The Most Burglarized Cities in Every State

We found the most-burglarized city in every state and the results may surprise you—it looks like burglars prefer small towns over big cities.

Among the cities with the most burglaries per capita, only nine (19%) have populations higher than 15,000 people. On the flipside, another nine (19%) are home to fewer than 1,000 residents. 

Nationwide, burglary is the second-most common property crime, accounting for 16% of all reported incidents. But in the most-burglarized cities, that jumps up to 23%.

See where burglars are busiest in your state (and where a new security cam might help out the most) in the full list below.

• The top 5 cities with the most burglaries per capita are Vernon, California; Sauget, Illinois; Maggie Valley, North Carolina; Berry Hill, Tennessee; and Quincy, Florida.
• Vernon, California is a major outlier, with more burglaries reported than there are people who live there. In 2019, this tiny California town reported 133 burglaries among its 112 residents. That works out to 118.8 burglaries per 100 people—more than 111 incidents higher than the next-closest town of Sauget, Illinois with 7.32 burglaries per 100.
• 36 (75%) of the cities on the list had fewer than two burglaries per 100 people.
• 14 cities (29%) reported fewer than one burglary per 100 people.
• Vernon, California is the smallest city on the list with 112 residents. Des Moines, Iowa is the most populous with 218,384—but Des Moines has 99% fewer burglaries per 100 people than Vernon (1.05 versus 118.75, respectively).
• Only 9 of the most-burglarized cities (19%) have populations above 15,000—the threshold we use to rank the 100 Safest Cities in America.
• 81% of the cities (39) have populations below 15,000.
• 60% of the top 5 most-burglarized cities are in the south.
• Burglars are less busy in New England. Even the most-burglarized cities in New England states report fewer than one burglary per 100 residents. 

To find the most-burglarized city in each state, we analyzed the most recent FBI burglary statistics and population data.² We excluded cities with populations below 100 and any that didn’t report complete data to the FBI in 2019 (the most recent year for which data was available). 

To even the playing field, we calculated the number of burglaries reported per 100 people in each city that qualified in every state. The city with the highest number of burglaries per 100 people for each state landed on our list.

Alabama and Hawaii were excluded because there weren’t enough city data to analyze; only one city in each state provided burglary data in 2019. Washington, D.C. was also excluded.

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1. FBI, Unified Crime Reporting, "2019 Crime in the United States, Burglary," October 2020. Accessed January 27, 2022.
2. SafeWise, "The State of Safety in America 2021," September 2021. Accessed January 27, 2022.