Breaking News: The Decrease in Property Crime

Property crime is decreasing across the U.S.

By Olivia Gosselin

Journalist, Realty Leadership.
Contributor, Forbes.

0Last updated:
November 17, 2023 11:55 pm

If you are a homeowner, we have a piece of information that will bring a bit of ease to your mind: property crime has decreased throughout the United States, according to statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The FBI defines property crime as “burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.” It was found in their report that all of those charges listed were decreased by 3% from 2016 to 2017.

Throughout the 2017 year, the victims of property crime totaled a whopping $15.3 billion in property damages. You may think that’s outrageous, and it is – but it’s actually much better than we’ve done in the past. Burglaries are down a significant 7.6%, larceny thefts are down 2.2%, and while motor vehicle theft may have rose a bit, it is insignificant at 0.8%.

This is an incredible feat when we look at the statistics from years’ past. In total, property crime as a whole has dropped 13.6% since 2013, and it has dropped 26.5% since 2008.

Violent crimes are also decreasing, which is wonderful news. While there is still a long way to go, with 1.24 million violent crimes still happening per year, it did decrease 0.2% from 2016 to 2017. Aggravated assault took up 65% of all violent crimes, with robbery falling behind at 25.6%. Murders make up a much lower percentage, and have dropped 0.7% from 2016 to 2017.

While this is scary information to think about, the report also demonstrated that homeowners are more likely to fall victim to minor property crimes than the major violent crimes that everyone fears. Property crimes are more common than violent crimes, and even those are on a steady decrease, due to new security systems and better neighborhood security.

Basically, what we are saying is that if you are a homeowner, you should be able to sleep a little better at night knowing that you’re safer than you may think. While you should always be alert of your surroundings, the chances of falling victim to any kind of crime is much lower than most people think.