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Comment by altdataseller | Hacker News Reader

Is this due to work from home or is this just a secular trend? The data says it’s been declining for 12 yrs

I just don't have very much that's worth stealing now compared to the 80s/90s.

Back then (in the UK) TVs, stereos, computers and VCRs were all expensive and in demand. You'd hear about burglars targeting them.

Now those things (or their modern equivalents) are cheap, often trackable.

Anecdotally, the thing I've heard is the main target of burglaries now is car keys because everyone's driving a BMW/Mercedes/Audi on finance.

There's still expensive jewelry I suppose--though possibly less of that. But, as you say, electronics is generally of relatively lower value than it used to be and at least some of it can be remotely disabled/tracked. A lot of people don't even have a stereo system or DSLR camera setup.

I wonder if lab grown diamonds going for $500/carat might factor into this.

Who other than enthusiasts even wants a stereo or dedicated camera now? And I'd expect enthusiasts are less likely to knowingly buy stolen.

I'm sure, however, there's still massive trade in some kinds of stolen items like power tools.

I'm happy enough having a stereo as a casual consumer today (with speakers in multiple rooms). But I doubt I'd assemble one if I were starting from scratch.

With the shift from CD to streaming I'd strongly suspect most people just use a smart speaker setup.

I fall into that category too with Sonos. The speakers were relatively expensive but now they're not the latest model I bet they wouldn't be worth much second hand.

Apparently motor vehicles are a small fraction of the total compared to miscellaneous.

https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crim...

With the average (mean) residential burglary taking $97,000, I sort of wonder if the most stolen thing is insurance claims.

That data is obvious garbage.

The average amount swung from $100K to $200K to to $100K in spans of one year.

Yeah probably. Looks like the average insurance claim is closer to $5000.

https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-homeowne...

I think that's a great point I haven't thought of much before. Goods have gotten way cheaper relative to the cost of services, and especially second hand goods are almost unsellable in some cases - my guess is "porch pirate" thefts are more common now than home robberies.

If you couple all the following:

1. Most goods in a home have little resale value.

2. Tons of homes, even in modest or poor areas, have security cameras.

3. At least where I live, many homeowners have guns.

4. As the article points out, with so many people now staying at home or having flexible schedules, it's a lot harder to determine when a house would be empty.

Overall the risk/reward tradeoff just got much, much worse for home burglaries.

This doesn’t answer your question, but is related: At least in West Coast cities, I am skeptical about the data. A lot of people have stopped reporting burglaries because nothing is done about them. If you don’t need a police report - like if your loss isn’t worth the insurance deductible and increased future premiums - there isn’t a point to reporting. Police are often understaffed or have been instructed to deprioritize investigating these crimes. And even when a suspect is apprehended, city prosecutors focused on “restorative justice” often prefer to release them. Jaded victims have grown tired of reporting property crimes with no consequences. This is changing now perhaps, with an increasing focus on public safety, but it’s hard for me and many I know to trust the crime data from the last 10 years.

There’s also different trends for different areas or types of crime. For example there’s a trend of “burglary tourists” - illegal immigrants or legal visa holding tourists that often target certain groups like South Asians, perceiving them to be an easy and wealthy target. I suspect there are such groups for whom even the data would show sharp increases. Example article: https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/security-measures-urged...

How would this be a “secular trend”? What does secular even mean in this context?

Econ jargon. Means long-term, not (regularly) cyclical.

Derives from adjectival sense 2 here, I suppose:

https://www.websters1913.com/words/Secular

A secular trend is an ongoing directional shift, in contrast to a cyclical change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_variation

What do you think "secular" means?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_variation

The above page has a nice explanation in the etymology section for the two divergent meanings.

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