Home Invasions: Your own fault?
pO157.
Posted to Legal on Fri Jul 18, 2008 at 06:03:26 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.
Very few things scare the average person as much as a story about violent, seemingly random home invasions, especially if it was in their own locale. While these attacks usually grab newspaper headlines far and wide, very few people say the victims were asking for it or brought it on themselves in some way. Very few, except for some police officials in Texas, who suggest that many of the victims were at risk because of their lifestyle or were actually involved in illicit activities.
The JonBenet Ramsey case hit the headlines again this month as new DNA evidence suggested the crime could be the work of an intruder as one detective originally hypothesized. A letter from the District Attorney responsible for the case admitted that new DNA evidence had forced them to conclude that no member of the Ramsey household could have been involved. But some detectives told the Houston Chronicle that these types of situations are extremely rare. They argue that while individual horror stories of roving gang members armed to the teeth and invading random homes at gunpoint may occur, in all likelihood the victims are known to the attacker or are involved in some kind of crime that would attract unsavory characters.
Harris County, TX Detective Rolf Nelson relates the story of a recent high profile case of a man who allegedly murdered his wife but tried to blame a mysterious thief who broke in at random. Detective Nelson says that in his almost two decades of experience as a police officer that these nightmarish situations are very rare and unlikely. He estimates that 75% of all home invasions (a situation where a criminal or a gang of them breaks into a structure that is occupied; generally considered an extremely violent crime compared to other offenses) are gang or drug related where the victims brought it upon themselves by engaging in illegal activities. Most of the rest are due to thugs targeting law-abiding citizens known to have large amounts of cash on them, with the remaining 10% composing the actual random nightmare attack homeowners fear. For a county with over 3.4 million people, Detective Nelson's agency responded to 171 home invasions during the previous 18 months (although the number may actually be a bit higher because attacks where the residents were murdered are recorded as homicides, and events where the intruders flee before the officers arrival are recorded as simple burglary).
Margo Frasier, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston University agrees. She says that most criminals don't want the hassle of dealing with an aggrieved homeowner. "They don't want anybody there because they really don't want the confrontation with the homeowner." When they do happen, she usually wonders what the victim did to precipitate the attack:
I wonder what the connection between the victim and the perpetrator is. It usually turns out that the person who does the home invasion has some kind of connection with the victim or a family member.
Even if the chances of an event occurring are quite slim, homeowners remain afraid. A recent survey in the United Kingdom demonstrated that the fear of a burglary is higher than any other, including identity theft or a disaster hitting an owners dwelling.
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