Abstract

The Lincolnshire Burglary Dwelling Model was originally produced by Jupiter in Lincolnshire to assist the County Council and Local Authority Districts with decreasing burglary dwelling. As part of their Public Sector Agreement (PSA) with the Government Lincolnshire's councils had agreed to reduce burglary dwelling from 14.1 to 10.2 crimes per 1,000 households over three years. If this stretched target was achieved the councils would be rewarded financially, however when the model was developed Lincolnshire had been experiencing a rapid increase in the level of this crime.

In order to achieve the target it was vital that the council's Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) received accurate information in a format which members from a range of organisations, and with various levels of knowledge about crime data, were able understand and use. In order to engage as many people as possible hotspot maps were therefore used as the basis of the model.

In addition to the burglary dwelling data, the model showed information on a range of socio-economic factors which the CDRPs may be able to influence. It then aimed to help people understand how they could turn these datasets into intelligence to support their decision making. Information contained in the model included:-

The location of burglary dwelling hotspots and the socio-economic data for those areas;
The areas which have similar characteristics to the hotspot locations and may therefore also be vulnerable areas;
The cost of crime;
The impact of reducing the rate of burglary dwelling across the county.
The burglary dwelling data covered the location of the crime, the time at which it occurred and the method of entry. The socio-economic data centred around information from the 2001 Census, but also included the Indices of Multiple Deprivation. All data was shown using hotspot maps, thematic maps and charts to make interpretation of the data as simple as possible. The disc was made available to all CDRPs in hard copy format and via a secure area of the Lincolnshire Research Observatory website ( www.reseach-lincs.org.uk ).

Since the model was first developed, Lincolnshire has seen a decrease in burglary dwelling from 15.8 crimes per household in 2002/03 to 12.2 in 2003/04 and this is predicted to decrease again to 9.4 during 2004/05. The county is therefore on target to achieve its stretched PSA target. Although this reduction is likely to be due to a combination of factors, the CDRPs have used data from the model to bid for funding and target resources across the county which should have had some impact on reducing the level of burglary dwelling.

The disc is under constant development in light of new data and changes in the CDRPs recording processes. It is currently being updated to include the most recent burglary dwelling data and the Indices of Deprivation 2004. In addition to this Jupiter in Lincolnshire is developing similar interactive mapping tools for the CDRPs to enable them to understand and examine the rates and locations of a range of crime types.