How relevant is single pin picking in crimes?

[billdeserthills]

In addition to the cost of a forensic examination, you also have to consider the value of the evidence obtained. If you determine the lock was picked, then what? That info doesn't help ID a suspect or solve the case. All you now know is that at some point in time (not necessarily when the burglary occurred), the lock was picked. It could have been picked, or attempted to be picked, by any number of people. This includes the zillions of people who try to learn lock picking by picking their own lock. You'd also have to conduct a forensic exam on every exterior lock in the house. In many homes, that would include the knob and deadbolt from the front door, back door, house to garage and exterior garage - for a total of eight locks.

In addition, your average local crime lab doesn't have forensic people who have training and experience in forensic lock analysis.

It really comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. It just doesn't make fiscal sense.

For today it doesn't make fiscal sense, however someday when the insurance companies begin requiring proof of criminal entry before they will pay a claim

[ratlock]

I read, Locks, safes, and security, latey. Somewhere in volume One, the author said in less than 1% of break ins involved sucessfull entry by lock picking. A heigher percentage, (I think it was around the 10% mark) was staged lock pick attempts to try and defraud insurance companys.
But by far the most break ins by the "average" burglar was brute force, on the weakest point in your house.

In my area of Scotland just now. The majority of break ins are oppertunists, taking advantage of an unlocked door, even when people are in the house.
Or stuff left in cars unlocked in the driveways.

The majority of culprits, do not come from the area the crimes are commited, unless they are stealing to feed a drug habit.

I think the average lock enthusiast on a forum is the least likley person to go out and commit a crime, and I think most people could spot a guy who shows up asking newbie questions about a particular lock, he used a stock photo from google to ask about.

That said I recently found this in a car park in Aberdeen, so some may be trying to pick locks (uninformed as they may be).

[TORCH [of KCK]]

All righty.
Tossing my £2.00,
I'm as generous,
as much as overpriced
Just joking...

Okay,
From my perspective, & putting as short as possible, for all aspects...

*Everyone wants to feel secure, & keep what's theirs & responsible for.
(Why clerks don't get sayso of type of vault)
*Everyone knows what they want now,
 but don't know what will have later.
*They are not security experts, say the least.
*They can't predict type of criminal-
trying to violate them /theirs...
(Dopers, rapers, killers, kidnappers, robers, disgruntled, corporate espionage, vandals,  thrill seekers, vagabonds, ect..)
*They can't know how desperate the criminal is.
(weather need fix --> being paid for job)
*They can't predict criminal's skill level
* No one wants to be responsible for bad  $#!+  that will happen, & not knowing what consequences will be.

In essence;
Use of the best one can afford gives sense of security.
&
We can have fun, while trying to find ways to influence manufacturers to improve both quality as well as prices.
[Remember when prices were high for; vhs, 8-tracks, cassette tapes, Walkman, etc.. & how much would you have to pay for a laptop w/ Vista now?
(not windows-8, but better than commodore 64)]

Progress is forced.
(OK, rambled enough)

[RumballSolutions]

SPP would be rare for anything other than sophisticated attacks, but bypass techniques are widely exercised. From the humble slim Jim for older cars or the garage door emergency release tool to specialused tools and techniques, bypass is practiced by both sides of the fence.

When all that is required is a little knowledge, a tool and a short period of time, the majority will turn to bypass. Sure, forcible entry is easier, but it's also more likely to be detected.

Bypass is a thing for the masses. SPP is the domain of the enthusiast and professional.

[Ralph_Goodman]

SPP would be rare for anything other than sophisticated attacks, but bypass techniques are widely exercised. From the humble slim Jim for older cars or the garage door emergency release tool to specialused tools and techniques, bypass is practiced by both sides of the fence.

When all that is required is a little knowledge, a tool and a short period of time, the majority will turn to bypass. Sure, forcible entry is easier, but it's also more likely to be detected.

Bypass is a thing for the masses. SPP is the domain of the enthusiast and professional.

Well said! If there is something that criminals will learn and practice, it is the bypass methods. Mainly because this allows them quick entry, it is usually quieter, and they can apply these methods reliably with no need for in the moment refinement. (No thought, you can just operate on autopilot).

It is why something like the Kwikset SmartKey cylinder is such an issue. With just some tools that anyone can buy and a bit of practice, a criminal can begin targeting these devices. The lock it quite difficult to pick and bump, but this type of lock is going to be bypassed with ease. Whatever the easiest way in is, that is what a criminal wants to use.

More important than looking for some sort of unpickable lock, people should be looking to make sure that their lock does not have a widely publicized bypass.

Perhaps the one caveat to this is if you have something of extreme value, and the rest of your security is so extensive that the only way in is to pick the lock.

This would require you to be not only wealthy enough to have a lock be the weakest point in your security, but you would also need to be storing something very valuable in the home.

In the cases of offices, this would be more likely. When it comes to corporate sabotage aspect of business, illegal entry is commonplace. But it is also important that people do not know that the break-in took happened so that information can be leveraged. (That is why penetration tests are so important for high profile companies).

[drumnut01]

After working literally thousands of burglary scenes, I have never come across one where I believed lock picking was used to gain entry. Lock picking is good when you want to covertly make entry without causing damage, but most common burglars don't care about splitting a door frame or breaking a window.

[Ralph_Goodman]

After working literally thousands of burglary scenes, I have never come across one where I believed lock picking was used to gain entry. Lock picking is good when you want to covertly make entry without causing damage, but most common burglars don't care about splitting a door frame or breaking a window.

Very interesting.

Anecdotal, sure, but it seems to speak to a larger truth.

This comment just got me to reconsider the fact of prison security. It would be forced to be a lot better if those that it was housing actually understood the finer points of locks.

However, most of the ideas that criminals come up with to escape, revolve around the same type of haphazard force that you are talking about being common in your experience.

There is a story of a prisoner that used a picture of the prison master key (hilariously included in his prison handbook) to fabricate a key that could get him out, but that handbook was given to everyone. So it would follow that almost no one in that prison understood what they were looking at. And even that had nothing to do with lock picking.

I guess it could be asserted that criminals who pick locks are too [insert undue praise adjective] to get caught. But such a claim would not seem to be provable, as you cannot prove that something is happening and not being recorded.

Based on the evidence, it would seem that criminals do not pick locks with any remarkable frequency. And with the number of people in the world that can pick locks, it would seem it is not due to access to information, but rather temperament.

[drumnut01]

I've also worked in a jail. The closest thing I ever saw to an inmate trying to pick a lock was when a guys stuffed paint chips in the keyway hoping that he could get the lock open.

Surprisingly, most jail locks also have master keys, which tends to make them much easier to pick or rake open, but inmates don't typically understand lock picking.

The security also comes from the multiple layers of security. At a minimum, a high security inmate would have to get through six doors without being noticed in the jail I worked at.

[huxleypig]

I've also worked in a jail. The closest thing I ever saw to an inmate trying to pick a lock was when a guys stuffed paint chips in the keyway hoping that he could get the lock open.

Surprisingly, most jail locks also have master keys, which tends to make them much easier to pick or rake open, but inmates don't typically understand lock picking.

The security also comes from the multiple layers of security. At a minimum, a high security inmate would have to get through six doors without being noticed in the jail I worked at.

It happens though. In a talk at EMF I spoke about Daniel Heiss, the Aussie guy who made a master key from his inmates induction brochure FRONT COVER, lol. Jack Sheppard picked several locks whilst escaping from gaol. As did Mr Doody; in fact this guy picked his way BACK IN to gaol once he was out and had a think about it.

I have heard of kids in Finnish borstal visually decoding Abloy classic and whittling a key from a pencil. Only to escape, go joyriding and return that night.

[huxleypig]

The security also comes from the multiple layers of security. At a minimum, a high security inmate would have to get through six doors without being noticed in the jail I worked at.

6? Jenkins and Lee had to impression keys from wood to get through 14 doors when they escaped from Pretoria prison in 1978. Furthermore, they had no way to access the outside of their cells to get out of those even in the first place.

[Jacob Morgan]

It occurred to me that I have a subscription to Newspaper.com (a searchable newspaper database; NewspaperArchive.com is another). Had it for a research project unrelated to locks. Queried "lock pick" and got some hits. The site mainly has older papers, but does have some current ones. I do not know what % of the nation's newspapers are current on the site, so no way to extrapolate these occurrences to the whole country (doubt it is more than 5 - 10% of the current papers?), but some interesting cases showed up. No way to tell, in most cases, if it was SPP or raking.

In 2016 there were 3 cases of lock picking. In December A man in New Rochelle, NY was caught breaking into apartments with lock picks. In October in Asheville, NC a car burglar was caught with "lock picks", although they may have just been try-out keys. In January in Perry Point, MD, a man was caught with lock picks after he was seen picking a lock open on CCTV.

2015 had only one case, and it was a bad one. In Wilmington, DE a man opened a door "using a lock pick set" and stabbed his psychiatrist to death.

2014 had only one case as well, in Camden, NJ a man was caught using a bump key to enter apartments during the day. Apartments make sense, they always have the same key way. Stopped tallying the years after that.

The most extreme case was in 1989 around Palm Beach, FL. A father and son team were caught in a stakeout. They were picking locks to enter homes (the plugs were always found turned 180 degrees), and they were suspected of breaking into 200 homes in that area. They had lock picks on their person when they were arrested.

Found an odd case, it was back east, a teen opened the locked door of the operator's compartment of a subway train and went for a joy ride. He stuck his head out the side window for some reason and got his head whacked off by a nearby I-beam. It was known that the locks to the compartments were not very secure (disc tumblers?) The public transportation decided to replace the door locks with a more secure model.

A lot of police blotters showed up where it was reported that someone entered a building by picking a lock. Seemed to show up a lot around Phoenix. But, there was no proof of lock picking, so who knows. Seemed to be a lot of lawn sheds.

An amusing front page article was from 2012 in Southern California. A local official was horrified to learn that someone from the locksport community was going to put on a picking class at a maker-type event. He was just sure that the crime rate would go up afterwards. If it did it was not reported by that same paper.

[GWiens2001]

Found an odd case, it was back east, a teen opened the locked door of the operator's compartment of a subway train and went for a joy ride. He stuck his head out the side window for some reason and got his head whacked off by a nearby I-beam. It was known that the locks to the compartments were not very secure (disc tumblers?) The public transportation decided to replace the door locks with a more secure model.

Talk about a Darwin Award winner!

Gordon

[Silverado]

I think we all know how the press is and "lockpicks" might be used in the same fashion as in other crimes where any tool used for crime is a "Glock" (see also: any pistol in existence), "Assualt Rifle" (shotgun, bolt action, any firearm longer than a pistol), or even "Drug Paraphernalia" (rolling papers regardless of intended use, a spoon). Could be that the crooks were carrying screwdrivers around and the newspaper just decided it was a "lockpick".

[TheLockWhisperer]

I served as a police officer in south Texas for almost 10 years, and I never once worked or heard of a case where lock picks were used. It's possible that people entered homes or businesses using picks and stole things that were not discovered missing until much later, and the owners never realized they had been burglarized, I suppose, but I wouldn't have any way to know.

I never worked any case where lock picks, bump keys, jigglers...no type of lock pick..has been used. The occasional use of a slim jim, or using a credit card or piece of sheetmetal to open the locks on residential windows is as close as any crook ever came to being an evil supervillain. The fact is, the vast majority of thieves and burglars are too lazy to learn a new and difficult skill- if they had any ambition they would be white collar criminals.

[DangerDane]

For today it doesn't make fiscal sense, however someday when the insurance companies begin requiring proof of criminal entry before they will pay a claim

We actually have that issue here. People saying they were burglarised but there was no proof of forced entry (due to bump keys being used). Only after the locks were removed and an thorough exam was carried out on them was it ascertained that they might have been bumped and thus it was a forced entry and not a case of forgotten/misplaced keys and then the insurance payed out. Hence why I won't even bother installing bumpable locks.