A Sheffield homeowner checks their Ring doorbell at 3am, heart sinking as they watch a figure jimmy their back door. Forty-nine other South Yorkshire residents had the same experience last month — their homes violated while the BBC leads with stories about prison escapes and police investigating private jets at Stansted.

The reality behind the headlines? Fifty-one burglaries were recorded by South Yorkshire Police in their latest monthly data — one break-in every 14 hours, seven days a week (Source: Police UK, crime-south-yorkshire). Yet this barely registers in our national conversation about crime.

Those 51 burglaries represent 8% of all crime recorded in South Yorkshire that month. But here's what should worry residents more: violent crime completely dwarfs property theft. 289 violent incidents were logged — nearly six times more than burglaries. That's not gang warfare or knife crime making headlines. That's domestic violence, pub fights, and street assaults happening to ordinary people.

The numbers reveal how skewed our crime coverage has become. Public order offences — the disruption that actually affects daily life — hit 58 cases. Criminal damage and arson: 50 incidents. Drug offences, the crime type politicians love to weaponise: just 45.

So while news editors chase dramatic stories about prisoners slipping hospital security twice in a week, the crimes that actually shape life in places like Rotherham and Doncaster get buried in monthly police statistics. The burglar who steals your laptop doesn't make national news. The dealer selling outside your child's school doesn't trend on social media.

This isn't unique to South Yorkshire. Across England and Wales, the same pattern emerges: violent crime dominates police workloads while property crime — the stuff that makes people feel unsafe in their own homes — gets treated as background noise.

The political class talks tough on crime while ignoring what the data actually shows. Eight out of every hundred crimes in South Yorkshire are burglaries. But when did you last hear a politician promise to tackle the break-ins happening every 14 hours in Sheffield? When did the Home Secretary last visit a family whose home was ransacked?

Instead, we get headlines about airport investigations and hospital security breaches. Important stories, perhaps. But not the ones that explain why your neighbour installed CCTV last week, or why houses in Barnsley now have three locks on every door.

The data doesn't lie. The coverage does.