29 May 2026

A safe state with a theft problem.

Hawaiʻi is one of the safest states for violent crime, ranking #12 of 50 in 2024: 231 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, against a national median of 328.

States that have low violent crime are low on theft too. Not Hawaiʻi.

On property crime, Hawaiʻi ranks #40 of 50, at 2,053 per 100,000. Since 1960, Hawaiʻi has been the only state in the nation that has almost always been both, top tier on violent crime and bottom tier on property crime.

Idaho is almost identical on violent crime, ranking #13, but has the lowest property-crime rate in the country: 757 per 100,000. Hawaiʻi’s rate is nearly three times higher.

The difference is due to tourism.

Idaho has nothing like Hawaiʻi’s visitor traffic. Hawaiʻi hosted an average of 230,000 visitors a day in 2024. Most of the state is rural, but property crime clusters where visitors do: Waikīkī and the resort corridors, where residents and tourists crowd the same blocks.

That also distorts the rate. Visitors are included in the crime count, but not in the resident population used to calculate the rate. So, the figure overstates the everyday risk to residents.

The crime itself is mostly opportunistic, larceny and vehicle break-ins, not burglary.

Hawaiʻi’s property-crime rate has fallen about 40% in a decade, from 3,420 per 100,000. But its rank improved only from #46 to #40 because the rest of the country improved too.

Like Hawaiʻi, New York’s property crime also concentrates in dense tourist and commercial areas, and New York has much more of them. Yet, New York records less property crime than Hawaiʻi: 1,811 per 100,000, or about 12% lower than Hawaiʻi. Maybe Hawaiʻi can learn something?