Residential burglary in the United States has declined by over 80% across the last four decades, representing a major social phenomenon that remains largely unexplained. International research indicates a need for investigation of the security hypothesis. Here, 50 years of studies are examined chronologically. A consistent narrative emerges which indicates that household security, largely absent in the 1970s, improved gradually over time. Improvement occurred via several mechanisms: the increased prevalence, quality, coverage, and routine use of security fixtures and fittings. In addition, crime displacement declined over time as fewer households offered easy crime opportunities, and the average age of burglars increased as juveniles found burglary increasingly difficult. Hence the study concludes that gradual household security improvements played a central role in the decline in residential burglary. While the findings suggest a considerable revison is needed to our understanding of burglary and burglars, the likelihood that 50 years of diverse burglary research points in the same direction by chance, and without significant contrary evidence, seems remote. Further implications for theory, policy, and research are identified.

在过去的40年中，美国的住宅盗窃案下降了80％以上，这是一种主要的社会现象，至今仍无法解释。国际研究表明需要对安全性假设进行调查。在这里，按时间顺序检查了50年的研究。出现了一致的叙述，表明1970年代基本上不存在的家庭安全随着时间的推移逐渐改善。通过多种机制进行了改进：流行性，质量，覆盖范围的增加以及安全固定装置和配件的常规使用。此外，犯罪流离失所随着时间的流逝而下降，因为越来越少的家庭提供了容易犯罪的机会，并且由于少年发现入室盗窃越来越困难，所以入室盗窃的平均年龄有所增加。因此，研究得出的结论是，逐步改善的家庭安全在住宅盗窃案的减少中起着核心作用。虽然这些发现表明，要使我们对盗窃和盗窃案的理解需要大量的修正，但50年的各种盗窃案研究偶然地指向同一方向且没有明显相反证据的可能性似乎微乎其微。确定了对理论，政策和研究的进一步暗示。