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Burglary 'likely to be more common' in PRS areas
Burglary is likely to be more common in areas with higher levels of private rented housing than in social housing neighbourhoods, according to a report by an independent thinktank today.
The Police Foundation has today published a report called Safe as Houses? Crime and Changing Tenure Patterns, analysing the links between tenure and crime patterns in Luton and Slough. The report, which analyses crime and tenure data, said: “It is the level of private renting in an area that best predicts burglary, whereas social renting does not.”
The report suggests that more homes are less likely to be secured properly in areas with higher numbers of private homes.
It said: “Neither private landlords nor transient tenants have meaningful incentives to invest in robust home security, resulting in a concentration of offending opportunities and elevated local burglary rates.”
It also said that in neighbourhoods characterised by population churn and “over-crowded, lower-cost privately rented housing”, residents may lack the confidence and social resources to “challenge and repel potential threats and to come together to achieve security goals”.
The report said the private rented sector has “few in-built mechanisms to control crime.” By contrast in the social housing sector, “An extensive and established regulatory framework has provided the platform for several decades of management activity, design initiatives, mixed tenure polices and partnership work, in part aimed at tackling crime.”
Higher overall crime rates were associated with both private and social rented households, however.
The report makes a number of recommendations. It calls for more powers for councils to establish PRS licensing schemes, minimum standards for door and window locks required on all private rented properties and a change to the Housing Act to place more stringent requirements on landlords to secure properties. It also calls for the establishment of a national register of landlords and for three-year PRS tenancies – both of which were polices in the Labour party’s 2015 election manifesto.
Inside Housing’s Housing Benefits campaign seeks to highlight the wider economic benefits of the work social landlords do, including reducing crime.
