Crime Drops, But Politics Plays with Numbers

The FBI's latest crime report shows that both violent and property crime in the U.S. decreased in 2023. This is a continuation of a downward trend that started after the higher crime rates during the pandemic. Murder rates dropped by 11.6%, and property crime fell by 2.4%. Overall, violent crime went down by 3%. However, the 2024 presidential race has seen politicians using different crime statistics to support their claims. Former President Donald Trump has stated that crime is high under the Biden administration, but FBI data shows a different story. Trump has referred to a different survey, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey. This survey includes both reported and unreported crimes and shows that the violent crime victimization rate increased from 16.4 per 1,000 people in 2020 to 22.5 per 1,000 in 2023. Experts agree that both reports are reliable, but they measure crimes differently.

The pandemic made it hard to conduct the victimization surveys, which could explain why the FBI’s data and the survey show different trends. Politicians can easily manipulate these findings to fit their agendas. During an August rally, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz said that violent crime was up under Trump. However, FBI data shows that violent crime rates actually decreased during Trump's first three years in office. It was only in 2020, during the pandemic, that the rate increased significantly. Voters are very concerned about crime. A Gallup poll found that nearly 80% of Americans worry about crime and violence “a great deal” or “a fair amount”. But real-time crime data is often lacking, making voters vulnerable to political manipulation. Crime experts caution that national trends don’t always reflect what’s happening in individual cities and neighborhoods. Additionally, the FBI’s report isn’t complete because not all law enforcement agencies submit their data.

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