Can Automated Lights Really Stop Burglars?

Motion-activated porch lights and app-controlled interior lights are commonly used to prevent burglaries, but do they really work? Learn what burglars themselves say in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren Bogelbaum. Here, when you picture a burglar,
who do you see? The black clad clip art guy
with the tiny mask and a bulging bag of loot,
or maybe the pair from the Home Alone movies casing
a wealthy suburban neighborhood to know exactly when families are

(00:22):
gone for Christmas vacation. The reality of burglary and burglars
is very different than most of us think for starters.
According to FBI statistics, the majority of residential burglaries happened
during the day, not at night under the cover of darkness,
and according to interviews with convicted burglars, only a third
of all break ins are planned ahead of time, rather

(00:44):
than being professional thieves. The typical profile of a burglar
is a seventeen year old kid who's looking to quickly
grab something valuable and scram But we spoke with Marcus Filson,
a professor of criminal justice at Texas State University and
a pioneering expert in the nature of criminal activities. He
said burglaries are fast, typically over within five minutes and

(01:06):
often within one minute. A lot of the time, the
door isn't even locked. If they come in and rummage,
they rummage quickly and get out of there. By better
understanding when, why and how residential burglaries happen, homeowners can
come up with the most effective strategies for deterring them,
which brings us to the question of the day. Do
house or porch lights do anything to stop burglars? Pilson

(01:30):
says that lights have their place in a home security strategy,
but that lights alone won't prevent someone from breaking into
your house. For example, motion activated exterior lights in the
front and rear of your house are an effective way
to spook a burglar, but only if the light is
positioned correctly to illuminate the intruder's face so that a
neighbor or camera might be able to see them clearly.

(01:51):
If it's pointed towards the neighbor's house, the burglar might
realize that all the neighbor would be able to see
as a blinding light and not the burglar. What about
timed interior lights. Home automation systems have made it easier
than ever to schedule and control your interior lights while
you're away. They let you use your smartphone to program
your living room, kitchen and bedroom lights to mimic what

(02:12):
it would look like if you were home again. While
automated lighting might give the impression that someone is home,
especially in the evening when lights can be seen from
the street, thieves know to look out for other much
clearer signs that you're gone during the day. According to
interviews with convicted burglars in Australia and the United Kingdom,
opportunistic thieves look for uncollected mail, newspapers and packages left

(02:33):
on the porch, and empty driveways and garages. An Oregon
TV news team that surveyed convicted burglars found that all
of their respondents would knock on the front door before
breaking in, so those tricky interior lights might not help.
And if you think you're being smart by leaving a
TV or radio on in the house while you're away
on vacation, think again. Burglars in the Australian survey said

(02:57):
that a TV blasting away in the middle of the
night is a shore side mine that no one's home,
which gets to Felson's biggest piece of advice for securing
your home, get to know your neighbors. In that Australian study,
just two eight percent of burglars were deterred by censor
lights and nineteen point three percent by lights inside the house.

(03:17):
But a burglar can be stopped if a neighbor picks
up the phone and calls the police. Of course, this
means your neighbors need to know you and your family
well enough to identify a true stranger trying to enter
your house. Felson recommends introducing yourself to the neighbors on
all sides of your house, particularly the ones that live
behind you, since burglars will most likely enter from a
back door or window, and to make it easier for

(03:40):
your neighbors to see your house, you might trim back
your hedges from doors and windows. They can't report what
they can't see. Recognizing that most burglaries happen between ten
am and two pm, when a lot of people are
away at work, your best neighborhood allies against a burglary
are folks who are home most of the day, people
who are retired, work from home, or work lay their shifts.

(04:01):
Those same neighbors can pick up your mail and packages
while you're gone on vacation, or even parked their car
in your driveway as a decoy. Again, exterior and interior
lights can work as a part of an integrated home
security strategy that should also include strong locks on all
doors and windows and not leaving valuables in plain view.

(04:24):
Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by
Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart
Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots
of other topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works
dot com, and for more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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