Criminal Minds
 

Kenneth Nicholson found out the hard way that a life of crime doesn’t pay off.  Before his arrest five years ago, Nicholson averaged two home burglaries and $2,000 a day.  In 2003, after being found guilty of over 40 burglaries, Nicholson was sentenced to 35 years behind bars, but he claims he’s a changed man and that he no longer has a criminal mind.  He actually wants to help prevent burglaries.  “I now understand that being the victim of a burglary is a terrible ordeal, and I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life trying to prevent these crimes from happening.”

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The Unthought-of

Nicholson would walk down the road looking for his next victim’s home.  “The criminal mind is equipped with a sixth sense,” he said, “I just knew what to look for outside the houses I would hit.”

The normally unthought-of constantly runs through the criminal mind.  Forgetting to trim your trees, close a window, or breakdown a box before taking it out to the trash could possibly lead to a costly burglary.  According to Nicholson, “I constantly hit houses with high fences, trees, and hedges that I could hide behind.  And if there was a TV box out on the curb, I new I’d hit a gold mine.”  

Walking away from an easy target is often impossible for the criminal mind, and people often unknowingly make their homes easy targets.  It’s the little things that slip our minds that make homes so attractive to the criminal mind, such as:

  • open windows
  • unlocked doors
  • open garage doors

When and How a Criminal Mind Works

The criminal mind knows what it’s doing.  The majority of burglaries take place during the day, when most people are at work and children are at school.  Nicholson worked on weekdays around 4:00 pm. because “that’s when stay-at-home-mothers were picking up the kids from school and everyone else was at work.”

Preparing for a burglary takes longer than the crime itself.  The criminal mind spends a significant time casing a home before burglarizing it.  On average, burglars spend around 30 to 45 minutes choosing the house, less than 1 minute trying to break in, and about 20 minutes inside the home. 

Criminal Mind Deterrents

Even a criminal mind comes with a little common sense.  Most burglars, if they think there’s a good chance of getting caught, move on to a different, more accessible home.  Nicholson said that throughout the 18 years he burglarized homes, he would always avoid ones that had any of the following:

  • a gravel path – the noise made when walking on it draws unwanted attention
  • a security system – why even chance it?
  • plants with sharp spikes or edges – leaving blood at the scene is always a bad idea
  • CCTV – a video tape can prove a burglar’s guilt
  • a dog – barking attracts unwelcome attention to a burglar

Nine out of ten burglaries go unsolved, and one in ten turn violent. And with stakes this high, leaving your home’s security to chance only makes sense to the criminal mind.

 

Ralph Winn publishes articles, guides and reviews on security related topics. Ralph Winn has over 32 years of education and experience in the security industry. Your home should be your haven where you feel comfortable and secure. Everybody deserves to feel safe in their own home. The world around us can get hectic at times, and it's important to have a place of safety we can retreat to when times are tough. That's why our goal at the home security store is to help you find the best way to provide a protected environment for you and your loved ones. Ralph has created a user-friendly security forum for you to get answers.