Dulwich (SE21) is UK no 1 burglary hotspot, Herne Hill no 13 (ED is 196th)!

[Sunglasses]

Dulwich (SE21) in south London is the most likely postcode to be burgled anywhere in the UK, according to Moneysupermarket.com. Herne Hill (SE24) is the thirteenth most likely.

As reported in Evening Standard 22nd Jan 2016 and others.

Kevin Pratt, consumer affairs expert at MoneySuperMarket, said: ?Our findings suggest thieves favour busy urban areas where strangers are unlikely to be spotted and it?s easy to make a quick getaway. But leafy suburbs are also heavily targeted, with burglars following the money to affluent areas."

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3410062/Britain-s-burglary-hotspots-revealed-South-London-s-suburbs.html

[nxjen]

No mention in list of SE22, EDF core area!

[EDOldie]

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jan/22/dulwich-village-burglary-hotspot-britain

[Administrator]

That Guardian page links to the forum, that means lots of traffic and a slightly slower forum.

[DulwichFox]

I think that those attacking affluent areas like Dulwich Village are likely to be professional criminals.

SE22 East Dulwich has housing stock more likely to attract opportunist petty criminals.

DulwichFox

[Sunglasses]

EDFers can breathe a sigh of relief, SE22 comes in as the 196th most likely postcode to be burgled in the UK

The local results, in order of disgrace are:

SE21 - 1st

SE24 - 13th

SE23 - 43rd

SE22 - 196th

SE26 - 248th

SE15 - 410th

SE5 - 698th

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/hubs/burglary-hotspots/

[edhistory]

Not "likely to be burgled" but "likely to make an insurance claim for a burglary".

[LondonMix]

This is an important distinction. Those with less money often don't have contents insurance to cover burglary etc. It doesn't mean they aren't victims of crime.

edhistory Wrote:

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> Not "likely to be burgled" but "likely to make an

> insurance claim for a burglary".

[tomskip]

I don't really know why but I find those figures intriguing. SE15 is 410th? Why does the cost of car/house insurance leap up in that post code then? Or perhaps it doesn't these days.

[Jeremy]

tomskip Wrote:

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> SE15 is 410th? Why does the cost of

> car/house insurance leap up in that post code

> then?

I've lived in SW4/SE24/SE22/SE5/SE15 and never really noticed much difference in car or home insurance!

[Penguin68]

The figures are based on number of claims against insurance quotes - thus the uninsured aren't included in this analysis. However, where 100% of houses are insured, then 100% of burglaries will result in claims (give or take). Where only 50% of houses are insured then, assuming that burglars are as likely to steal from the uninsured as the insured then the apparent 'rate' will halve. Indeed, if you make the assumption that if you are insuring things you will improve your security (often an insurance requirement) then burglars may actually target a greater proportion of uninsured (more vulnerable/ less security) homes. So the lower the contents insurance penetration, the lower the same level of burglaries per household will be reported in this type of survey, based only on insured households.

Lies and damned lies, eh?

Edited to add: - Even police statistics don't necessarily help here, as people often only report thefts as part of the insurance claiming process.

[rabbitears]

Claims against policies, surely...

Also, not every burglary of an insured property will result in a claim because some claim values won't exceed the excess. So possibly SE21 is more likely to be insured and moe likely to have expensive things stolen

[Penguin68]

Claims against policies, surely..

Actually, no, I've just re-read the initial article and it's much worse than that - the article says:-

'For every 1,000 quotes recorded that declared a history of burglary, 61.2 were from households in Tulse Hill and Dulwich'

That means (1) that the incidence is past (in the last 3 years normally, I think) and (2) that there is no evidence the quote was taken up. So the 'news' might reflect a past crime spree only... (probably doesn't, but there's no evidence for that). It may also mean only that people in SE21 are more honest about declaring a past history of burglary, or a simply more likely to have lived there for longer (and thus know of a past crime history).

I really wouldn't draw many certain conclusions from this about future dangers.

[James Barber]

It looks like 61 burglaries per 1000 homes over the last 5 years reported for SE21 pot code.

So a 1.22% chance of being burgled each year living in SE21 or once every 82 years.

Is that really a burglary hotspot?

Clearly the stats are meaningless.

It's reported burglaries for insurance purposes. Is it on a price comparison website.

[Mick Mac]

James Barber Wrote:

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> It looks like 61 burglaries per 1000 homes over

> the last 5 years reported for SE21 pot code.

> So a 1.22% chance of being burgled each year

> living in SE21

> Is that really a burglary hotspot?

>

Absolutely - a greater than 6% chance of being burgled in a five year period is horrendous.

[rch]

My experience is that people have lost faith in the system to the point where they don't bother to report, which in turn contributes to our low crime stats.

For instance, my latest community project (in addition to speed monitoring) is to look at ways to support the shopkeepers on Lordship Lane against shoplifting incidents... I know of four separate situations in the past month, of which at least three haven't even been reported to 101.

As a result, it looks like nothing is happening down here, so we get less resources, which in turn lowers confidence and so residents don't report...

[Sue]

Administrator Wrote:

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> That Guardian page links to the forum, that means

> lots of traffic and a slightly slower forum.

They've linked to a thread where the last post was over a year ago :))

[Jeremy]

Sue Wrote:

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> They've linked to a thread where the last post was over a year ago :))

Increased traffic = performance hit, regardless of what posts are being looked at!

[James Barber]

Hi rich,

I suspect SE21 appears high as people are reporting burglaries as a pre requisite for insurance claims.

Hi Mick Mac,

You think something happening once every 82 years makes it a hotspot?

Don't get me wrong we need to decrease crime. But the stats given are meaningless as they require self selection and the website giving the stats is taking a very partial view.

[Penguin68]

The most reliable figures on crime (but not to a postcode or electoral district level) are from the National Crime Survey - all others will be biased by under-reporting to or recording by police. Those figures which stem from insurance claims will tell you only about insured people whose losses are above their excess.

[Mick Mac]

James Barber.

When I quoted your post I deleted your reference to 82 years as it's a bit of nonsense.

Obviously SE21 won't be happy to be top of this list. Expect the wrath of the Village peeps.

[picmicnic]

I guess the point James Barber is that SE21, according to at least one metric, has got the highest burglary rates in the country - that makes it a hotspot (at very least relative to everywhere else)

I would have thought the response from a local councillor (admittably not responsible for SE21) would not be to call the statistics meaningless (fair enough there will be a degree of inaccuracy in them - but there will be some truth in them).

Personally - my perception of burglary in our area (including SE22) is high and would be concern if the local councillors are not taking this seriously.

I agree with Mick Mac - that the quoted burglary rate for SE21 is not acceptable.

[Sue]

picmicnic Wrote:

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> Personally - my perception of burglary in our area

> (including SE22) is high

But is your perception not affected by the fact that we in East Dulwich have a forum, and many people will post on here if they have been burgled?

Whereas most places in London and outside London do not have a forum, so if you live there you will not be likely to hear about most of the burglaries taking place.

[picmicnic]

Yes, my perception is based on the messages in this forum and also from statistic that show we have high burglary rates (have seen those statistics from more than just the article in question)

[rch]

The crime stats in both East Dulwich and Village wards have gone up noticeably in both November and December of 2015, you can look at the Met Crime Mapping and see for yourselves (just keep zooming in on the map until you get to ED ward):-

http://maps.met.police.uk/

Our stats are higher than both Peckham Rye and Nunhead wards...

If people reported more vigilantly, we would probably have even higher stats, which would in turn get more resources directed down here. FYI, I know that there were special temporary burglary patrols in the area because I saw them for myself, but we need something more permanent.

I think this forum is very useful in that people feel safer reporting problems in their road anonymously under pseudos, we just need to find a way to convert this into calling 101 and logging information into the police computer system so that senior Met strategy is changed...

I accept that we don't need as many police resources as the middle and the north of the borough, but we definitely need more than we've got now!