A recent survey has found that intruder alarms do not present any difficulty to professional burglars; the reason is because homeowners often forget to set the intruder alarm or fails to lock their doors and windows properly. Despite the many improvements in home security systems if homeowners fail to use them properly there is little benefit achieved.



Almost half of the persistent burglars interviewed for a recent survey said they believed home security has improved over the last 10 years but they also felt that the improvements would not be enough to stop them breaking in. Only 20% of those surveyed said that a good security system was the most common reason they abandoned an attempted break-in, 40% said being disturbed by the homeowner was the main cause of them giving up a break-in attempt and 40% of those surveyed said they would be put off if there was a noisy dog on the premises.

67% of those surveyed said they always followed the same pattern of searching a house once they are broken in, normally starting in the main bedroom, because this is the usual place that valuables are hidden, they then cover the remaining bedrooms and the main living room, this has proved to be the most efficient way of finding valuable possessions. One interesting fact that emerged from research conducted with burglars currently serving jail sentences was that they consider children's rooms to be the least profitable to search.

The average time that a housebreaking takes is as little as 20 minutes, the average age in which the first burglary was committed was 13, and two thirds of burglars prefer to work alone. Almost all professional burglars go out with the intention of committing an offence, that is to say it is planned rather than opportunistic though obviously if a ripe target presents itself they will take that opportunity to steal.

The main motivation to commit housebreaking is as one would expect money, over 80% of those surveyed cited this as their major motivation, they would search for a suitable target judging the potential value of that home by the type of car on the drive, any obviously valuable items that can be seen through the windows, the amount of cover that was provided by such things as fences or trees, the presence of an intruder alarm or dog, and signs of owner occupation.

It should be noted that most of those surveyed said that even though they were not put off by an intruder alarm they would normally move on to an easier target if one was available, also one has to take into consideration the bravado of the people being surveyed, do remember they were all convicted burglars serving time in prison at the time of the survey.