In between jobs, I've been moving through a bunch of airports lately. So I've wondered - do airports have abnormally high or low rates of theft?

I could imagine airports have abnormally high rates of theft, because lots of people move through them with packed valuable baggage and stress, prime targets for thieves.

I could imagine airports have abnormally low rates of theft, because security checkpoints guard the boarding areas, discouraging thieves.

As it turns out (over my research), we don't have credible statistics about airport theft. Thefts often don't get reported, especially when:

1. Travelers can't tell where along their multi-stop route they lost their stuff
2. Travelers don't know who exactly can effectively help under their strict timelines
3. Travelers don't comprehend the language(s) well

In fact, we don't seem to have credible statistics about most types of crimes. We seem to have the best statistics about murder (people close to the victim notice their lack of presence, or somebody discovers a body) and car theft (car insurance gets involved).