Effects of Vandalism in Schools

BURGLARY IN SCHOOLS
The prospects for prevention

Tim Hope

RESEARCH AND PLANNING UNIT PAPER 11
London: Home Office

Crown Copyright 1982

RESEARCH AND PLANNING UNIT PAPERS 'Research and Planning Unit Papers ' contain material of a rather more specialised nature than that which appears in the Unit 's main publication outlet, the
Home Office Research Studies series. As with that series, they result from research undertaken in the Home Office to assist in the exercise of its administrative functions, and for the information of the judicature, the services for which the Home Secretary has responsibility (direct or indirect) and the general public. On the last pages of this Paper are listed titles already published in this series (the first four titles were known as Research Unit Papers), in the
Home Office Research Studies series and in the earlier series Studies in the
Causes of Delinquency and the Treatment of Offenders.

ISBN 0 86252 070 3
ISSN 0262 - 1738

ii

FOREWORD
This paper reports research carried out in London on burglaries in schools.
Like other recent studies of burglary, it concludes that local circumstances, principally of design, were an important (if not the only) determinant of crime, and that any measures taken to reduce the opportunity to commit this offence must be to an extent tailored to the local situation.

I J CROFT
Head of the Research and Planning Unit

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank those officers of the Inner London Education Authority and the Greater London Council who provided advice and a s s i s t a n c e during the research and also the headteachers and schoolkeepers of the schools involved in the project for kindly giving their time.

TIM HOPE

iv

CONTENTS

Page

Foreword

iii iv Acknowledgments
Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 2

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHOOL
BURGLARY

5

Chapter 3

BURGLARY AND SCHOOL DESIGN

9

Chapter 4

References: other parts of the world (cf. National Institute of Education, 1978). Schools are also more likely to be set on fire (which may be a consequence of burglary) than all other classes of property (Home Office, 1980). The means to control crimes against public property may well lie more in the hands of local authorities than the police (Clarke, 1978; Morris and Heal, 1981). Local education authorities already take practical steps to protect their property from burglary and vandalism but there is (Schaffer, 1980; Moore and Brown, 1981). This can involve the police in helping local authorities to safeguard their property and drawing their attention to the crime prevention implications of day-to-day policies and practices (Engstad and Evans, 1980) There seem to be four broad approaches which underlie many of the suggestions made for preventing property crime in schools (Hope, 1980). These can be thought of as the therapeutic approach, the school reform approach, There is little in the way of reliable evidence to suggest which of these courses are useful at first sight (Hope, 1980) including violence and vandalism (cf.National Institute of Education, 1978; Rutter et al., 1979) 1. This estimate is based on figures supplied by the Metropolitan Police Rutter et al., 1979 less property crime if their pupils and the surrounding community hold them in high regard (Stone and Taylor, 1977); yet it would be a considerable useful in the prevention of a wide range of offences (Clarke and Mayhew, 1980) Hough et al., (1980) define situational crime prevention as "measures directed at highly specific forms of crime which involve the management, for these crime as perceived by a broad range of offenders". Clarke (1980) notes that this approach assumes that offenders choose to commit offences property and the extent to which there are opportunities for others to witness crime taking place (Mayhew et al., 1976) Although manipulating opportunities may be easier than altering the motives of offenders (Clarke, 1980), such manipulation may nevertheless entail certain practical difficulties (Reppetto, 1976). Clarke (1978) has suggested that r . is necessary "to match our understanding of factors contributing f