Picking

Picking has recently been increasing especially in the urban areas. As long as Tokyo is concerned, the number of picking in 2000 presumedly exceeded 10,000 cases, which was nearly ten times compared with 2 years ago and 100 times 4 years ago.

To begin with, what’s picking? This is a sneak theft that opens the entrance doors with particular tools. This kind of thieves usually targets at old types of condominiums in urban areas because it's easier even for unskilled thieves to open the entrance doors in addition to the urban feature that unfamiliar guys often come and go for door sales or something. Picking is mainly done by groups of two or three. One does picking and steals money. The second one watches around there in standing outside the entrances. The third guy waits near the buildings of condominiums for the other two in order to run away. Technically speaking, many of the locks in condominiums are simple-structure ones called ' Disc cylinder', whose gutters are V-shaped. It takes just some ten seconds to open the locks if trained a little bit.

Another reason for targeting at condominiums is its efficiency. Most of the condominiums in Japan have at least 20-30 rooms. Many of those residents in the urban condominiums are singles or relatively young couples working together. The picking thieves don't have to take time to choose the targeted houses thinking of which room or house is empty. They look for speed and efficiency by doing that at once. At the same time they can also reduce the risks of being suspected for walking around there. Even though there is someone in a room after sneaking into, some of the thieves take it easy. They boldly threat the house owner to give money using knives or something. Our image about thieves was once before that they prepared well for sneaking with come-goes days before and chose the safest one. Today's thieves, however, do the wrongdoings by the principle of probability.

What is worse, there are some cases in which the thieves put something such as chips of wood or glues into the lock holes making it difficult for the residents to enter. It's because the thieves want to delay the police searching.

Taking advantage of picking, lock makers anticipate exchange demands. It's said that there are about seventy millions of simple-structure locks or disc cylinders in use for locking doors. The potential market for exchanging safer ones is so big. Not only those makers but also home security companies are looking for the demands. These are very good ways for your personal risk management. However, thieves may invent new technologies to sneak into your houses. Since this seems to be a cat-and-mouse game, you have to understand that there is no perfect safety.

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Picking number in Tokyo (graph)

National Police Agency