BURGLARY
INTRODUCTION
Burglary is one of the most rampant crimes in not only the urban but also the suburban areas in many nations. According to the FBI’S Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, burglary is the “unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft” (Criminal Justice Information Services Division, 2010, p. 1). It encompasses the unlawful entry to a structure with or without the use of force. Additionally, any forcible attempt to enter someone’s property is also classified as burglary. The United States of America has exhibited significantly large numbers of the crime.
There has been a significant increase in the number of burglaries in the country over the last decade. In 2009, the FBI recorded approximately 2.2 million cases of burglary. It was a 7.2% increase: with reference to the cases that were reported in 2000. Among other crimes, burglary accounts for over a fifth of all the estimated number of crimes in 2009. FBI’s records show that most of the burglaries involve forcible entry (61%). The burglary cases that involved unlawful entries without the use of force were also significantly high accounting for 32.6% of the burglaries in the same year. The victims of burglaries suffer great losses. For instance, in 2009 the losses due to burglary were estimated at $4.6 billion with “the average dollar loss per burglary” being $2, 096 (Criminal Justice Information Services Division, 2010, p.6). Residential homes are the most preferred target for most burglaries in any given locality. Crimes that involve burglaries have not reduced over the years since FBI statistics show that the rate at which the crime was committed in 2011 was 95.6. In an attempt to curb the crimes in the American society, the law enforcement agencies increased the number of their staff significantly. However, burglary remains one of the greatest challenges to the people’s safety.
Most of the burglary occurs in the suburban areas. The sale of home alarm systems is one of the major indicators of the rate of the crime in any given nation. In the United States, the sale of the alarm systems has risen by 80% since1986 according to a report given by a prominent home security consultant in Newtown (Clark, 1993, p. 770). One of the tough decisions that most city officials have faced in the past decade is allowing households to install private security systems. Many communities that live in the suburban areas have sought the permission of the city officials to install security fences as well as gates. The use of private security systems is common in California, Texas and Florida among others. The fear of burglary has driven individuals to install some of the top-notch security systems in their property. For instance, the St. Petersburg Times reported that one of the private residential developments installed a “$50, 000 hydraulic bollard-an apparatus normally used to protect embassies and nuclear facilities” (Clark, 1993, p. 772). There has also been an increase of walled/gated communities in America. This paper explores the social learning theory and institutional anomie to explain the occurrence of the crime as well as its policy implications.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Social Learning Theory
Social learning is a general social-psychological theory that explains the full range of criminal and deviant behavior, which includes its onset, persistence, desistence and change. It embraces social, nonsocial and cultural factors operating to both motive and control criminal behavioral principles. The theory seeks to explain the acquisition, maintenance, and modification of human behavior. The basic proposition of the theory is that the same learning process in a context of social structure, interaction and situation produces both conforming and deviant behavior-in relation to societal norms. The probability of criminal or conforming behavior is a function of the balance of these risk and protective influences on behavior-not only those that operate in one’s learning history, but also those that operate at a given time in a given situation and those that predict future behavior. Deviant as well as criminal behavior is acquired, performed, repeated, maintained and changed through all of the same cognitive and behavioral mechanisms as conforming behavior.
Akers’ social learning theory is composed of four major concepts. They include differential association, reinforcement, imitation (modeling) and definitions. It postulates that people learn criminal or rather offensive behaviors in the same way they learn noncriminal/offensive behaviors. According to Akers’ theory, reinforcement learning involves getting rewards or punishments for criminal behaviors over time. As far as pro-criminal definitions are concerned, it posits that people who have definitions that favor crime or any other antisocial behavior have a high probability of getting involved in the crime(s) or antisocial behavior(s). The differential association aspect indicates that individuals who spend much of their time with peers that are involved in crime and other antisocial behaviors or peers whose definitions favor such crimes and behaviors are most likely to engage in such behaviors. The imitation component of the theory posits that an individual who witnesses any form of antisocial behavior is more likely to engage in such a behavior in future.
Based on the four components of the social learning theory, the existence and growth of gangs that are involved in burglary is based on the interaction of gangs and their peers in a given neighborhood. Youth gangs have a negative impact on the other youths in the society. By interacting with people with criminal minds, good youths are introduced into burglary. The process of transforming a non-criminal to have a criminal mentality, as aforementioned, is like the normal learning process. One of the reinforcements that gangs use to ensure that their ‘recruits’ stay on course is by giving them rather large amounts of money (Committee on Understanding Crime Trends, 2008, p. 25). Just like other organization, gangs involved in burglary have their set rules and regulations that help to protect their interests in the society. For instance, once an individual has been recruited in a certain gang, he/she is prohibited from informing non-members of the group’s activities. Severe punishment is given to members who violate the rules: reinforcement.
Institutional anomie
The theory is based on a society where social order and integration derive from the establishment of functionally interdependent institutions. There should be a fully integrated network of institutions to avoid the occurrence of crimes in the society. Anomic burglary is associated with times of economic crises when the forces regulating people’s behavior become severely weakened i.e. when ‘normlessness’ ensues.
As stipulated by R. K. Merton, a general theorist, anomie operates in two levels. This includes a macro level involving cultural and social structures and their impact on the members of a society viewed as aggregates and a micro level in the sense of addressing the impact of institutional dysfunctions on the members of the society. The social structure constitutes of different institutions e.g. education systems that provide the legitimate means (institutionalized means) for achieving cultural goals. However, certain goals in the society are seen highly desirable especially the goal of material success. The promise of equal opportunities raises people’s expectations regarding the achievement of this particular goal. According to Merton, a disjunction exists between culture and social culture, a lack of fit between on the hand the heavily stressed goal of material success and on the other the legitimate means available for achieving this goal. This gives a picture of a society where there is an extremely heavy emphasis on goal of pecuniary success, inherent limitations on the achievement of the goal and, none the less, the ideology that stresses opportunities for all. This becomes a source of anomie and deviant behavior among which includes the formation of youth gangs and the indulgence in burglary.
The failure of marriage, one of the most important institutions in a society, has also played a pivotal role in castigating burglary. Broken marriages lead to poor family bond an aspect that limits the level of guidance a child receives from his/her parents. The children from such families are highly vulnerable to becoming members of street gangs involved in burglary among other crimes. In most cases, they easily get entangled in the life of street gangs. One of the major roles of parents to their children is to provide not only material support but also moral guidance. The children from such backgrounds receive little or no moral guidance from their parents. This affects their ability to make informed decisions about the type of people to associate with in any given neighborhood. The agencies that are tasked with preventing drug abuse in many nations have failed to deliver effectively. Cases of corruption in drug trafficking hinder the efficiency of the fight against drug abuse. Drug abuse is one of the factors that fuel the development of street gangs who are involved in burglary. The continued supply of drugs to the street gangs makes it hard for the at-risk individuals/drug addicts to quit using the drugs. Consequently, the individuals continue with the activities/behaviors associated with drug abuse e.g. burglary.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Most criminologists have embarked on finding explanations to the origin, character as well as the persistence of certain crimes inclusive of burglary. Regrettably, policymakers may not be paying adequate attention to such efforts as well as their implications. For instance, in the war on drugs the federal drug-control policy is firmly committed to reducing the supply of illegal drugs. According to the social learning theory, the policy should emphasize on the reduction of demand through treatment, education, rehabilitation and community building. It is unfortunate to learn that from 1996 to 2008 the percentage of federal drug-control dollars spent on reducing the demand dropped from 52.6% to 36.5% (Barlow & Decker, 2010, p. 138). During the same period, the percentage spent on reducing the supply, which includes international interdiction, grew from 21.5% to 38.5 %. Another disheartening aspect is that the there is little evidence that the supply-side approach is working. The poor record of achievement of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program can be termed as one of the causes of the high rates of burglary as far as Aker’s social learning theory is concerned.
Policymakers operate under intense political pressure and are often faced with confusing recommendations from the scientific community. In extreme cases, scholars and practitioners hold totally different views concerning certain issues an aspect that poses a big challenge to the policymakers. In such instances, the policymakers lean on the opinion of the practitioners (the people on the frontline) rather than the scholars who wrote the theory or who do policy analysis. It is fundamental to build an iterative process whereby theory and policy inform each other in an ongoing interaction.
Comprehensive approaches to minimizing street gangs who are involved in burglary as well as other crimes combine suppression and intervention mostly provided via social services. This should follow a holistic approach that typically relies on an array of partners operating in collaboration. Policymakers should ensure that the strategies that they employ in curbing the problem provide conceptual inspiration to address the fundamental causes of gangs. One of the most at-risk groups that should be covered by such policies are adolescents an aspect that calls for the services of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). The strategies employed should focus on improving the opportunities for employment and education that plaque underclass youth. For instance, the Comprehensive Community Wide Approach to Gang Prevention or even the OJJDP Comprehensive Strategy calls for a team of community organizations to deliver the five core strategies through an integrated approach. These include community mobilization; social intervention, including street outreach; provision of job opportunities; suppression and organizational change.
At the individual level, counseling, crisis services and other services should be provided to gang members and fringe members. At the group level, street outreach workers should target gangs and subgroups of gang members for intervention. Organizational change is an important part of this stage of intervention. Suppression can be viewed as an individual level strategy. At the macro-level, the provision of opportunities responds to more fundamental needs of gang members for jobs, job training and education. However, research has shown that successful implementation of this strategy has been hard to achieve.
The explicit failure to address the mid-range theoretical issues e.g. group behavior in relation to the social learning theory is a critical aspect in addressing burglary in any given neighborhood. The amplification of the seriousness and incidence of crime attributable to gang membership represents an important theoretical and empirical premise about gang behavior. Social intervention especially in the form of street outreach workers and suppression should be designed to affect gangs as a group and group process. One of the possible causes of the increase in burglary is the failure to implement proper intervention strategies. This can be perhaps the failure of practice: the inability to hire the right outreach workers; train them properly; monitor their behavior and maintain an appropriate balance of relationships with gangs, gang members, community, police and agencies.
Much of the gang ‘literature’ characterizes gangs as hierarchical formal structures in which communication and relationships are highly structured. This is often reflected in the popular press or the pronouncements of the criminal justice system-stands in stark contrast to an accumulating body of research showing that gangs as groups reflect the age-graded characteristics of their members, are largely flat, and are ineffectual mechanisms for accomplishing tasks in a rational manner. This understanding of micro-level characteristics of gangs certainly seems disconnected from suppression efforts targeted at gangs and may vary from the perceptions of outreach work and other forms of social intervention. In such cases, it would seem that theory and practice are not joined and it is theory that has failed policy.
One of the implications of the anomie institutional theory is that real reduction of burglary would require fundamental changes to the American society and culture. There should be a campaign to enhance the development of strong societal institutions especially marriage/family. The initiative should create awareness on the implications of weak families to the safety of a given neighborhood. Workshops can also aid in the establishment of strong bonds not only between spouses but also between parents and children. This helps parents to control the behavior of their children besides instilling good morals in them. The fight against corruption is also fundamental as it ensures that criminals tried and judged properly.
CONCLUSION
Burglary is a common crime in almost every society. The social learning theories as well as institutional anomie, as discussed above, provide an incredible explanation not only to the occurrence of the crime but also the possible interventions. The social learning theory posits that the criminal behavior is learnt through one’s peers. On the other hand, institutional anomie posits that the failure of the different societal institutions is responsible to the development of gangs who are involved in burglary. To curb burglary the society needs to instill good morals to its members an aspect that has certain policy implications. The criminal justice policy and practice include attention to illegal drug use and trafficking, youth gangs, violent crimes as well as terrorism. These crimes are overlapping and are mutually reinforcing. For instance, in most cases youth gangs who carry out most violent crimes such as burglary participate in drug use. Such convergence is a good illustration of the overlaps in policy and theory. Therefore, there should be mutual understanding between policy makers and theorists.
REFERENCES
Barlow, H., & Decker, S. H. (2010). Criminology and Public Policy: Putting Theory to Work.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Clark, C. S. (1993). Suburban Violence. CQ Researcher, 3, 769-792. Retrieved from
http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Committee on Understanding Crime Trends. (2008). Understanding Crime Trends: Workshop
Report. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Criminal Justice Information Services Division. (2010). Crime in the United States: Burglary.
Retrieved from http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/property_crime/burglary.html
