Can we talk about crime statistics for a moment? I don't wish to minimize the dangers of home invasions or other crimes but I have seen the statment "going up" one too often. So I did some research.
To begin with, a home invasion is not a legally defined term in the United States, even though it may be a generally accepted media expression. The closest approximation in crime statistics may be robbery. If you aren't home, it's a burglary. If you are home and someone knocks down your front door and bursts in, apparently, judging from postings on this forum, it is most likely the police who got the house number wrong.
Be that as it may be, I checked nine different cities on the web site for the Detroit Free Press, which has a more or less easy to use data base of FBI crime statistics for the years 2005 through 2009 by state and city. I don't live in a city, but in Fairfax County, Virginia, so I can't check the statistics for where I live. I did check Alexandria, however. I also checked Roanoke, VA, Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, and San Francisco in California, Flagstaff, AZ, El Paso, Birmingham, Alabama, and Princeton, West Virginia, my hometown.
The results were interesting even though "home invasion" isn't a statistic. In all cases for violent crime, including robberies and murders, and for property crimes, including burglaries, the absolute numbers in all those categories except in El Paso, which had an increase in violent crime but a decrease in murders and in Bakersfield, which also had an increase in violent crime as well as a decrease in murders. I might note that the number of murders in Birmingham, Alabama, was over five times the number of murders in El Paso, Texas. Even Bakersfield, California, had twice the number of murders as El Paso.
I quickly admit my sampling was just a sample and not necessarily going to represent an average but it sure doesn't look like one can say that "home invasions are going up, up" without any exaggeration. I also point out that these are simple numbers and not rates, which I looked at a few months ago when someone asked about Orlando, Florida. That was when I discovered my hometown had quite high crime rates.
I'd still recommend locking your doors at night, all the same.