America's Fastest-Growing Crime Problem Barely Even Registers as 'Crime' for Most People

When we talk about crime at the city level, we tend to focus on violent crime and property crime. These two categories don't encompass the entire universe of illegal behavior, but they cover crimes that a) have victims, and b) local police can actually investigate. Property and violent crime affect us where we live and work, and we expect local government to do something about them.

But even though these categories seem comprehensive, neither one includes identity theft. Considering identity theft now costs Americans nearly twice as much as property crime, that's an odd omission. In a recent report, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that total losses attributed to identity theft in 2012 were $24.6 billion, compared to $13.9 billion for property crimes. Not only is the total loss amount higher for identity theft, the mean and median loss per incident is roughly double (see the chart at right).