Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, media outlets, and so-called “fact checkers” are claiming that “violent crime is near a 50-year low.” In contrast, Donald Trump is alleging that “crime is worse than it’s ever been.” The reality is that all of them are wrong. There are three key measures of violent crime with various strengths and weaknesses, but the most reliable and severe one shows that the murder rate in 2023 was 36 percent higher than the modern low in 2014 but 14 percent lower than the modern peak in 2021. The statistics cited by Harris and others who declare that violent crime is extraordinarily low come from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, which is based on voluntary reports of crimes by state and local law enforcement agencies. As explained by the FBI, this report “excludes” crimes like “sexual assault,” “simple assault,” “attempted robberies,” and “crimes not reported to law enforcement.” Regarding the last of those exclusions, the FBI discloses that “changes in police procedures, shifting attitudes toward crime and police, and other societal changes can affect the extent to which people report and law enforcement agencies record crime.” Thus, the FBI cautions against “making any direct comparison between data in this publication and those in prior” years. If one ignores that warning — and all of…
Read the full storyAnalysis: Crime Overall Is Not as Low as Biden-Harris Say, and Murder Rates Are Troubling
