Crime Facts Info

No. 32: Burglary reduction in the ACT

ISSN 1445-7288
3 September 2002

A report released by the Australian Institute of Criminology has evaluated a burglary reduction operation undertaken by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in Canberra in 2001. The report concludes that the AFP were successful in reducing levels of burglary in the ACT by a significant amount. Operation Anchorage employed strategies including the use of surveillance teams, targeting known prolific offenders, traffic enforcement in high-burglary areas, and extensive use of intelligence analysis to focus police efforts. A common criticism against spatially targeted initiatives is that crime will be displaced from the targeted area to other areas; however, the study of Operation Anchorage suggests that such displacement did not occur during the period of the operation.

Number of burglaries in the four studied periods

Source

• Ratcliffe, J. 2002, "Burglary Reduction and the Myth of Displacement", Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, no. 232, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra.

Full report available on AIC web site: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi232.html