Property crime represents around 88% of all crime, not counting offenses of a public order nature — meaning violations of drug laws, gambling laws, traffic laws, prostitution statutes, vagrancy, and so on. Property crime incidence is so large that it dwarfs all other crimes in reporting, and when property crime is down, the overall crime rate follows.
The components of the NCVS and UCR rates are identical: burglary, larceny/theft, and motor vehicle theft. The chief difference is that the FBI includes and the NCVS (a household survey) excludes crimes involving commercial property. The FBI's Index officially includes arson as well, but the data — which are not as uniformly collected as for the other crimes — are not included in the total index by the FBI. The table shows which category of crime contributes what percentage to the Uniform Crime Report and the National Criminal Victimization Index. The largest category in each case is larceny/theft, the smallest is motor vehicle theft.
| UCR | NCVS | |
| Burglary | 20.1 | 17.9 |
| Larceny/Theft | 68.4 | 77.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 11.4 | 4.8 |
Burglary involves the unlawful entry of a structure in order to commit a felony or a theft. Burglary has a three-fold classification as (1) forcible entry, (2) unlawful entry where no force is employed, and (3) attempted forcible entry. Larceny/theft is all kinds of stealing without the use of force — excluding theft during burglary or motor vehicle theft. But otherwise it covers anything from picking a pocket to stealing a car radio to taking off with a bike left unattended. Interestingly enough, the FBI's definition excludes the more clever means of acquiring wealth illegally — including embezzlement, confidence games, forgery, and the writing of big bad checks. The FBI's definition is silent about the big-boy crimes of people who walk off with the pension funds of thousands.
Property crime rates appear to act as a kind of indicator of economic cycles. The NCVS index peaked the year before the two recessions of the early 1980s and rose again as the 1990-1991 recession ended — dropping steadily thereafter as the good times of the 1990s began to roll.
The FBI property crime index peaked between the two recessions in the 1980s and immediately after the 1990-1991 recession. After that it too headed down — as we all embraced the world-wide-web. The index ticked up 2 points between 2000 and 2001 as the economy stuttered a little — with motor vehicle theft leading the charge.
Property crime is thus a reflection of our economic lives and moves in step with unemployment, with the fluctuations in the poverty level, and vaguely reflects changes in income maintenance programs. It would be nice to see these rates combined with measures of white-collar crime — some of which seem to increase in times of economic exuberance whereas the crimes of ordinary Johns and Janes thin out with high rates of employment and lots of overtime.
Still, even at the very height of the good times, in 2000, 7,711 people out of every 100,000 experienced some kind of property loss: 1,380 of these experienced a burglary, 5,960 had something stolen, and 370 lost a car to thieves.
Another way to look at the matter — in crime statistics there is always another way — is to use the FBI's "crime clock," which is based on reported crimes.
In 2000, there was a property crime every 3.1 seconds, a larceny every 4.5 seconds, a burglary every 15.4 seconds, a car stolen every 27.1 seconds. Hadn't you better glance out the window? Now?
Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, and National Criminal Victimization Survey, both accessible from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/welcome.html.
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