New patterns in residential burglary: The method of deadbolt lock picking

Abstract

This article examines the adaptability of burglars and tactical displacement in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, as part of an ‘arms race’ escalating in response to the sophistication of offensive and preventive measures. It describes the current method of picking deadbolt locks on steel doors inside apartment buildings, a procedure requiring a more complicated and collaborative effort. Following a Bourdieusian criminological reading determining the script and resources of a group of active offenders that function as criminal capital, this article reveals that recently, residential burglary has been displaced from the ‘outside’ to the ‘inside’ of multi-storey apartment buildings due to the proliferation of CCTV, alarm systems and spotlights. Ethnographic findings suggest that a decade ago burgling a residence was far easier for most offenders than it would be today, with numerous similarities in the script of offenders in the non-Western and Western contexts.