Postcodes map out crime hot spots

A ‘postcode map’ of the Scottish addresses most likely to be attacked - or avoided - by burglars has been compiled by the insurance industry.

And it reveals that anyone with the postcode starting G12 8 is living in Scotland’s housebreaking hotspot and will have to pay the price in higher premiums.

The 2,239 addresses with this code, centred on the east end of Great Western Road, have an 11% chance every year that they will be burgled.

Taking the dubious honour of second place is Edinburgh’s EH1 1, a total of 1,494 addresses on and around the High Street, where there is a 10% annual chance of a break-in.

Safest, according to the insurance industry, is the Orkney postcode starting KW17 2. Here, there is just a 1.49% annual chance that the area’s 3,534 homes will be targeted.

The figures also reveal that homes in upmarket areas of Scottish towns and cities are just as likely to fall victim to housebreakers as the poorest schemes.

Those living in the salubrious G12 9 Kelvinside area of Glasgow, which encompasses streets such as Dowanside Road, Westbourne Gardens and Clarence Drive, face an 8.2% risk of burglary.

However, residents with a G34 0 postcode, chiefly the deprived area of Easterhouse, face a 7.8% risk. Similarly, G45 0 Castlemilk postcodes face a 7.5% risk.

In Edinburgh, New Town dwellers with an EH3 6 postcode, an address encompassing Cumberland Street, Fettes Row and Drummond Place, face a 7.9% risk of burglary. This is higher than those living in areas such as Craigmillar and Wester Hailes which have much higher levels of unemployment and poverty.

The worst housebreaking areas of Scotland are overwhelmingly concentrated on Glasgow and Edinburgh with only Dundee’s Nethergate - postcode DD1 4 - in the ‘top 10’.

Beyond Orkney, homes in Dumfries and Galloway and Aberdeen tend to be the least likely to be violated.

The research, which is used by insurance companies to help set household premiums, weighs up the likelihood of a burglary being committed within every major residential area in Scotland based on the first section of its postcode.

Face-to-face interviews were carried out with 40,000 people, who were asked about their experiences of break-ins.

They were also asked about their experience of car crime and this revealed that the EH 1 1 postcode is the worst in Scotland for car theft as well as being second-worst for housebreaking.

The annual chance of a car being stolen in this part of Edinburgh’s Old Town is a shocking 37%, according to the industry figures. Cumberland Street, Glasgow, and William Street, Dundee, come in second on 32%.

But crime experts say the toll in human misery revealed by the burglary statistics is difficult to overstate.

The impact is all the more severe because previous victims are more likely to be targeted than people whose homes have never been broken into.

Research carried out for the Scottish Executive confirmed the problem of ‘repeat victimisation’.

Criminals, either because they are familiar with the layout of a property they have burgled, or sometimes out of sheer laziness, are liable to target the same property over and over again. They will even target similar properties on the same side of the street.

Andrew Buckingham, spokesman for Victim Support Scotland, said: "Burglary is the most feared crime of all, even higher than assault and domestic violence.

"The effects of burglary range from shock to anger, despair, strong feelings of personal invasion and complete loss of confidence in society. It can takes months or even longer to get over the effects of being burgled."

But Buckingham said there were simple measures that victims could take to reduce the risk of being attacked again.

He added: "It is sad fact that if you are burgled once, there is a likelihood that it may happen again. That is why it is sensible to get your locks changed, keep your windows shut and to get in touch with the crime prevention officer at your local police office to find out what other sensible precautions you can take."

Crime experts told Scotland on Sunday that they were not surprised that burglars were targeting residential areas with expensive properties because they offered the highest reward.

Paul Arnell, senior law lecturer at Robert Gordon University, said central Edinburgh was prone to burglaries because there were a large supply of soft targets, expensively furnished properties which were often unoccupied for long periods.

At the same time, the city’s drug problems meant Edinburgh had a larger pool of potential offenders than other areas.

He said: "One may think that relatively prosperous areas would have less burglaries in that there would be fewer likely offenders in them. However, these figures support the view that crime is a multi-faceted problem and not dependent upon economic deprivation alone."

Conditions were different in rural areas where properties were more regularly occupied and the number of possible offenders was much lower, Arnell said.

He added: "In relatively small communities there is undoubtedly a greater ‘sense of community’ leading to official or unofficial neighbourhood watch schemes and a lesser degree of migration of persons."

Dr Anne Reuss, senior tutor in criminology at the University of Abertay, said areas most at risk from burglary were those with a high disparity of wealth. She said: "Prosperous areas in Edinburgh may be most subject to burglaries because they look prosperous, and may well contain expensive consumer items that many people aspire to own and for many complex reasons, don’t or cannot."

Areas considered to be the safest would most likely be those whose residents are all relatively well-off and hence no pose no threat to each other, she added.

A spokesman for Strathclyde Police said there had been a 21% fall in break-ins at residential and business premises in the city centre in the past year.

The spokesman said: "I do not have figures to suggest that these are problem areas. If there was a spate of break-ins in an area, we would try our hardest to make sure these areas were getting extra attention, but it depends on resources.

"There are times when we have had a purge on house break-ins but we cannot go into what areas have been targeted.

"Policing strategies and targets are very significant," the spokesman said. "Some forces will target this type of crime more than others to show they are addressing this problem."