5 Incredible Stats & Other Feedback From Burglary Victims You Should Know If You Live In Charleston

In a recent study done by the Alarm Industry Research and Education Foundation, burglary victims were surveyed to examine the impact the burglary had on their lives and some of the things they did after it occurred.

Previously they had collected data & feedback from the burglar’s perspective (see our video post about that burglary study), and now with this new study they have assembled a complete point of view for a burglary event.

The main purpose behind the victims’ study was to examine the security precautions before the burglary event, the police/security response and any changes that were made following the burglary. Here are some of the highlights of that study.

1. Burglaries Occurred Most Frequently During The Day

Correlating perfectly with the FBI’s burglary crime data, the residential burglary victims reported the time of the burglaries occurred most frequently between noon and 4 PM. Just one out of six burglaries occurred at night (between 10PM and 6AM).

Generally speaking, it makes sense that these occur during the day as this is the time most people are away for work or other activities.

2. Just 29% Of Victims Had An Alarm At The Time Of The Burglary

If you watch the video post we linked to above, you’ll note the burglars almost always stayed away from homes with security systems installed. Albeit a small sample size, from the data reported by those actual burglarized, you can see that burglars mostly targeted homes that didn’t have a monitored alarm system.

3. Less Than Half of Alarm Systems Were Fully Activated

Pretty simple here: if you have a home security system, make sure that you arm it. You may think that burglars wouldn’t know that you didn’t arm and assume that you do, but don’t ever leave it to chance as it only takes a few seconds to arm your system, wherever you may be heading for the day.

4. Almost One-Third Of Victims Knew The Suspect

Going along with what we mentioned in point 3 above, inside knowledge of your life and/or property allows a burglar to know when the best times are to commit the crime. Even if you do have an alarm system, if someone you know knows that it’s pretty easy for them to go ahead with the burglary knowing no alarm will be triggered.

5. Installing An Alarm System Was The Most Common Security Improvement After The Burglary

While different methods of increasing security after the burglary occurred– like improving indoor and outdoor lighting — by far the most common way victims increased/improved their security was by having a home security system installed in their home. A very small amount of people made no improvement.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine burglaries from the victim’s point of view, find a trend between burglary targets and understand how victim’s behavior changed as a result of the incidents. With this added perspective and data, we hope that you understand better the scenarios in which a burglary can occur and some of the things you can do to help prevent one from happening to your home & family.