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Comment by smoe | Hacker News Reader

I don't have numbers, but I don't think there is much home burglary as a crime of opportunity in Switzerland. The places worth entering, usually have good enough security measures, that you need to come prepared and it is going to take you some time. What you usually hear is certain neighboorhoods being scouted for lights being off for longer time, indicating the people are on vaccation. But I don't know in what regards crime predictions systems are useful for that, what value they add.

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Repeat rates are VERY high in burglary. And a person who hasn't burgled is relative unlikely to commit a home burglary even if the opportunity presents. Some neighborhoods without repeaters here all leave their doors unlocked. I grew up in an area like this, never had a house key until I moved away, we would go on months long vacations without locking up the house. Literally EVERY neighbor could have walked in anytime (house was totally dark). It never happened.

Car thefts as well, I lived in a tough neighborhood, same guys checking cars all the time. If these guys were around just roll down windows and leave car unlocked. Still had my car stolen which was annoying.

Interesting.

In the US break ins very much are more likely in less affluent areas.

In Germany it's very much not like that, organized groups (often coming from and returning to eastern european countries) make up a big chunk of burglaries and they are careful to choose areas with a high effort/reward ratio, which are rarely the low income areas.

I think because of low poverty and expansive social nets, crimes out of desperation are rare. E.g. Reducing crime is explicitly one of the main reasons why Switzerland mantains its heroin programme, providing the drug for free to people who have failed mutliple withdrawal attempts.

The risk/reward for small crimes just doesn't check out for almost everyyone. Why a lot of those is in the hands of organised crime that can scale and optimize it and pick out the people willing to do the "last mile" dirty work.

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