Vehicle Crime Reduction: Turning the Corner
September 1999
Foreword
In September 1998, the Prime Minister announced a national target to reduce vehicle crime by 30% over five years. Building on a 28% reduction witnessed in the
previous five years, this is clearly an ambitious target that will require a concerted effort by all those involved in vehicle crime prevention work. The Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team (VCRAT), a multi-agency group formed by the Home Office in 1998 to oversee vehicle crime work, was tasked with co-ordinating efforts to achieve the 30% reduction target.
One of the first actions of VCRAT was to commission a review of research and statistics relevant to the target. This report provides the findings from that review. The report highlights some of the key issues that will need to be addressed if the 30% target is to be achieved. The report concludes with a number of recommendations that help to clarify the priorities for a vehicle crime reduction strategy.
Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, Home Office, September 1999
The recommendations can be found at pages 53 to 58 (of the pdf numbering). At page 56 can be found comment upon casual ‘taking’ (temporary use*)
- Most notable is the distinction between those who steal vehicles for temporary use and those who steal them for professional gain, although recognising that the former may often be a pre-requisite to the latter in a criminal career.
- At the national level temporary theft is a greater problem in volume terms than professional theft.
The incidence of ‘temporary taking’ was common; in the 1990’s vehicles could frequently be taken by use of brute force to overcome physical security, locks/switches.
Vehicle manufacturers had causal/temporary taking in hand. Transponder keys & EMU’s (engine management units) meant, having forced their way into a vehicle, a criminal was stumped; no key = no start=no drive away. In the absence of a key containing a ‘code’ which the EMU recognised, the crook could attack the ignition and its wiring (trying to ‘hot wire’) until exhaustion set in; unless the EMU received the key’s ‘password’ it would not authorise the engine to fire up.
Authorities knew this.
- As the 30% reduction target is a volume target, an emphasis should therefore be placed on tackling those involved in temporary theft
The 1999 report can be found online here, it can also be read here.
*whilst the report refers to those who ‘steal for temporary use’, this is unhelpful. The acts are:
- Taking; the casual, temporary, removal often referred to as joy-riding or TWoC
- Theft; a removal with the intention to permanently deprive.