Using police arrest and clearance data to estimate the number of burglars operating in a suburban county

Abstract A version of a model developed by Willmer (1970) is used to estimate the number of people committing burglaries, the percentage apprehended, and other characteristics of the criminal population. It is found that the model holds substantial promise and should be pursued further. Use of the model with data from Montgomery County, Maryland indicated that although clearance rates there are low for burglary, it may be that a high percentage of the people committing burglaries are caught by the police at one time or another over the course of a year—perhaps four times as many as the clearance rate would indicate.