Annual Washington Motor-Vehicle-Theft Summary

What this dataset measures

Washington's pursuit-law debate repeatedly cites changes in vehicle theft, but annual headlines obscure timing, reporting coverage, and differences among official measures. This release preserves the underlying FBI response, exposes a reproducible monthly series, joins exact legal effective dates, and publishes validation and limitations so temporal associations can be examined without presenting them as causal effects.

Geography

Washington State, United States

Unit of observation

One calendar month for the principal Washington and United States series; one calendar year or one legal-policy period in derived tables.

Update cadence

Immutable research release; refreshes require a new version because FBI historical values may be revised.

Curator

FactHub Research Team

Curated data tables

Annual Washington Motor-Vehicle-Theft Summary

Yearly sums, changes, clearances, and reporting-coverage ranges derived from the monthly table.

Unit of observation: One calendar year.

annual-summary.csv text/csv · 809 bytes

All 8 rows 10 columns Download the file

All 8 rows

year year	months months	wa_reported_offenses reported offenses	wa_year_over_year_change_pct percent	wa_clearances clearances	wa_min_population_coverage_pct percent	wa_max_population_coverage_pct percent	us_reported_offenses reported offenses	us_min_population_coverage_pct percent	us_max_population_coverage_pct percent
2018	12	27515	—	2136	99.39	99.63	0	97.17	97.87
2019	12	24735	-10.1	1697	99.45	99.53	0	94.8	96.97
2020	12	28036	13.35	1912	99.49	99.67	0	95.17	96.67
2021	12	35662	27.2	1715	99.18	99.54	0	74.12	79.48
2022	12	49874	39.85	1877	98.94	99.26	0	93.61	95.35
2023	12	53360	6.99	1669	99.03	99.43	0	95	96.29
2024	12	34650	-35.06	1561	99.37	99.6	0	96.06	96.71
2025	12	20199	-41.71	1169	95.65	99.41	0	96.02	96.91

10 field definitions

Field	Type	Meaning	Units	Value type
year	integer	Calendar year.	year	derived
months	integer	Number of monthly observations included in the annual row.	months	derived
wa_reported_offenses	integer	Annual sum of Washington reported motor-vehicle-theft offenses.	reported offenses	derived
wa_year_over_year_change_pct	decimal	Percentage change in annual Washington reported offenses from the previous year.	percent	derived
wa_clearances	integer	Annual sum of Washington clearances.	clearances	derived
wa_min_population_coverage_pct	decimal	Minimum Washington population coverage during the calendar year.	percent	derived
wa_max_population_coverage_pct	decimal	Maximum Washington population coverage during the calendar year.	percent	derived
us_reported_offenses	integer	Annual sum of the endpoint's United States offense-count field; all values are zero in this retained response and must not be interpreted as national totals.	reported offenses	derived
us_min_population_coverage_pct	decimal	Minimum U.S. population coverage during the calendar year.	percent	derived
us_max_population_coverage_pct	decimal	Maximum U.S. population coverage during the calendar year.	percent	derived

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

• fbi-cde-wa-mvt-2018-2025.json Source · application/json · 19.2 KB (19,634 bytes)

  Immutable FBI Crime Data Explorer API response retained as the source snapshot for this release.

• README.md Documentation · text/markdown · 8.4 KB (8,633 bytes)

  Dataset purpose, source selection, article use, file guide, build instructions, and acquisition priorities.

• quality-report.md Quality report · text/markdown · 5.1 KB (5,177 bytes)

  Definitions, automated checks, reporting coverage, conflicting official values, limitations, and publication cautions.

• source-audit.md Documentation · text/markdown · 7.9 KB (8,085 bytes)

  Audit of official public sources, their suitability, discrepancies, and the source hierarchy used for this release.

• release-manifest.json Source manifest · application/json · 3 KB (3,046 bytes)

  Release metadata and SHA-256 digests for the original research artifacts.

• build.ps1 Transformation manifest · text/x-powershell · 9.8 KB (10,008 bytes)

  Executable acquisition, transformation, validation, summary, and digest-generation recipe.

Sources

1. Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime Data Explorer Principal source for monthly Washington and United States offenses, clearances, rates, population, and population-coverage values.

   Retrieved October 7, 2026. U.S. federal government data. Retained source response is redistributed for reproducibility with attribution to the FBI Crime Data Explorer.

2. Washington State Legislature Official source for HB 1054 and its 2021 pursuit-law effective date.

   Retrieved October 7, 2026. Washington State public record. Linked as an official public record; source document bytes are not redistributed in this release.

3. Washington State Legislature Official session law for SB 5352 and its immediate May 3, 2023 effective date.

   Retrieved October 7, 2026. Washington State public record. Linked as an official public record; source document bytes are not redistributed in this release.

4. Washington State Legislature Official session law for Initiative 2113 and its June 6, 2024 effective date.

   Retrieved October 7, 2026. Washington State public record. Linked as an official public record; source document bytes are not redistributed in this release.

Limitations and reproducibility

Fully reproducible from the retained FBI API response with Windows PowerShell 5.1 or newer and no additional packages.: The public release includes the immutable source response, transformation and validation script, generated tables, release manifest with SHA-256 digests, source audit, quality report, and build instructions. Running scripts/build.ps1 without -Refresh rebuilds from the retained response; -Refresh intentionally acquires potentially revised source values and therefore requires a new release.

• The principal series is a statewide aggregate and cannot identify which agencies or counties drove a change.
• Reported offenses are not necessarily unique stolen vehicles, victims, suspects, arrests, recoveries, or pursuits.
• The release contains no vehicle make or model and cannot directly measure the Kia and Hyundai theft wave.
• The release does not measure attempted theft, failures to yield, or incidents in which officers did not initiate a pursuit.
• The release does not contain police staffing, deployment, prosecution, detention, or task-force activity.
• FBI source values can be revised after this immutable release.
• Washington population coverage declines to approximately 95.7%–96.1% in the second half of 2025.
• The United States series is a descriptive benchmark, not a causal counterfactual for Washington.
• All three pursuit-law changes occurred during a month; the descriptive period table excludes those transition months.
• FBI offense totals do not reconcile with separately published WACIC and WATPA stolen-vehicle figures; the measures must not be treated as interchangeable.
• Policy-period averages are unadjusted, highly confounded descriptions and must not be described as causal effects.