Research Design Exercise - Case Study Example

Research Design Exercise Introduction No one would ever prefer to live in a highly enclosed condition created by strong iron barred windows and doorswith sophisticated locking systems. But to counter the increasing the menace of burglars it is worthwhile to follow simple precautions that would reduce the opportunity for the thieves to break into house. The ingenuity of burglars are often underestimated and this have given easy ways for the thieves to break into the house. The poor attention taken by the house owners or people residing in the house on the key placement is noticed by the burglers and opens a very easy way for them to enter the house. Having a company of dogs can be a good idea if they are for the protection of life rather than to spend the holiday time. Managing the vegetation around the house is also another important step to be considered towards reducing the burglary (Osborne, 2009). The shrubs present very close to windows could be of much help to the burglars to conceal their presence and help to gain an opportunistic entry into the residence. Thus avoiding such plants and shrubs could certainly minimize the potential camouflage present for the thieves. Another common opportunity available at houses is the openings through which small children could easily gain access. The thieves are known to seek the help of small children and they may even use the some of the facilities available adjacent to the building like floral lattice or props to climb to higher floors or levels even if access is at higher level. Also leaving benches, ladders or steps etc shall be kept in secured condition in garage or suitable place to prevent any chance to brake into the building. Also fixing air flow devices for better air movement and preventing windows from being fully open are another set of solutions that could be considered to minimize the change for burglary (Osborne, 2009). On vacations, the houses would be left closed for large periods. Under such situations it is always necessary to inform the local police about the absence and request to have an attention on regular basis. The community based methods like neighborhood watch practice is considered to be an effective way to control the alarming rise of burglary. If friendly relationship could be established with the neighbours, they could be requested to attend on a daily basis to create a feeling of the presence by opening and closing the windows and moving the curtains etc. Also the routine daily services of newspaper, milk delivery, uncleared letter boxes etc could easily signs of absence to others if nor properly attended when one would be away from home for an extended period. Providing a peephole to identify the caller and fixing a security alarm to bring other to alert on the attempt to burglary are other set of features that could be installed based on the budgetary conditions imposed by each person (Osborne, 2009). Details on the case being analysed The location considered for the detailed study on the burglars consists of a residential area which consisted of 200 terraced houses that are built as two rectangular blocks. The houses are constructed such that all of them faces the road and the rear sides of the houses lie adjacent to each other. In order to have better connectivity across the housing units, inter-connecting alleyways are placed that run in between the gardens. As this location has close proximity to the university campus the students often find this residential area as the ideal place to meet their accommodation needs. This tendency of providing students accommodation is said to cause increase in the burglary incidents in the residential area. There are also other set of factors that adds to this growing menace. Most of the students having possession of variety of equipments like stereos, televisions and computers too attracts the thieves. Also, with large turnover in the residents and very extravagant lifestyles gives ample opportunity for the visitors to understand the system and keep them unnoticed. Further, the layout of the alleyways gives ample opportunity for the escape ways. Methodology in the information collection Thus the effort is to understand what strategy the residents need to accept to free the area from a series of burglaries. The primary task is to understand the nature of burglaries that took place, the time of the incident when it took place, the expected escape routes, type of articles stolen etc. The methodology of data collection is another important step that need to be considered here. The data that need to be collected could be both quantitative and quantitative in nature. The various aspects related to the quantitative details are the specific measurable parameters like approximated value and number of goods stolen, number of goods kept inside the residence, the occupancy pattern like how many days in a week would be house be occupied etc. On the qualitative aspect, the details collected is to have a detailed understanding of the behavioral aspects of the inmates and the understanding they have regarding their own neighborhoods. Some of the details that need to be included in these type of exercises are whether they are aware of the general precautions to prevent burglary in the home. The awareness they all carry about their own neighborhood is another aspect that need to be incorporated in the study. The primary things on awareness include the presence of neighbours in the nearby residential units, whether any problem with the street lighting exist in the locality, in the case of their absence from home what is their practice of managing homes, do they have get together or similar sessions to create a cooperative atmosphere among the residents. In addition, how is the student community influencing the rate of burglary. Being young are they sensitive to cooperative house security initiative etc. Identification of the right investigation method is the most important aspect in any crime investigation programmes. Thus the primary step in any of the crime investigation programme is to preserve the scene with very low levels of rearrangement and damage. Hence, a personal site visit to all the locations reported of the burglary need to be carried out. This would help to bring to light the situations under which the incident took place and also how the each location was modified or damaged to undertake the operation. Further, this would also give the investigators a clue or idea about how various articles or equipments were moved out of the place. This process need to be undertaken expeditiously and methodologically and must be completed before any further data collection exercise is carried out. This must also prevent any modification or alteration by the inmates or others to eliminate any important signs or clues from the place of theft. Also among the other precautions the safety and well being of the officers under the programme also need to be taken care. As the reported thefts happens to be continuous event it is obvious that an establish chain of operators are in action. There is a team of reliable information collectors, operators and final materials disposers who might be performing in a highly synchronizing way. And hence a retaliatory action in the event of the investigation cannot be ruled out. Also it is to be better if the number of person accompanying the team is very few in number as it would be very vital to have efficient investigation exercise. Establishing the reliability of information collected is very vital to come out with specific proposals to prevent any further theft attempts. Hence, an undisclosed monitoring exercise need to be undertaken in the residential area to identify the general movement pattern of the residents and the visitors. This would also give detailed information on the nature of use of roads and alleyways by both the residents and visitors. At certain critical locations, identified based on the site survey, the motion picture cameras need to be installed that are capable of capturing the objects with clearly identifiable features. The information collected could be used to categorize various groups of people and the frequency of movement along with the time of movement. In addition, this type of analysis would also help to identify the persons frequently using alleyways and also the time at which the usage is reported to be maximum. This would help to explore how critical is the alleyways in support the movement of unnoticed visitors rather than the residents in this locality. Further, the behavioral patterns of the student community residing here could be put into detailed scrutiny using motion pictures. The information collected from the routine collection exercises would help in the arriving proper inferences with the supporting evidence from the visual information gathered. Beyond all theses, the repeated appearance of any visitor would be very useful to narrow down to the suspected persons for further investigation process. Prevention strategy The prevention of burglary in the residential area is certainly a cumbersome exercise considering the heterogeneity of the residents and the open-endedness that exist in the layout of the buildings. The strategy for promotion needs to be two folded. The awareness creation and the making all occupants aware of the simple crime prevention tips is the primary step that need to be considered here. An exclusive workshop for the residents could be planned. Further, as it is observed the high mobility or turnover rate of the student group is another issue highlighted. This could be overcome by having an online registering process where the owner is able to register the information on the web site the details of the current occupant in the building. Thus a documentary evidence of all the occupants would be available to the local Police Beat Command Unit. Thus any stranger when located in the residential premises in the odd hours could be easily questioned and also could be detained on suspicion. Thus a strong monitoring programme could be implemented that could help in the unauthorized entry into the residential area. Additional measures that could be initiated are in the modification of the residential buildings. The survey or investigation undertaken could give the chance offered by each building unit for attracting the burglars. These information could be personally communicated and appropriate steps in this direction shall to be initiated soon. Thus each one could be convinced on the vulnerability in their own system and the potential impact it could further cause in future. Such an interactive exercise would be very helpful to clear the wrong notions of security carried by the residents. Through these exercise the occupants shall also be asked to replace their locks fixed to their windows and doors towards strengthening the security. Also another means of improving their own security is by creating co-operative efforts from the neighborhood residents. The information exchange across the neighbors would help to strengthen their mutual relationships and this could be very helpful in obtaining their support during the period of absence. The helping hand from the neighbors would certainly prove to be very effective to prevent any visitor getting any information about the absence. Conclusion The case analyzed in the report highlight the burglary case, which required a immediate police intervention for evolving appropriate steps that could stop the continuous events of burglary getting reported from this area. The peculiarity in the distribution of the occupants where significant number happened to be students, who are only short term occupants, is assumed to be the prime centre of thefts reported from this locality. The investigations planned by the police command involved a detailed data collection exercise using questionnaire interviews and also motion capturing exercise to understand the type and nature of movement of both the people and vehicles inside the residential block. In addition, understanding the vulnerability of residential building due to their settings was also analyzed in detail. Further, an extensive awareness generation sessions that included importance of better management of their premises, maintaining the cooperative sprits with the neighbor hood and controlling the access to the alleyways are other set of measures proposed. Finally, an improved online data management systems to integrate the residential information with the police control unit was also found to be very helpful to contain the sudden rise in the theft cases. Quantitative questions Did the rise in burglary occur when the number of students increased The number of burglaries could be related to the number of houses occupied by the students. It is clear from the plot prepared that the as the number of students occupied houses increases the number of burglaries are also on the rise. There is common belief that the each student would have at least their personal computer, stereo etc which makes the buglers to target student occupied houses for their exercise. The data available from the records too confirm this observation. What evidence is there that the rise in burglary is affecting students more than owner occupiers. The number of cases of burglary is found have an increase when the student occupancy rate is increased. This may also be the reason for the burglary attempts into the other neighborhood buildings and houses. Even when the period of higher number of burglary cases increased, the percentage of the burglary in the student residential units was only 67 percent. Thus the thieves and the motivation also attacked the other houses for the burglary attempts were the students occupancy levels also. Again during the time when the number of student occupancy level were very low as low as 5 percent, the entire burglary took in the students houses only. Thus the prime reason of the rising rate of burglary can be directly related to the number of student occupancy level. How does the rise in burglary relate to the burglars’ choice of escape route. The escape routes had direct correlation with the number of burglaries that took place in a particular instant of time. When low number of cases were reported the dependance of alleyways were assumed to be minimal. While as the number of burglaries increased the search of escape routes were also diversified. More of the dependance on the alleyways were during the time of higher burglary time is a clear indication to all these. Thus it could be inferred that though the alleyways placed a prominent role to providing an easy escape route to the burglars , they were mostly used when increased number of such cases were simultaneously carried out. Also, it is almost certain that the burglary cases are undertaken with clear planning as the alleyways are used only when large number of people need to escape in a short time. Qualitative Questions The questionnaire Personal details Name The house no : Street no Number of occupants in the house. Nature of profession If student, the time since staying & number of inmates. (This question is framed to understand the ability of the sample to give the required information and also to attached a degree of reliability to answers provided) The reason for choosing this residential area for their stay. (This question must be able to clarify why inspite of the dubious distinction of having high levels of theft cases , the students prefers to stay in this locality. Also, the answers could give some clue on the any relationship , if any, exist between the students and the burglers) Have any idea on the protective measures to be taken against burglary (This is to assess the level of information carried by the residents) If yes, different measures undertaken Have had any experience of burglary in the present place of stay. (This is to explore the response of occupants to such an incident and also to understand the methodology of burglary) Have had any experience of burglary in the neighborhood. (This would be helpful to assess the neighborhood strength in tackling the burglary) What mode of operation do you think the burglars would have resorted to in their operation? Do you feel that large number of students in the locality is the prime reason for attracting the thieves? (The general assumption being that, the students are the root cause for this need to be validated.) What reasons forces you to think so What are the items usually targeted in the burglary in this locality and is there any commonality in the type of items stolen. (This is to understand whether the items used by the students are the lone targets in the burglary) Do you think a cooperative intervention by the residents in the area could reduce the burglary events? The answers to this question is to revalidate the earlier question of neighborhood role) References Osborne, L (2009), How to protect your homes against Burglars, [Online] Available at [Accessed on 3 March 2010] Garrison, D H (2009), How to enter the crime scene, [Online] Available at [Accessed on 3 March 2010] Clemens, D W (2009a), Forensic science hollywood style, [Online] Available at [Accessed on 3 March 2010] Clemens, D W (2009b), Burglary investigations, [Online] Available at [Accessed on 3 March 2010] Donald, O S, (1978), Criminal investigation techniques, Gulf Publishing Company, Houston. Read More