April 29, 2011 by Anas Mustafa
When you look at the latest Toronto stats report for the full year of 2009 produced by the Toronto Police Dept a few things make you wonder. Most serious crimes have all been reduced compared to the previous year except for a few. When you look at the numbers there were 32782 violent crimes in 2008 and a 2.6% decrease in 2009 to 31919. The number is high regardless but at least it is getting better. When you look at the amount of murders and assaults the numbers have also decreased. The amount of stolen vehicles has been reduced from 6688 to 5449. The amount of robberies had a 1.3% decrease as well.
Now when you look at Property Crimes and Break and Enters in most cases it still shows a decline except when it comes to residential home break and enters. In businesses there were 3969 break and enters in 2008 and in 2009 it went down by a great amount of 7.2% to 3684. Apartment Break and Enters went down by a huge 15.3% to 3294. Actual Property Crimes have fell 2.4% from 107,679 to 105,066.
Now when you look at break and enters in houses they went up from a total of 5074 to 5384 which is a 6.1% increase in 1 year. It’s pretty bad when you look at everything else and see that all types of crime in Toronto are being reduced except for home break ins. I want to look at why this could be the case.
Almost every business and apartment has some type of security measure weather it be a security alarm system Toronto, cameras, access control, and or just special locks. I believe that this is a major reason as to why break ins are happening less in these types of environments. The average criminal does not want to get caught by a monitored security system or on camera. The average criminal wants to take the least risk of getting caught and break-in using the least effort. In a business or an apartment it requires a lot more effort than a home. When you look at a house it’s easily for someone to use lock bumping to get through your door, pick a lock, break you patio door, break a window, etc to get in. It takes less effort and in many cases there are more items in a home that a criminal would prefer to take than the items in a lot of businesses. Which criminal wants a new office desk or chair or an empty cash register? Sure there are computers in many businesses and some other valuable items but in many cases there aren’t. But when you look at a home in many cases there is cash or jewellery somewhere in the bedrooms. Also there are many electronics in homes ranging from nice TV’s, computers, laptops, ipads, smartphones, artwork, dvd players, gaming consoles, etc. These items are very valuable to criminals as they can be sold with little effort very quickly. On top of all of that there are still a large percentage of homes that do not yet have any type of security in place (alarm system, cameras, etc.). As more and more consumers decide to get an alarm system or some other type of protection for their home and family the amount of break and enters and assaults will decrease dramatically. The average criminal is not going to break in to a highly secured business or building when there are many homes out there that are not secured and easier targets. Although as long as the amount of homes without a monitored security alarm system is greater than the amount of homes with a monitored security alarm system there will be more and more home break and enters. CSP can offer a Free Wireless Home Security System for those in Toronto and Ontario if you want to look at that option.
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