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GlossaryCrime classifications

Crimes against property

Crimes against property is a NIBRS grouping for offenses involving property or benefit interests. Learn why it can include robbery and differs from a narrow property-crime total.

Crimes against property is a National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, grouping for offenses directed at property interests, money, or another benefit under program definitions. It includes categories such as burglary, robbery, theft, and fraud. It does not mean every included event was nonviolent, and it may be broader than a separately defined “property crime” statistic.

Category membership matters

NIBRS assigns offenses to person, property, or society groupings for statistical reporting. The FBI's manual includes robbery within crimes against property, even though it involves force or threatened force against a person. The grouping therefore cannot be used as a simple violent/nonviolent split. FBI NIBRS offense categories

A dashboard may use “property crime” for a narrower selected group, such as several traditional index offenses. Another may use the full NIBRS property grouping. Similar headings do not establish identical membership.

The victim can also be a business, organization, government, or individual, depending on the offense and program rules. A property-offense total is therefore not automatically a count of residents affected.

Example

Hypothetical example: A table includes one shoplifting event at a store and one reported robbery involving property taken from a person by force. Under the relevant NIBRS grouping, both can appear among crimes against property.

The total does not establish that both events were nonviolent. Nor does it show the number of unique people involved: the store can be recorded as an organizational victim, while the robbery has its own victim relationships. A differently defined local property-crime dashboard might not include the same categories.

Common confusion

Property loss is an outcome or amount, not the grouping itself. Damage, attempts, and different loss types follow specific rules. A reported dollar value also does not identify the number of offenses or establish an insurance payment.

Crimes against persons and crimes against society are parallel NIBRS groupings. Their separation does not mean a property offense cannot injure someone or affect the broader community. Legal charges remain a separate classification process.

Reading counts and rates

Identify included offenses, standard/version, period, agency coverage, and counting unit. NIBRS scoring rules vary by category and include a vehicle-based rule for motor vehicle theft, so one incident row cannot automatically be treated as one counted offense. A rate also needs a matching denominator and geography. Preserve the source's definition rather than relabeling every broad property total as a traditional index-crime measure.

Sources