Examine property crime and system responses.
The most common forms of crime in the United States are property crimes, and yet they get little attention by the media compared to crimes like murder. The most commonly reported property crimes are burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson, which are considered part of the Part I index offenses used by the FBI to calculate crime rates. Theft-type crime, according to the FBI (2016), is “the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims.”
Stealing a bicycle is one common example of larceny-theft. The owners of this bicycle only locked up the front wheel, which is easy to remove, leaving the rest of the bike vulnerable to theft by simply removing the wheel. According to Jaffe (2014), around half of all active cyclists have their bike stolen, especially in cities. Although there are bike registries, few cyclists register their bikes, and many believe that the police will not or cannot do anything to help recover their property, so they do not report the theft, even though two-thirds of recovered stolen bikes were reported to the police. Image: Bicycle theft. Authored by: Popperipopp.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theft.jpg. License: CC-0
Definitions
Although definitions around different types of property crime can vary across states, the four used for by the FBI are fairly consistent across the country. The FBI defines these four crimes as follows:
• Burglary—the unlawful entry into a structure (home, barn, office, and railroad car are all included, but not motor vehicles) to commit a felony or theft. Burglary has three subcategories: forcible entry, unlawful entry without use of force, and attempted forcible entry.
• Larceny-theft—the unlawful taking, carrying, leading, or riding away of property from the possession or constructive possession of another, including bicycles, parts of motor vehicles, shoplifting, and any other theft that occurs without force or fraud.
• Motor vehicle theft—the theft of a self-propelled vehicle that runs on land surfaces and not on rails • Arson—willful or malicious burning or attempted burning of a structure, vehicle, or aircraft, with or without intent to defraud.
Statistics
Burning down of buildings and motor-vehicles is the most common type of arson. Many cases that might be arson do not have enough evidence to support claiming arson as the cause and, thus, go uncounted in arson statistics. Image: Arson destroys cabin. Authored by: Mangrove Mike. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/8632225@N08/2344726624/. License: CC- BY 2.0
The reporting of property crime tends to be somewhat higher than for other crimes because many people want to receive money for their loss through their insurance and that requires a police report. Although the statistics reported by the FBI are not perfect, they are closer to the true amount of crime than some types of violent crimes like sexual assault and aggravated assault.
According to the FBI, in 2016 there were 7,919,035 property crime offenses (a rate of 2,450 per 100,000 people). Over the past 10 years, the property crime rate has decreased by 19.9 percent. The number of property crime offenses cited by the FBI is about half of what the Bureau of Justice Statistics found in using the NCVS. The BJS cites 15,917,430 property crimes in 2015 (Morgan & Kena, 2016), showing the dark figure of property crime. (The dark figure of crime is a term used by criminologists to describe crimes that are never reported or never discovered.) The most common crime was larceny-theft, which accounted for 71.2 percent of all property
crimes followed by burglary (19.1 percent) and motor vehicle theft (9.7 percent), according to the FBI. Property crime losses cost the United States around $15.6 billion in 2016.
Larceny was the most common type of property crime. There were 5,638,455 reported larceny- thefts in 2016, with a rate of 1,750 per 100,000 people, which is a decrease of 20.2 percent since 2007. The annual cost of larceny-theft is $5.6 billion, with each theft costing an average of $1,000. There were 1,515,096 reported burglaries in 2016, which was down 30 percent compared to 2007. Burglary costs around $3.6 billion in property loss, and the average cost per offense is around $2,361 (FBI, 2016). The majority of burglaries (69.5 percent) occurred in a residence.
Motor-vehicle theft is separated from other types of property crime because of the frequency at which it occurs. In 2016, there were 765,484 reported motor-vehicle thefts, which is a rate of 236.9 per 100,000 people. Compared to 2007, 2016 saw a 30.4 percent drop in this type of theft. Motor-vehicle thefts cost $5.9 billion in 2016, with an average cost of $7,680 per theft.
It is difficult to get good statistics on arson because of how it is classified. Arson is a fire that is intentionally set, so fires that are not thought to be suspicious or are of unknown origin are not included in arson statistics. Other factors that affect the statistics on arson are that agencies vary in terms of reporting fires as arson, and their abilities to thoroughly investigate fires for arson also varies. In 2016, there were 43,249 arsons reported to the FBI.
During the 1960s and 1970s, 10 different African American churches were burned down, often as part of the backlash over the Civil Rights Movement. One of the more famous examples of this type of arson is the 16th Street Baptist Church, which serves as the headquarters of many of the movement’s meetings in Birmingham, Alabama. On September 15, 1963, two members of the KKK planted 19 sticks of dynamite in the basement of the church, exploding it during Sunday morning service, killing four young girls and wounding 22 others. This was part of a string of 45 bombings targeting African Americans.
Image: Facade of 16th Street Baptist Church. Authored by: Andre Natta. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/acnatta/268472006/. License: CC-BY 2.0
A clearance rate is where there is an arrest and the case is turned over to the prosecutor, or it is solved by exceptional means, which is when the case can be considered cleared but without the arrest of the offender such as when the offender is dead or extradition to the United States is denied.
Property crimes have an 18.3 percent clearance rate, with larceny-theft and arson having the highest rates at 20.4 percent and 20.8 percent, respectively. This is low compared to violent crime, which has an overall clearance rate of 45.6 percent; murder and aggravated assault have clearance rates of 59.4 percent and 53.3 percent, respectively. The low clearance rate for property crimes is partially because it is harder to investigate and solve property crime.
Response
Breaking into motor vehicles is one of the most common types of property crimes. When people leave valuables in plain sight, the car becomes an even greater target for theft. Although the recovery of motor vehicles is one of the most cleared types of cases, the recovery of electronics, purses, and especially cash are rare. Image: Auto theft. Authored by: skldrd. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/skidrd/280014080/. License: CC-BY 2.0
According to Morgan and Kena (2016), motor vehicle theft was the most common property crime reported to the police (80 percent) followed by burglaries (50 percent) and thefts (30 percent). In addition, the rates of victimizations were higher in urban areas than in suburban and rural areas, fitting with historic trends in property crime victimization (Morgan & Kena, 2016). Yet, urban property crimes
were less likely to be reported to the police (34 percent) according to the NCVS, when compared to suburbs (38 percent).
Greenberg and Beach (2004) examined why property crime victims might not report their victimization to the police. They found that the value of the property lost was a big factor because the more property lost, the more likely they were to report it. In addition, like other types of crime, the level of fear the victim experienced also impacted reporting—the more afraid the victim was, the more likely they were to report the crime. They also found that being advised to call the police by family and friends significantly increased the likelihood of reporting the crime.
As with other types of crime, barriers such as language, knowledge about services, and historical biases all come into play for reporting property crimes. Shame and embarrassment about being a victim also reduces reporting to law enforcement.
According to a 2014 FBI report, a property crime occurred every 3.8 seconds and a violent crime occurred every 26.3 seconds. Image: 2014 Crime Clock. Authored by: By Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C. via Wikimedia Commons. Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/FBI_UCR_crime-clock_2014.jpg. License: CC-0
Property crime remains the most common crime that occurs in the United States. Although there is no way to stop a determined criminal, many strategies can decrease the risk of being a property crime victim. Many of the recommendations to help prevent property crime come from Routine Activities Theory, discussed in the module “Introduction to Victimology”. That included ensuring that homes, cars, and workplaces have good locks and other security, which are locked every time you leave. Personal property like purses, electronics, and other goods should always be secured and not left unattended. Personal items should not be left in vehicles unattended because they increase the potential for both the items and the vehicle to be stolen. Taking reasonable steps to create less suitable targets has been shown to reduce the risk of property crime victimization.