Scary Truth About Home Invasions in America

DAE51D · Jul 9, 2010

I thought this was pretty interesting to share:

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JimmyS1985 · Jul 9, 2010

Those are some shoddy statistics, just read the comments about the article. 3.6 million x 5 means we only have 18 million homes and 300,000,000 people, comes out to an average between 15 and 20 people per home.

I once had some strange young men lying in wait for me at my house, about a week after I had helped the police solve a hit and run against a neighbor of mine caused by a guy who lived less than a 5 minute walk away. Im about 99% sure it was him and his friends waiting for me in my house and I think he knew it was me because his dad knew I had helped the police and called my dad at our house to deny his son of being involved, which has made me want to OC my Beretta M9 (since its unconcealable) ever since, so it could not be used against me if they broke into the safe, and I would be prepared if they planned on physically assaulting me the moment I walked through the door.

I moved out of that neighborhood though, its crimerate was way too high. I feel sorry for Chicago residents who can not bring a loaded firearm into their house.

We also had about $5000 in property damage caused by vandals over a 2 and a half year period, and my parents never did anything to even attempt to stop that. Not like a firearm could have either without winding up in jail yourself. What a crappy neighborhood.

Member 5605 · Jul 9, 2010

Lock bumping....

ZachS · Jul 9, 2010

It looks like they're reporting every instance of domestic burglary or other unlawful entry to a dwelling as a "home invasion." I suspect that only a tiny percentage of these are really home invasions the way we think of them, and that most of those are drug dealers ripping each other off.

No reason not to stay vigilant, but knowing is half the battle - and the lightweight commercial blog that made the poster does not explain where it gets its numbers or how it defines "home invasion."

longcolt · Jul 9, 2010

ZachS said:
It looks like they're reporting every instance of domestic burglary or other unlawful entry to a dwelling as a "home invasion." I suspect that only a tiny percentage of these are really home invasions the way we think of them, and that most of those are drug dealers ripping each other off.

No reason not to stay vigilant, but knowing is half the battle - and the lightweight commercial blog that made the poster does not explain where it gets its numbers or how it defines "home invasion."

Agreed, the statistics are most likely loaded.

But it would be nice to have that information by local. I assume you would find the lions share occurs in the large cities where handgun laws are very strict.

I have never known anyone that has actually experienced a home invasion while they were home. I am a older guy that has lived in Indianapolis, Miami area, LA and Portland. But my neighborhoods are relatively safe.

I would like to see home invasion statistics rated by city. That would be very informative.

Gunner69 · Jul 9, 2010

Superjew said:
Those are some shoddy statistics, just read the comments about the article. 3.6 million x 5 means we only have 18 million homes and 300,000,000 people, comes out to an average between 15 and 20 people per home.[\QUOTE]

Actually your math or understanding of the statistics is off...

3,600,000 x 6 (Years) is 21,600,000 "Home Invaions" in a 6 year period from 1994-2000

It looks like the stats were pulled from the FBI,and DoJ, which means that anything that could possibly be called a "home invasion" was included..

Gunner69 · Jul 9, 2010

longcolt said:
Agreed, the statistics are most likely loaded.

But it would be nice to have that information by local. I assume you would find the lions share occurs in the large cities where handgun laws are very strict.

I have never known anyone that has actually experienced a home invasion while they were home. I am a older guy that has lived in Indianapolis, Miami area, LA and Portland. But my neighborhoods are relatively safe.

I would like to see home invasion statistics rated by city. That would be very informative.

Ask an yea shall receive....

Hillsboro Crime Statistics (OR) - CityRating.com

Portland Crime Statistics (OR) - CityRating.com

Salem Crime Statistics (OR) - CityRating.com

Eugene Crime Statistics (OR) - CityRating.com

Just for a few of the major population centers...

ZachS · Jul 9, 2010

longcolt said:
Agreed, the statistics are most likely loaded.

But it would be nice to have that information by local. I assume you would find the lions share occurs in the large cities where handgun laws are very strict.

I have never known anyone that has actually experienced a home invasion while they were home. I am a older guy that has lived in Indianapolis, Miami area, LA and Portland. But my neighborhoods are relatively safe.

I would like to see home invasion statistics rated by city. That would be very informative.

It would be, but I doubt it's a category of crime that's tracked nationwide - and it would be hard to: Is a crackhead who burglarizes a house he thought was unoccupied a "home invader?" What if he has a gun in his pocket? Would robberies of drug dealers count? Incidents of "domestic" violence after a couple's moved apart?

There's no way we could all agree on a definition, much less police statisticians across the country. On top of that, there are very few jurisdictions where people aren't allowed to (at least) keep a shotgun at home for protection. When those laws change, the statistical effect is likely to be minimal. Most gun law changes relate to handguns, "assault weapons," and carry - and there's no reason that any of those would affect the number of home invasions.

Just my take. This is all a guess.

RVTECH · Jul 10, 2010

A recent incident in LaPine, OR - POP 1535 (where I live)

6/30/2010 - La Pine
Police are searching for the suspect in a home invasion and sexual assault in La Pine. The victim says she was home alone with her two year old Monday night when someone came in an unlocked door and assaulted her with an unidentified weapon. There was a struggle, the suspect eventually fleeing, possibly with a facial or eye injury. The suspect is described as a white male, twenty five to fifty, around six feet tall and one hundred seventy five to two hundred pounds, possibly with dark hair, last seen wearing blue jeans, a black sweatshirt, black gloves and full ski mask. Deschutes County Sheriff's detectives are following several leads. If you have any information you are asked to call them at 388-6655.

drew · Jul 10, 2010

ZachS said:
It looks like they're reporting every instance of domestic burglary or other unlawful entry to a dwelling as a "home invasion." I suspect that only a tiny percentage of these are really home invasions the way we think of them, and that most of those are drug dealers ripping each other off.

No reason not to stay vigilant, but knowing is half the battle - and the lightweight commercial blog that made the poster does not explain where it gets its numbers or how it defines "home invasion."

Bingo. I tend to really look at numbers when someone doesn't show how they derived them or give definitions.

At one point there were some cooked metrics circulating at my work. Most people who heard my rant about them started seeing through them.

ZachS · Jul 10, 2010

RVTECH said:
A recent incident in LaPine, OR - POP 1535 (where I live)

That's an anecdote, not a statistic.

Just Jim · Jul 10, 2010

LaPine has a big meth problem. I worked there for a month or so and some guy stole my dirty work clothes. Figuered out they were dirty and dropped them along side the road as he left. People who can't afford to live in Bend move to LaPine, alot of druggers in that area.

jj

Gunner3456 · Jul 10, 2010

ZachS said:
That's an anecdote, not a statistic.

87% of all statistics are made up anyway.

Statistics prove that cigarette smoking causes 79% of all statistics.

Jamie6.5 · Jul 10, 2010

ZachS said:
That's an anecdote, not a statistic.

As soon as the police took the report, classified it as a break-in and started looking for a suspect it became a statistic.

HalfNutz · Jul 10, 2010

This was by friend's dad. Just happened a couple of days ago.

Tulsa Attorney Robbed During Home Invasion - NewsOn6.com - Tulsa, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports - KOTV.com |

ZA_Survivalist · Jul 10, 2010

Thats why we've got a lock on the bedroom door as well. We're on the 3rd floor, and shes got my AKM and shotgun right by her side. Soon she'll have her CCW.

But is that really enough?

eriknemily · Jul 10, 2010

Gunner3456 said:
87% of all statistics are made up anyway.

Statistics prove that cigarette smoking causes 79% of all statistics.

I knew it. I always had a feeling smokers were mostly responsible for statistics but couldn't find the evidence. Now I know I can blame our tobacco smoking president for 79% of our statistical errors in this country. That is unless you factor in that 30% of the 79% is made up of crack and dope smokers. Then it gets more complicated

RVTECH · Jul 11, 2010

LaPine has a big meth problem.

As does most of Central Oregon, and lots of places in "The Valley" no doubt.

I worked there for a month or so and some guy stole my dirty work clothes.

Sorry about your dirty work clothes. I have lived here since 2004 and haven't lost a thing AND I certainly understand stolen clothes - I was once doing my army cammos in a base landromat many years ago only to find them missing when I went to get them out of the dryer. They were later recovered from a trash can on base.

People who can't afford to live in Bend move to LaPine

I some ways true. After my divorce I could not afford the size of property I wanted in Bend so I chose Lapine and I like the quiet nature of the area I live in. LaPine certainly has a sordid reputation but probably has no greater percentage of problems than anywhere else in Central Oregon based on population density. The up side is those who cannot afford to live in Bend and choose LaPine are much better off than say those who moved here 20-30 years ago and the community is getting better if anything.

DAE51D · Jul 12, 2010

longcolt said:
I have never known anyone that has actually experienced a home invasion while they were home.

You have now...

Me and my g.f. were in bed (au natural) in her 2 floor townhouse in Redmond one Sunday morning about 4 years ago. Some guy just opened the bedroom door and said, "Is Jennifer around" (or some name we both didn't know). I was thinking it was some friend of my g.f.'s daughter who was just incredibly stupid and rude to open the door, and she was thinking the same thing. Turns out this guy was a thief and while he was distracting us, his buddy was robbing her daughter's room and the downstairs. When we finally realized WTF just happened, we called the police and checked the house to find DVD's, jewelry, cash and other small items missing. I started to bring my 9mm to her place after that moment. Talk about being completely vulnerable.

She lives with me now, and her son who is 18 is always leaving my front door unlocked. It pisses me off to no end. I printed that poster out and have it taped to the front door so he understands that I'm not just being paranoid. People DO get robbed and worse all the time -- even in suburbia.

I put a lock on my bedroom door now too. Both the push-button kind (which makes a very loud click/thud sound when you try to open it via the pinhole) and also the flipy thing that you can only lock from inside the room (so I can't accidentally lock myself out of my own bedroom :s0112:

) And I have the 9mm with the first two rounds are these blue plastic tip pellet things, and the rest are hollow points.

Minisocks · Jul 12, 2010

Superjew said:
Those are some shoddy statistics, just read the comments about the article. 3.6 million x 5 means we only have 18 million homes and 300,000,000 people, comes out to an average between 15 and 20 people per home.

The "1 in 5" is a projection based on an extrapolation of data and is not related to 3.6 million which is a representation of past data. Those two numbers don't interact unless they are translated to the other's form. Specifically it says, "1 in 5 homes WILL experience a break-in or invasion". Of course, a single home may experience more than one break-in/invasion so I don't know if they distinguish that. That is, if 1 home experiences 10 break-ins does that count as 10 homes or 1? Given that housing statistics say that there are approximately 120 million homes that means they assume that 24 million homes will experience a break-in/invasion which seems rather high. This makes me think they count each individual break-in/invasion as a distinct home rather than multiple invasions per home.

I'm not arguing that these stats are correct or not, just taking issue with the multiplication of 3.6 million by 5 which makes no sense given the presentation of the data.

ZachS said:
It looks like they're reporting every instance of domestic burglary or other unlawful entry to a dwelling as a "home invasion." I suspect that only a tiny percentage of these are really home invasions the way we think of them, and that most of those are drug dealers ripping each other off.

Many of these statistics are based on crime reporting. I'm not sure that drug dealers report crimes or call 911 if they get ripped off.