On the Origins of the Crime Drop: Vehicle Crime and Security in the 1980s

The study adds to crime-drop research examining the security hypothesis. It provides evidence that effective security was introduced for some high-risk vehicles from the mid-1980s in England and Wales and causally connects this to a gradual change in the vehicle-related theft rate. Following three decades of exponential increase to 1987, the rate of increase slowed and continued to decelerate to a 1993 peak. Thereafter the rate fell slowly at first then rapidly from 1995. It is concluded that: (i) what became the change in the rate of vehicle-related theft began in the 1980s, which is earlier than typically understood; and (ii) the gradual arc of the theft rate over more than a decade is consistent with new security gradually permeating the vehicle fleet.