POLICE claim figuring out the “calling cards” of burglars in Oxford is helping drive down crime.

Officers in the Priority Crime team in Oxford have been keeping close tabs on 30 well-known burglars, taking notes on the way they break into houses, the time of day, where they commit the crimes and even their tools of choice.

They say this way of figuring out the burglars’ modus operandi is helping to cut crime.

Burglaries in Oxford dropped to an all-time low last year to 761. They reached 1,270 in 2006 and 2007.

Det Insp Paul Miller, whose job is to solve serious acquisitive crime such as burglary, robbery and autocrime, said: “In Oxford, we have changed the way that we view dealing with crime and we focus on the offenders rather than the offending.

“If you can identify the offenders then you can arrest them. This gives you the opportunity to gather further evidence and hopefully charge them.

“If they are locked up then they don’t commit crime. When you target the right people then crime goes down.”

He added: “It’s quite a long drawn-out process. We identify certain links between crimes, whether it’s forensic, or temporal, so time, or geographic links, and then once we’ve decided who is the offender for that we can prosecute people.

“Once we’ve done that so many times we know where and how they operate and it becomes easier to identify who has done it.

“There are some offenders who specifically look for certain types of houses or who always enter a house in the same way.

“We had a series where a particular offender was breaking into garden sheds stealing a tool and using that tool to break into the house, so he wouldn’t taken a tool to the scene, which was quite distinctive.

“There are others that go for specific windows and doors.

“You might have offenders who commit crimes in a certain area in a certain way and in a certain time frame.”

Det Insp Miller said it had been the force’s policy for about three years, and proved to be working well.

He said: “That’s why we’ve seen some really good results.

“We have identified who our top 20 or 30 people are and we are focusing on them and working to keep them under control.

“Before, we were looking at geographical areas and focusing on those areas to try and prevent crime and crime prevention.”