MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A Memphis woman was shaken up last month when she found a burglar inside her Raleigh home. The burglar wasn’t at the house on Winter Cove long enough to take anything, but the victim was too nervous to being identified.
Memphis woman says she found burglar hiding in her closet
“He was just caught,” she said, “He seemed really scared. He just let me walk him out of the house.”
But other homeowners and business owners in Memphis haven’t been so lucky. Instead, thieves are getting away with the crimes.
In Fact, a new study by Porch shows out of all U.S. cities, Memphis has the most burglaries per capita.
The study that looked at FBI numbers shows an average of 1,384 burglaries per 100,000 residents each year. That compares to 422 per 100,000 at the national level.
FBI data from 2015 to 2019 shows the number of burglaries across the country was cut in half from 2.2 million to 1.1 million, but there are still hot spots like Memphis, the study found.
The crime data also showed burglars were about twice as likely to target a home than a business or other building, and nearly half of all burglaries, like the one on Winter Cove, occurred in broad daylight.
Memphis Police searching for church burglar in Fox Meadows
Once in, thieves were most likely to take money or jewelry. Together, those valuables were worth more than the other top categories of stolen goods combined. Those items included electronics, office equipment, and clothing.
The study also looked at some of the safest places to live in the country. For instance, burglaries occur in states like New York, New Hampshire, and Virginia less than half as many times as the national average, while residents of New Mexico, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Louisiana are burglarized twice as often. The group blamed it on higher-than-average crime rates in the South.
Crime stats released by the state of Tennessee Monday show 5,529 burglaries in Memphis in 2020, and of those, only 562 cases were cleared.