Abstract
Residential burglaries have long been a problem for rural and urban law
enforcement. They are the largest property crime issue facing local law enforcement
today. The majority of law enforcement agencies in the United States are small with
limited resources. The problem is greater in rural areas due to sparse population,
residences’ visibility from roadway, and distance between residences. It is imperative
that these agencies make use of crime analysis to identify the time of day and day of the
week that residential burglaries occur and apply their limited resources toward proactive
operations. The purpose of this study is to identify the day of the week and time of day
that residential burglaries occur in the agencies studied. This study can be generalized
throughout all law enforcement agencies for better use of existing resources in their fight
against crime.
