Program Profile: Regulation of Built-In Home Security (Netherlands)

In the Netherlands, a large-scale government intervention led to a regulation requiring built-in home security in all newly constructed homes. The program is rated Promising. The regulatory change statistically significantly reduced the risk of burglary by 26 percent compared with homes built in the years prior to the passage of the regulation. There were no statistically significant effects on measures of attempted burglary.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals/Program Components

In the Netherlands, a large-scale government intervention led to the passage of a regulation requiring built-in home security in all new homes constructed after January 1, 1999. The regulation (which changed the country’s Building Code) requires homebuilders to meet legal requirements for built-in security in order to obtain a building permit. For example, home builders must use certified burglary-proof locks, as well as burglary-proof windows and door frames (certified materials are identified by checking for a punched hallmark showing two stars). The regulation also specifies which areas of the home need to be fitted with secured doors and windows, and excludes those that can’t be reached by burglars. The goal of the regulation is to reduce the risk of property crimes, such as burglary and theft from cars, by requiring the use of self-protective measures in all newly built homes.

Most newly built homes in the Netherlands are part of large-scale housing projects in which homebuilders use standardized materials to meet the legal requirements of the regulation. One option that homebuilders have is to use a package of built-in security measures called Secured by Design (PKVW, which in Dutch stands for Politiekeurmerk Veilig Wonen). The security measures of PKVW not only meet the requirements of the regulatory change, but exceed them by encompassing additional measures such as burglary-proof garage doors, unobstructed views of parking lots, and limited access to back alleys. PKVW was becoming increasingly popular around the time the regulatory change was passed. Some municipalities have encouraged homebuilders to adopt the measures included in PKVW, although there is no legal obligation to do so.

Target Sites

Since 1999, all newly built homes in the Netherlands are required to have high-quality locks and burglary-proof windows and doors. From 1999 to 2010, approximately 650,000 new homes have been built in the country.

Program Theory

The theoretical underpinnings of the regulatory change can be found within the Situational Crime Prevention framework (Clarke 1983). The regulation relies on target hardening measures which offset the balance of effort, risk, and reward as perceived by those who may consider committing an offense, such that choosing to burglarize such properties becomes undesirable. Although home security is now automatically included in newly built homes as a result of the regulatory change to the Building Code, effort is still required on the part of potential victims in order for the preventative measures to have the desired effects (i.e., individuals must close and lock all doors and windows for the protective features to work).

Study 1

Vollaard and van Ours (2011) studied the effect of a large-scale government intervention in the Netherlands designed to take precautionary measures against property crimes using a quasi-experimental design. A regulation was passed in the Netherlands that required all new homes built after January 1, 1999, to have built-in home security (including high-quality locks and burglary-proof windows and doors). The Building Code was changed accordingly. The change in the Building Code provided a natural experiment in the regulation of self-protective measures, and allowed for the comparison of burglary rates in homes that were built before and after the change in the regulation. Households were assigned to the treatment group on the basis of the year of construction of the home they lived in.

Data was collected from four different sources. Crime data was obtained from the National Victimisation Survey (VMR). The VMR is a repeated cross-section telephone survey among the Dutch population aged 15 or over. All four waves of the VMR, from 2005 to 2008, were used. The second dataset was the National Building Register (Woningregister) which provided information on the characteristics of homes. The third dataset was administrative data on all addresses of homes that were certified Secured by Design (PKVW). Finally, information on the type of neighborhoods was provided by the Dutch research institute ABF Research.

Although the change in the Building Code allowed for a natural experiment, there were other factors that may have affected the burglary rates other than the built-in security measures, including selection effects, the age of the home, changes in characteristics of the homes, and the characteristics of the neighborhood. To address possible selection effects, a number of individual household characteristics that may be related to the preference for security were included in the analysis, including the level of education and household composition. With regards to the age of the home (where newly built homes tend to be occupied by households with young children and working parents), the presence of children aged 14 or below in the household and a number of other household composition characteristics were included as control variables to prevent an upward bias estimation. Cohorts of homes from different construction years may differ in ways that affect their risk of burglary. To address those cohort effects, a number of observable characteristics of the home, its occupants, and the neighborhood at the cohort level were included as explanatory variables. Finally, characteristics of the neighborhood were addressed by including a control variable for the visible presence of police in the neighborhood.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: