by VDC Staff
In Vermont, a trip to the grocery store is part of everyday life—whether in Burlington or a small mountain town. Yet over the past several years, those familiar aisles have seen a noticeable rise in shoplifting. According to an analysis of FBI data, Vermont recorded the seventh-highest rate of grocery-store shoplifting in the United States.
Key figures for Vermont
- Rate: 80.1 incidents per 100,000 residents—about 1.4 times the national average of 58.
- Average annual incidents (2021–2025): 518, or roughly one to two per day.
- Peak year: 2024 with 793 incidents; the number eased to 696 in 2025.
- Change since 2021: +397 incidents, a rise of about 133% (the steepest increase among the top-ranked states).
Vermont’s small population means a relatively modest number of incidents still produces a high per-capita rate. It has the lowest raw incident count among the top 10 states, yet ranks seventh overall.
How Vermont compares
Here are the 10 states with the highest average annual grocery-shoplifting rates per 100,000 residents (2021–2025):
| Rank | State | Average Annual Incidents | Rate per 100,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Mexico | 3,319 | 156.5 |
| 2 | Oregon | 6,170 | 144.9 |
| 3 | Montana | 1,263 | 112.0 |
| 4 | Utah | 3,036 | 88.1 |
| 5 | Washington | 6,861 | 87.3 |
| 6 | Oklahoma | 3,384 | 83.3 |
| 7 | Vermont | 518 | 80.1 |
| 8 | Wisconsin | 4,502 | 75.9 |
| 9 | West Virginia | 1,270 | 71.6 |
| 10 | North Dakota | 556 | 70.6 |
Vermont’s rate is more than four times higher than California’s (17.5 per 100,000), the lowest in the country. It is also roughly 2.2 to 3.5 times higher than rates in states such as New Jersey, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island.
How the numbers were calculated
The analysis used FBI Crime Data Explorer figures for grocery-store shoplifting incidents and U.S. Census Bureau population estimates for all 50 states (excluding Washington, D.C.) from 2021 to 2025. For each state, the five yearly incident counts were averaged, then divided by the average population and multiplied by 100,000 to produce a per-capita rate. States were ranked from highest to lowest by that rate.
Sources
- FBI Crime Data Explorer: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend
- U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest.html
- Research dataset: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NXP2s-_t9zqkLav52mp-58u7mLUimJhEU9vHVx7o5n4/edit?gid=0#gid=0
- Study conducted by H&P Law: https://courtroomproven.com/