Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, home burglary numbers were already dropping, but lockdowns drove those numbers down even more, with reported burglaries declining 19% from 2020 and 2021. After all, it is hard to rob a house when the people inside of it rarely leave. The reliability of crime data can be tricky, though, as some states fail to report their numbers to the FBI. Burglary reporting – or rather, underreporting – to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an issue many states are contributing to, and that can heavily affect the accuracy of crime statistics. The NIBRS is the FBI's crime data collection system meant to provide useful statistics to law enforcement in order to "promote constructive discussion, measured planning, and informed policing." Florida is a prime example of underreporting. According to Insurify, there were only 22 burglaries reported to the NIBRS in Florida in 2021 by 6% of law enforcement agencies. Meanwhile, a Florida Department of Justice report lists 44,207 burglary offenses in 2021, making it the state with the worst burglary data reporting in the country. Other states that struggle to report burglaries to the FBI are Pennsylvania (14% of law enforcement reporting) and New York (24% of law enforcement reporting). According to the data that was reported to the NIBRS, Insurify found states with the lowest burglary rates were:

• New Hampshire: 103 burglaries per 100,000 residents (97% of law enforcement reporting)
• Virginia: 134 burglaries per 100,000 residents (98% of law enforcement reporting)
• New Jersey: 146 burglaries per 100,000 residents (84% of law enforcement reporting)
• Maine: 149 burglaries per 100,000 residents (99% of law enforcement reporting)
• Massachusetts: 150 burglaries per 100,000 residents (92% of law enforcement reporting)

In the slideshow above, we'll look at the states with the highest rates of home burglaries in the United States.

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