Government Offices | East of England

Acquisitive Crime

One of the priority actions for the Government is to ‘continue to make progress on serious acquisitive crime through a focus on the issues of greatest priority in each locality and the most harmful offenders – particularly drug misusing offenders’.

‘Acquisitive crime’ covers aspects of theft and robbery including street crime, business and retail crime and vehicle crime. More information on the national picture

We are working on delivery of the Public Service Agreement (PSA 23) 'Make Communities’. The serious acquisitive crime offences that are included in this PSA are:

Burglary in a dwelling
Aggrevated burglary in a dwelling
Robbery of business property
Robbery of personal property
Theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle
Theft from a vehicle

The latest British Crime Survey (July 2009) shows that the recorded burglary crime rate in the East is four per 1,000 population, the recorded vehicle crime rate is 9 per 1,000 population and the recorded robbery rate is only one per 1,000 population. These are the lowest rates of burglary, vehicle crime and robbery in England and Wales. The risk of household crime in the east is also significantly lower than that for England and Wales.

Tackling prolific and drug misusing offenders are two effective approaches that local partnerships have available to impact on crime, particularly serious acquisitive crime. All local areas should be making appropriate use of established Prolific and Priority Offender (PPO) Programmes and Drug Interventions Programmes (DIP).

Examples of initiatives used to tackle serious acquisitive crime, as well as other types can be found on the national Effective Practice Database or on the Effective Practice page on this website.

Related documents

Approaches to Tackling Distraction Burglary (140kb)

Approaches to Tackling Distraction Burglary – lessons from recent research (139kb)
This report provides guidance to practitioners who are working to tackle distraction burglary. It outlines examples from two evaluated distraction burglary projects which were funded by the Home Office; the Leeds Distraction Burglary Initiative and the Cambridgeshire Distraction Burglary and Rogue Trader Taskforce. It firstly discusses how the problem should be identified in an area, from gathering information on the offender, victim and location of offences. The report then highlights the different approaches which can be taken to tackle the problem, including using situational measures, such as locks and a doorstep calling protocol. Related to this, the report also highlights the use of educational approaches to inform and raise awareness of distraction burglary amongst older, vulnerable residents. The report suggests the use of a multi-agency taskforce involving agencies who directly work with older people on a regular basis to help tackle the problem. Finally, evaluating project activity is discussed as an important part of any project to ensure that effectiveness is examined thoroughly. Further information and website links to agencies working with older people and work on distraction burglary are also provided. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the Home Office (nor do they reflect Government policy)

Acquisitive Crime

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