Car thefts in some cities have doubled in just four years, part of an overall rise. And while most stolen cars are unoccupied when stolen, some cities have seen a nearly 30% increase in carjackings in the same time period. That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ). It echoes recent studies from the National Insurance Crime Bureau that also found car theft spiking since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Violent crime down, car theft up CCJ’s report looked at crime in 35 American cities. It found that murder, aggravated assault, gun crimes, and domestic violence incidents all dropped in 2022. But motor vehicle theft rose sharply during the pandemic. The authors caution that the cities selected for the study “are not necessarily representative of all U.S. cities.” “There were 37,560 more motor vehicle thefts in 2022 than in 2021, amounting to an average increase of nearly 21% over 2021 and a 59% increase over 2019, the year before the pandemic began,” researchers found. Plus: Used car values are dropping. Here’s when forecasters expect prices to normalizeNews reverses a long, positive trend Motor vehicle theft had “plummeted for several decades” pre-pandemic as automakers improved security. But from the start of 2019 to the end of 2022, car theft spiked by an average of 59% in 30 of the 35 cities studied. “Vehicle thefts more than doubled in eigh …