. It is worth mentioning the fact that the offenses of burglary are being regarded as male bastion(Jayamala).
It is not possible to throw light on the modus operandi employed by the burglars while commissioning the crime since the required data are not documented. Micro
Table 5.24
Percentage share of Burglary by place of occurrence
Year Residential
Premises Highway Commercial
Establishments Others
2012 31.9 0 13.1 55
1990 87.5 0.7 3.7 8.2
level study in this regard would be able to analyse whether the offenders had entered the premises by breaking the lock, cutting window bolts, making holes on the roof or walls etc.
Details of data on the types of booties got by the burglars are not available.
But one can presume that the items stolen in burglaries might be undergoing change in tune with the changes in types of household goods by owner of the house where burglars make their entry. Generally, it is seen that the burglars target the cash, valuables like jewelry, high valued household goods like electronic gadgets etc. The items normally the burglars would like to take away include cash, jewelry, and portable items and over time these have been changing to office equipment, video and sound equipment and electronic goods having public demand. It is mentioned that the items change with demand and supply (Gould 1969), and this may be the reason for current popularity of electronic and home stereo items for burglars.