According to section 9 of the Theft Act 1968, a person can be prosecuted for burglary if he/she enters a building or part of a building as a trespasser and attempts or succeeds in stealing anything from that building or tries/succeeds to inflict grievous bodily harm to the people inside. The maximum penalty for a burglary charge in UK is 10 years, or 14 years if the offence was committed in a dwelling.
There is also the charge of aggravated burglary when the burglar has with him a firearm, an imitation firearm, a weapon of offence or any type of explosive. This offence is punishable with imprisonment for life or any other shorter term.
What do the stats show?
Sadly, only 1 in 8 victims of burglary recovered their possessions and only 19% of burglaries resulted in convictions, according to the research carried out by the security firm Canary. Here is a list of Britain’s most burgled towns:
- Newcastle
- Brighton
- Leeds
- Manchester
- Edinburgh
- Liverpool
- London
- Nottingham
- Southampton
- Glasgow
The sad thing is that when people hear the alarm they are rather frustrated by it than frightened. Not taking this seriously can lead to tragedies. Only 1.9% of them would alert the police when the alarm goes off.
What if all that’s stolen is data or money from bank accounts?
Your privacy can be invaded in many ways. Although it’s not considered burglary, data stolen through the internet is a serious threat. Loss of personal information can enable malicious people to commit serious felonies like identity theft or plastic card fraud. According to the ONS, 14% of victims of plastic card fraud lost less than 20 pounds, 23% lost between 50 and 99 pounds, and 37% loss between 100 and 500 pounds. However, there are cases where thousands of pounds of stolen.
What can you do against thefts?
In spite of the fact that the burglary threat is very real in today’s UK cities, only 43% of inhabitants own a home security product. If you don’t want to install an alarm, you could at least make sure that your locks are high quality and installed properly. 247 Chicago Locksmith is here to make sure of this.
Coming home to a broken door is a horror scenario and you expect the worst. After the police have cleared the place, you must take care of the broken locks. The expert technicians from the above company will fix the problem right away so that you recover your peace of mind. They are aware of how important it is that their customers feel safe, which is why they provide emergency services at any hour of the day or night. This is the level of professionalism you seek in a locksmith.
While locksmiths protect you against burglaries, computer security protocols are in place to ensure the privacy of your data and to prevent money being stolen from your accounts. Change your password often and pick strong passwords to avoid having your account hacked. A strong password is long and has several types of characters: upper and lower letters, special characters, and numbers.