Every year approximately 900.000 bicycles are stolen in the Netherlands. Bicycle theft is therefore a prime example of petty crime. From the beginning of the 1980s both the government and the bicyle trade have tried to reduce the size of this theft by means of bicycle registration (the engraving of postcodes; national registration system), guarded sheds, and local and regional projects. Up until now, these projects have not produced the desired results. Apparently there is insufficient knowledge of the modus operandi of bicycle thieves and relevant and related preventive measures. Social control only seems to exert a preventive influence on incidental thieves and on certain occasional thieves. Besides the social control, thieves. Besides the social control, certified locks, the use of more than one lock and securing a bicycle to a fixed object are preventive measures with some limited effect. The use of bicycle sheds is on the other hand very effective into the behaviour of cyclists, the modus operandi of bicycle thieves and the market for stolen bicycles.
Abstract