Baltimore has landed near the top of a grim national list: a new study ranks the city second in the country for phone and handheld device thefts, trailing only Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Researchers found Baltimore logged 471.2 thefts per 100,000 residents in 2025 — and while that rate put the city in second place, Baltimore actually reported more raw incidents than any other city in the study's top 10.
The study, attributed to IT Asset Management Group, found Baltimore recorded 2,652 phone and handheld theft incidents among its population of 562,811, according to WBFF. That's the highest total number of thefts among the study's top 10 cities, even though Baltimore's per-capita rate fell just short of Fort Lauderdale's. Researchers calculated that Baltimore's theft rate sits 243.9 percent above the national average.
How the Numbers Stack Up Nationally
Fort Lauderdale topped the list with 480.1 thefts per 100,000 residents, recording 918 total incidents. Atlanta came in third with 447.4 thefts per 100,000 residents and 2,353 total thefts, a figure reported by CBS 17. Wichita, Kansas ranked fourth at 414.7 per 100,000 with 1,666 thefts, followed by Little Rock, Arkansas in fifth with 389.6 per 100,000 and 800 incidents.
Durham, North Carolina rounded out sixth place with 341.2 thefts per 100,000 residents and 1,048 incidents among its population of 307,140, the same CBS 17 report noted. Spokane, Washington followed in seventh with 340.3 per 100,000 and 786 thefts, while Nashville placed eighth at 332.9 per 100,000 despite logging 2,392 total incidents. St. Louis came in ninth with 329.7 per 100,000 and 906 thefts, and Cincinnati closed out the top 10 at 326.0 per 100,000 with 1,031 incidents.
What the Study Actually Counted
IT Asset Management Group chief revenue officer Richy George pointed to a regional pattern in the findings, noting that six of the top 10 cities with high theft rates are in the South, per the station's report. George also said more than 14,500 phones and handheld devices were stolen across the top 10 cities combined, warning of the risks that poses to personal and business data, the same account notes.
Researchers reviewed FBI crime data for 2025, focusing only on cities with at least 100,000 residents, and they ranked solely cities that had a full year of police-reported data, at least 50 thefts, and consistent reporting practices, per the same source. The study's definition of theft cast a wide net — it included robbery, burglary, larceny such as pickpocketing or shoplifting, and car thefts whenever a phone or other handheld device was reported stolen. Handheld devices in the analysis included tablets and e-readers, not just smartphones.
A Note on Comparing Crime Data
Baltimore's own crime data carries a caution that complicates direct comparisons. The Baltimore Police Department states that its Open Baltimore dashboard is preliminary and does not represent statistics submitted to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, adding that any comparisons between that local data and UCR figures are strictly prohibited. BPD also transitioned from the FBI's old Summary Reporting System to the newer National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, effective January 1, 2025 — a shift the department says was mandated nationwide by the FBI.
That reporting change matters because NIBRS allows multiple offenses to be documented within a single incident, unlike the old hierarchy rule under the previous system. The department has cautioned that some reported numbers may appear higher simply because the way crimes are recorded has changed, not necessarily because crime itself has increased.
Separately, the Council on Criminal Justice has noted that not all crimes are reported to law enforcement in the first place, and that data collected for broader crime reports remains subject to revision by local jurisdictions. The organization found that Baltimore's reported larceny rate in the first half of 2025 was 1 percent lower than the same period in 2024, compared with an average 12 percent decline across the 36 study cities with larceny data. Measured against pre-pandemic numbers, Baltimore's larceny rate in the first half of 2025 was 4 percent lower than in the first half of 2019, while the broader study cities saw a steeper 19 percent drop over that same span.
