By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

I came across an interview with a convicted burglar who agreed to discuss his tradecraft and thought it could offer many an opportunity to learn how one can protect their own property and homes from invasion by burglars.

The convicted burglar claims over a hundred residential burglaries during a twenty-year crime spree before finally being brought to ultimate justice. He provides his police interviewer with a candid insight into his “trade” which soon becomes evident to the viewer that he goes about his crimes with a professional approach where if the illegality of his deeds was not considered, he would otherwise seem as though he was developing a niche market in the ordinary business sense. 

It should be recognized that our interviewee in my experience is not a typical burglar who operates mostly on opportunity and luck. Yet for a certain demographic of citizen, mainly of those in upper-income neighborhoods, this type of burglar cannot be safely dismissed of discounted.

At the very least the reader can benefit from a perspective as to what motivates the mind of a professional felon.

The video was made in 2015 and some of the technical details of home alarm systems are a bit dated, but the general information remains relevant.

As an aside, I should also mention the folly of pre-judging individuals and making much effort to lay blame or outrage against a person who might offer useful information. Here the police sergeant interviewer approaches the topic in a neutral manner–talking with this felon in the same manner that he would be interviewing a tradesman or prominent citizen. It seems clear that many of the approaches used to develop his criminal methodology mirror those of other occupations or organizations, and it is interesting to see how the application is similar. But like most human relationships simply attacking the person for being unpopular or dismissing them as having nothing of value to offer might be gainful in the short term, it represents at times a strategic blunder in that they “clam up” and not freely give away all their secrets.

Here is the video

By Darren Smith

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