Realtor Safety: Understanding Crime and Criminals

This month, we're publishing content from a course on Realtor Safety. This is the second in a series of articles that teaches Realtors how to prevent being a victim of crime. Read the first article here.

Criminology is an enormous sociological discipline and the information included in this article will not make you an expert criminologist. However, the purpose of this post is to give you basic information about the criminals and crimes you are most likely to encounter as a real estate agent. Understanding crime and criminals will help you be more effective in deterring criminals from targeting you, as well as making safer decisions should you ever find yourself the target of an attempted crime.

Categories of Crime

There are two different categories of crimes:

1. Crime against person
2. Crime against property

Types of Crimes

In addition to different categories of crime, crime can also be broken out into different types based on the degree of intent. The types of crime you are likely to run into are:

Premeditated

• Pre-planned – The intent from the start was to commit the crime
• Planning may be rudimentary or sophisticated
• Typically unemotional
• May be either a crime against person or a crime against property