The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry is seeking to promote better home security, including stronger locks to deter break-ins and lights and alarms aimed at making neighborhoods safer.
The ministry will request funding in the fiscal 2003 budget for the projects, ministry officials said.
It is considering developing guidelines for housing designed to forestall trespassing and theft, and may ask the industry to promote them.
The plans advocate the use of two or more locks that are hard to pick per entrance and the installation of windows that are difficult to break.
They advise residents to make their balconies more secure and to install lights that are automatically activated when someone approaches an entrance.
To protect people from assaults and bag-snatchings, the ministry plans to fund the installation of lights and alarms in residential areas.
About 118,000 burglaries were committed nationwide in 2000 while residents were away from their homes, up more than 30,000 from 1995, the National Police Agency said. There were 46,000 bag-snatchings, 2.4 times the number of five years ago.