Theft in Chicago — Crime Statistics 2026

What 95,618 theft reports measure

Theft is the CPD primary category for taking property without lawful consent and without the force that would move the event into robbery. In the Illinois Uniform Crime Reporting (IUCR) scheme used on the public incident feed, that bucket covers a wide range of property events: retail theft, theft from a motor vehicle, theft from a building, pocket-picking, and related property-taking codes. The 95,618 figure is a count of incident records tagged with primary type Theft, not a count of unique offenders, unique victims, or items recovered.

Because theft is so common in the 410,083-incident Chicago index, the type hub is often the first place researchers land when they want property-crime volume rather than a neighborhood map. The number is large enough that small coding differences at the margin would not change the rank order: theft is the modal primary type in this extract. It is still a police-report total. Unfounded cases, later recodes, and incidents that never produced an arrest all remain in the public table unless CPD removes or updates the source row.

How CPD IUCR primary types work

Every row on the Chicago open-data crime incidents dataset carries a primary type drawn from IUCR. LocalCrimeVault displays that field as CPD published it. If a report was written as Theft, it stays under Theft here even when a reader might describe the same event as shoplifting, package theft, or theft from auto. The site does not split the 95,618 rows into those subtypes on this page; subtype and IUCR code detail, when present, live on the incident table itself.

Primary type is not the same as a criminal conviction and is not the same as a UCR hierarchy rule applied after the fact. A single incident can involve more than one offense in the field. CPD's public extract typically exposes one primary type per row. Readers comparing Chicago to another city should match definitions: other agencies may file similar property events under larceny, theft from vehicle, or a local ordinance code that never appears in this IUCR list.

Questions

How many theft reports are in the Chicago CPD index?

This extract includes 95,618 Chicago incidents with IUCR primary type Theft. That is about 23.3 percent of 410,083 city incidents indexed on LocalCrimeVault. The figure counts police reports from the city open-data portal, not convictions, arrests, or unique offenders. CPD assigns the primary type; LocalCrimeVault does not reclassify charges.

Is theft the same as robbery or burglary in Chicago data?

No. Theft is taking property without the force that defines robbery and without the unlawful entry of a structure that defines burglary. CPD files those as separate IUCR primary types. This page covers only the 95,618 theft rows. Mixing the categories would inflate property-crime totals and blur what each statute group records.

Does a theft incident mean someone was convicted?

No. Public CPD incident rows are reports. They can remain in the open-data feed if no arrest was made, if charges were declined, or if the case was later unfounded and not yet removed. The 95,618 count should be read as report volume. Court records and CLEARANCE fields, when used, live outside this narrative.

Where does LocalCrimeVault get Chicago theft counts?

Counts come from Chicago Police Department incidents published on the city's open-data portal (Socrata) and indexed here. Offense types are CPD IUCR primary categories. LocalCrimeVault does not reclassify charges. Compare the type table with the Chicago hub if you need theft next to the other 410,083 city reports.