{
  "slug": "home-burglary-us",
  "question": "What are the odds of your home being burglarized?",
  "category": "crime",
  "tags": [
    "household"
  ],
  "no_reliable_estimate": false,
  "perceived": {
    "description": "Gallup's annual crime-worry poll consistently places home burglary in the middle of the list. In the October 2025 wave, 34% of US adults said they worry frequently or occasionally about having their home burglarized — below identity theft (69%) and car theft (39%), but above being mugged (29%) or murdered (22%). The worry level is broadly stable year-over-year even as measured burglary rates have fallen sharply for three decades.\n",
    "rough_estimate": "~1 in 3 lifetime feels about right to many respondents",
    "kind": "poll",
    "survey_source": {
      "title": "Crime in U.S. Seen as Less Serious for Second Straight Year",
      "publisher": "Gallup",
      "url": "https://news.gallup.com/poll/697124/crime-seen-less-serious-second-straight-year.aspx",
      "year": 2025
    }
  },
  "native": {
    "display": "~10.1 per 1,000 households per year",
    "numerator": 101,
    "denominator": 10000,
    "unit": "per year",
    "population": "US households (NCVS, includes reported and unreported)"
  },
  "normalized": {
    "lifetime_us_adult": 0.39,
    "display": "~1 in 2.5 lifetime (US household)",
    "log_value": -0.41,
    "assumptions": "The NCVS burglary/trespassing rate for 2023 is approximately 10.1 per 1,000 households per year (~1.01%), down from roughly 28 per 1,000 in 1993. Using the recent rate of ~0.85% per household per year (averaging 2022-2023 NCVS data) and compounding over 59 years of adult life: 1 − (1 − 0.0085)^59 ≈ 0.39. This assumes a constant annual hazard at the current (historically low) rate, which is conservative given the three-decade declining trend. Victimizations are not independent across years — households in high-crime areas or with prior burglaries face elevated repeat risk — but for a population-average first-ever-burglary estimate, the naive compounding is a reasonable upper-middle bound.\n",
    "uncertainty": {
      "low": 0.25,
      "high": 0.55
    },
    "scope": "us_adult_lifetime"
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://bjs.ojp.gov/press-release/criminal-victimization-2023",
      "title": "Criminal Victimization, 2023",
      "publisher": "US Bureau of Justice Statistics",
      "source_type": "govt_report",
      "statistic": "Property victimization rate of 102.2 per 1,000 households in 2023; burglary/trespassing component approximately 10.1 per 1,000 households",
      "excerpt": "\"In 2023, the rate of property victimization was 102.2 per 1,000 households, which was not significantly different from 2022. Property victimization includes burglary or trespassing, motor vehicle theft, and other types of household theft.\"\n",
      "source_date": "2024-09-12",
      "source_accessed": "2026-04-11",
      "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260413172429/https://bjs.ojp.gov/press-release/criminal-victimization-2023",
      "calculation_notes": "BJS NCVS Criminal Victimization 2023 reports total property victimization at 102.2 per 1,000 households. The burglary/trespassing subcategory accounts for approximately 10.1 per 1,000 (~1.01% of households per year), based on the NCVS detailed data tables. Over 59 adult years at ~0.85% per year (averaging 2022-2023): 1 − (1 − 0.0085)^59 ≈ 0.39. The NCVS captures both reported and unreported victimizations via household interviews, making it the most complete US household burglary measure.\n",
      "independence_note": "BJS NCVS is a household survey conducted independently of the FBI UCR/NIBRS law-enforcement reporting system. The two count burglaries through entirely different pipelines — victim recall vs police reports — and the NCVS typically yields higher counts because it captures unreported incidents.\n"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.safehome.org/resources/burglary-statistics/",
      "title": "The Latest Burglary Statistics: How Common is Burglary in the U.S.?",
      "publisher": "SafeHome.org (citing FBI UCR/NIBRS)",
      "source_type": "reputable_reference",
      "statistic": "852,963 reported burglaries in 2023 at a rate of 253.3 per 100,000; national burglary rate dropped 69% between 2005 and 2024",
      "excerpt": "\"This represents a 9.5% decrease in the burglary rate from 2023 (253.3 per 100,000). The national burglary rate dropped 69% between 2005 and 2024. The data shows that total burglaries dropped by 64 percent between 2005 and 2024, from over 2.1 million incidents to fewer than 780,000.\"\n",
      "source_date": "2025-10-01",
      "source_accessed": "2026-04-11",
      "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260413172502/https://www.safehome.org/resources/burglary-statistics/",
      "calculation_notes": "FBI UCR/NIBRS reports 852,963 burglaries in 2023 at 253.3 per 100,000 population. This is lower than the NCVS figure because FBI data only counts incidents reported to police; BJS found that only 44.9% of household burglaries are reported to authorities (Pew Research, citing NCVS 2022). Using the FBI number and adjusting for underreporting yields a figure broadly consistent with the NCVS household survey rate.\n",
      "independence_note": "FBI UCR/NIBRS collects incident data from law enforcement agencies, while BJS NCVS surveys households directly. The two systems are methodologically independent and undercount in opposite directions.\n"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://news.gallup.com/poll/697124/crime-seen-less-serious-second-straight-year.aspx",
      "title": "Crime in U.S. Seen as Less Serious for Second Straight Year",
      "publisher": "Gallup",
      "source_type": "reputable_reference",
      "statistic": "34% of US adults worry frequently or occasionally about having their home burglarized (October 2025)",
      "excerpt": "\"Fewer Americans say they worry about crimes, such as having a car stolen (39%) or their home burglarized (34%), being a victim of a hate crime (30%), or getting mugged (29%), attacked while driving (27%), murdered (22%) or sexually assaulted (21%).\"\n",
      "source_date": "2025-10-30",
      "source_accessed": "2026-04-11",
      "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260413172538/https://news.gallup.com/poll/697124/crime-seen-less-serious-second-straight-year.aspx",
      "calculation_notes": "Used for the perceived-risk side only. The 34% figure is the fraction of respondents reporting frequent-or-occasional worry, not an elicited probability. It places home burglary in the middle tier of Gallup's crime-worry hierarchy.\n",
      "independence_note": "Gallup telephone survey data, entirely separate from both BJS NCVS household victimization sampling and FBI UCR police-report aggregation. Measures public worry, not incidence — included only for the perceived-risk axis and not for any probability estimate.\n"
    }
  ],
  "comparison_anchors": [
    {
      "label": "Being murdered (lifetime, US adult average)",
      "lifetime_us_adult": 0.00348
    },
    {
      "label": "Identity theft (lifetime, US adult)",
      "lifetime_us_adult": 0.6
    },
    {
      "label": "Death in a car crash (lifetime, US)",
      "lifetime_us_adult": 0.0108
    }
  ],
  "regional_breakdown": [
    {
      "region": "high-burglary MSA (Memphis, Albuquerque, Indianapolis)",
      "probability": 0.6,
      "notes": "top-decile metros have annual rates 2-3x the national average; lifetime exposure approaches ~60%"
    },
    {
      "region": "low-burglary region (Northeast rural, wealthy suburbs)",
      "probability": 0.2,
      "notes": "bottom-decile rates roughly one-third the national average"
    },
    {
      "region": "apartment dweller with doorman or secured entry",
      "probability": 0.15,
      "notes": "controlled-access buildings have substantially lower burglary rates than single-family homes"
    }
  ],
  "personal_factor_multipliers": [
    {
      "factor": "Renter in high-crime urban area",
      "multiplier": 2.5,
      "notes": "NCVS consistently shows urban renters face roughly 2-3x the burglary rate of suburban homeowners"
    },
    {
      "factor": "Rural homeowner, low-crime county",
      "multiplier": 0.4,
      "notes": "Rural and suburban households in low-crime areas experience substantially lower rates"
    },
    {
      "factor": "Household income under $25,000",
      "multiplier": 1.8,
      "notes": "Lower-income households face elevated burglary risk in NCVS data"
    }
  ],
  "short_label": "Home burglary",
  "myth_framing": "calibrated",
  "outcome_severity": "moderate_harm",
  "exposure_pattern": "recurring",
  "outcome_type": "property",
  "valence": "negative",
  "caveats": "This is not a death risk; it is the probability that a US household experiences at least one burglary or unlawful trespass during the householder's adult lifetime. The NCVS definition of \"burglary or trespassing\" is broader than the common mental image of a break-in while away — it includes unlawful entries where nothing is stolen and trespassing incidents that may involve no forced entry. The FBI's narrower UCR definition yields a lower count (~853,000 reported burglaries in 2023 vs the NCVS-implied ~1.3 million including unreported). The lifetime figure is highly sensitive to the assumed annual rate: at the 1993 NCVS peak (~28 per 1,000), the naive lifetime calculation would exceed 80%; at the current rate (~10 per 1,000), it is roughly 40%. The long-term declining trend — burglary down 75% since 1993 per FBI data — means the actual lifetime experience for someone turning 18 today will almost certainly be lower than 39%, but the population of adults alive now includes decades of exposure at higher rates. Geography and income are the largest sources of heterogeneity: county-level burglary rates span more than an order of magnitude.\n",
  "quality_score": {
    "d1": 5,
    "d2": 5,
    "d3": 5,
    "d4": 5,
    "d5": 5,
    "d6": 4,
    "d7": 4,
    "d8": 5,
    "avg": 4.75,
    "scored_by": "claude-code-8d",
    "scored_at": "2026-05-25",
    "methodology_version": "1.2"
  },
  "reviewer": "likelier-seed",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-04-11",
  "reviewed": true,
  "generated_at": "2026-04-11",
  "image": {
    "alt": "A single house key resting on a pale surface, flat vector illustration in muted tones."
  },
  "attribution": "Likelier — https://likelier.app",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
  "support": "https://buymeacoffee.com/kgluszczyk?via=likelier&utm_content=api-fear-single",
  "canonical_url": "https://likelier.app/home-burglary-us"
}