The Burglary Proclivity Scale: validation using a UK community sample

The proclivity to offend has shown to be of great use in understanding factors related to offending. This study aims to validate the Burglary Proclivity Scale by evaluating the psychometric properties and investigating the convergent validity with factors related to offending history, kleptomania, substance misuse, and empathy. An online study was conducted using a sample of 246 community-based participants. The measures were presented in a randomised order except the proclivity scale, which was last. Almost all variables were found to correlate with the proclivity to burgle but only kleptomania, prior acquisitive offending, and affective dissonance were found to be significantly associated with burglary proclivity. The total proclivity score was found to artificially inflate the proclivity to burgle, indicating that only behavioral propensity should be used. These findings are the first to link kleptomania and burglary offending, suggesting that burglary may be an aspect of this pathologized urge to steal, although further research needs to uncover more detail regarding this link. Overall, the behavioural propensity of the Burglary Proclivity Scale provides an effective means for assessing the proclivity to burgle, enabling examination of its link with other factors. These findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical implications and practical application.