Tag Archive for: Opportunity

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Understanding Opportunity

In our last post, we touched on Motive and Means and the role they play in criminal activity.

We also pointed out there is virtually nothing you can do to affect a criminal’s Motives and relatively little you can do to limit a criminal’s Means to break into your house or vehicle.

Opportunity – the third part of the triad – is one that you most definitely control.

In a criminal’s mind, an ideal opportunity has 3 components: 1., Time to perform his activity, 2., relatively low Risk of being caught and 3., high Return on his/her efforts.

Ultimately, a thief will look for the easiest target to hit with the lowest risk of being caught. You may not be able to make your entire neighbourhood safer, but you can make your home much less attractive an opportunity.

Time

The more time a burglar feels he has to enter and go through your house, the more likely your home will be a target.

He needs time to pick a lock on one of your exterior doors. He needs time to jimmy a window.

Once he’s inside, he needs time to find and identify the goods he wants to steal, pack them up and leave your home with them.

Your best defense against a burglar is to not give him time to do his thing.

Value

What a criminal considers valuable depends, to a certain extent, on his motives.

If it is a drug addict or casual thief looking for a source of cash, it will be cash he can find or anything he thinks he can quickly convert into cash. This probably includes things like TVs, computers or jewelry he can pawn or sell.

If it’s a professional burglar, it could mean artwork, coin collections and jewelry. It could also include your car.

Risk

To a criminal, risk most often means the chance of being caught. Secondarily, it could mean the risk of getting hurt in the commission of a crime – for example, falling from a roof while trying to enter or exist a residence.

Visibility is one risk factor. The risk of being caught increases the more a criminal is likely to be seen or observed attempting to enter or leave your home. If he feels he can work unobserved for enough time to enter your home, your home is probably a target.

Noise is another risk factor. Noise draws attention from people who may not be able see the criminal working. The sound of breaking glass or a dog barking can alert neighbours to his actions.

The other risk factor is danger. Climbing up the outside of an apartment building poses a greater risk of falling than climbing in a ground floor or basement window. The average criminal doesn’t want to get hurt on the job.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So far, we’ve identified that your risk of being a target of crime is related to the criminal’s motives, the available means to commit a crime and the perceived opportunity your house or car or business represents.

We’ve also learned that Opportunity is the one aspect of a crime that we have the most power to control.

Future posts will discuss different types of crime and what you can do to prevent them.

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MOTIVE + MEANS + OPPORTUNITY = CRIME

In our first LBNA Community Safety Survey, property crime emerged as the second-highest concern among Long Branch residents.

Imagine coming home at night and finding it looking like the above photo.

When you’ve been the victim of property crime, it’s also usually accompanied by a feeling of violation. Your personal space has been breached by someone. Items that have emotional value to you have been taken away or damaged by someone.

It will never be possible to eliminate the threat of property crime, but it IS possible to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of property crime.

An important step towards reducing that risk is to understand how criminals think.

Most police services – including the Toronto Police Service – train their officers on a triad of risk factors that are behind most crimes. The model consists of 3 factors: Motive, Means and Opportunity.

MOTIVE

Motive is simply the reason why a criminal perpetrates a crime.

It could be any of a number of things: to fuel a drug habit, to get money, the thrill or a personal vendetta, to name just a few.

Of the three underlying factors for crime, Motive is not something we, as homeowners or tenants, can influence, let alone control. We just have to accept that and work on the other two factors.

MEANS

Means deals with how the criminal commits his crime.

Means can include the tools needed to commit the crime, specialized knowledge or skills…..

Let’s look at two examples to better understand this.

Let’s say the means of entering a home or business is by picking the lock on the door. There are lock-picking tools burglars can acquire that enable them to manipulate the tumblers on a lock so they can open it. The burglar needs the knowledge of how to use these tools and the skill to actually open the lock quickly.

There’s probably nothing you can do to prevent the burglar from acquiring or using these tools.

For our second example, suppose the means of entering the home was by gaining access through a window on the second floor of the house. One way to access the second floor could be by using a ladder to climb up to the window. Another could be by climbing up a trellis or a railing of some kind.

This is where you, as a homeowner or tenant, can influence your risk of being victimized.

While our burglar using a ladder could bring the ladder with him (or her), it would be very obvious to someone looking out their window or passing by in a car.

It’s more likely the thief would try to use a ladder he found on your property. Or, as we suggested, he could try climbing up a trellis or railing or stand on recycling or garbage bins to be able to reach the second floor.

If you keep your ladder locked up – ideally in a locked garage or shed – it makes it much more difficult for a burglar to be able to use it.

OPPORTUNITY

The factor over which you have the most control is opportunity. But we’re going to save that for another post. Watch for it!

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