Tech’s Sneak Attack on the Burglary Business
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It’s no secret that digital disruption is transforming how we work, shop, and travel. We hear a lot about connectivity’s power to transform nebulous things like our IT services and data management. But what about social issues on the fringes — like crime prevention?
The popular misconception of a burglar is a prowler in ski mask and crowbar. But old-school crime like burglary is changing fast.
Blame technology.
When today’s thief gets inside your house, the classic number-one prize — cash — may not be there. And houses are harder to slip in and out of, with the rise of nettlesome alarm systems and cameras. Even moves like snipping an alarm’s landline connection are clichéd; the latest home alarms eschew wires in favor of cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity.
Burglary, meet digital disruption.
Disrupting the Art of the Steal
In reality, the business of break-ins is currently in flux. Jay Albanese, chair of University of Virginia’s criminal justice programs, says that large disruptive technologies and the cultural shifts they produce have likely contributed to a decrease in US robberies. “The whole nature of burglaries has morphed,” he says.
And while experts like Albanese say shifts to cashless systems like electronic benefit transfers and debit cards for welfare disbursements are likely dampening burglary’s payout, federal crime stats still clock an average of one burglary every 20 seconds. Not only did this amount to an estimated $3.6 billion in property losses in the US last year, but only 13 percent of those break-ins resulted in arrests. Burglary hasn’t disappeared — it has merely evolved.
Things are evolving on the prevention side, too. Home security systems, which have received a big IoT-fueled boost in recent years, are cited as the classic deterrent. Neil Ruskin, a Brooklyn criminal defense lawyer for more than 40 years, flatly states that “the average burglar is not going near a home with an alarm system.” Albanese agrees: “It’s much more rational,” he says, to break into a place that doesn’t have those “barriers” that make it more likely to get caught.
If the trend of affordable, sensor-enabled, self-install systems continues, experts believe even low-income homes should soon be able to upgrade their home security. Volkan Topalli, a criminal justice professor at Georgia State University who has spent 18 years conducting interviews with more than 300 burglary offenders in Atlanta, New Orleans, and St Louis, says that within the next decade, home security will likely include innovations like near-field sensors in high-value homes. “That’s the next technology on the horizon,” he says. The idea would be a sort of digital sonar where motion anywhere trips the alarm, as opposed to the traditional infrared beam.
As it turns out, incremental innovations like these can go a long way toward disrupting the classic routine burglars use to maximize profit. Richard Thomas Wright, chair of the criminology department at Georgia State University, says that the “cognitive script” prowlers traditionally stick to puts a premium on stashes of jewelry, guns, and cash located in the master bedroom. To put this in perspective, a research study from the University of North Carolina criminal justice department found that most burglars (79 percent) break in looking for cash. A smaller amount (56 percent) go for the gadgets. Until the traditional burglary script makes the digital leap, diminishing returns for prowlers are the likely norm.
Breaking the Business of Home Security
Meanwhile, on the other side of the law, the Internet of Things has introduced the world to wireless security systems that address the need for more affordable break-in “barriers.” Powered by a decade-long shift to robust cellular coverage, wide availability of wireless sensors and ubiquitous smartphone access, the newest systems are disrupting old-school business models and “cognitive scripts” alike.
Entrepreneur Chad Laurans, founder of the self-install security system startup SimpliSafe, says the industry standards of lengthy contracts, landline connectivity, and mandatory home ownership presented the perfect opening for a new model. “We didn’t go out to found an Internet of Things company, we went out to solve a particular problem.”
The problem for Laurans happened to be a recent rash of burglaries that affected three of his college friends. He realized he could build a new system using wireless technology and so eliminate the need for hardwiring (the mainstay of traditional companies). The strategy was to both design and build a system free of landline constraints while offering consumers the same tried-and-true protection of professionally monitored home security.
Designing a dependable system that spoke to those needs involved bootstrapping the first-generation product, doing everything from product to hardware and software engineering, while also testing the performance of different wireless technologies. By building the system piece by piece he could craft something that worked for just about any connected customer on their own terms. For Laurans, this meant engineering a system that provides reliability, simplicity, and an intuitive interface — while also ditching the industry norm of mandatory long-term contracts.
This unconventional approach solved a real problem for both his friends and other consumers: Laurans started out small by selling to friends, but today SimpliSafe’s systems protect over a million Americans. In capitalizing on a technological shortfall, Laurans found a clever way of disrupting both the cognitive script of burglary and the home security industry’s business model.
But what happens if burglars tip things back in their favor? Laurans says he’s ready to respond: “There’s still a ton of change needed in this industry. It’s only just begun.”
This story was produced by the WMG Brand Lab for SimpliSafe.
