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Burglary

Definition

The offence of entering a building or structure without authorisation with intent to commit an offence inside. Distinguished from theft by the trespass element. In English law, defined under the Theft Act 1968; in India under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 (Sections 305 to 307).

Related terms

Dark figure of crime
The gap between the actual volume of crime and the amount recorded in official statistics. Crimes go unrecorded when victims do not...
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The relocation of crime following a prevention intervention. Can take five forms: territorial (to another place), temporal (to another time), target (to...
Hot products (CRAVED)
The acronym CRAVED (Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable, Enjoyable, Disposable) describes the characteristics that make consumer goods attractive theft targets. Developed by Clarke...
Routine activity theory
A criminological framework developed by Cohen and Felson (1979) that explains property crime as the product of three converging elements: a motivated...
Situational crime prevention (SCP)
A strategy targeting specific crime types by modifying the immediate environment to reduce opportunity. SCP operates through five categories of technique: increasing...

Explained in

  • Property Crime and Economic OffendingThe offence of entering a building or structure without authorisation with intent to commit an offence inside. Distinguished from theft by the trespass element...

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