CRIMEDespite What Some Politicians Say, Crime Rates Are Decreasing
Violent crime in the United States dropped significantly in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the same period last year, but some politicians continue to assert the opposite. Criminologists caution that while the overall decline in violent crime is an indisputable fact, the story may be different in individual cities and neighborhoods.
Violent crime in the United States dropped significantly in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the same period last year, according to the FBI’s Quarterly Uniform Crime Report released earlier this month.
The FBI’s data, collected from nearly 12,000 law enforcement agencies representing about 77% of the country’s population, suggests violent crime dropped by 15% compared with the first quarter of 2023.
The data, which covers reported crimes from January to March, shows a 26.4% decrease in murders, a 25.7% decrease in rapes, a 17.8% decrease in robberies, and a 12.5% decrease in aggravated assaults. Reported property crime also fell by 15.1%.
Nevertheless, the widespread public perception that crime is rising — a perception reinforced by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and many other GOP candidates — could figure prominently in November’s election. And state legislative and gubernatorial candidates from both parties likely also will cite crime statistics on the stump.
In a Gallup poll conducted late last year, 63% of respondents described the crime problem in the U.S. as either extremely or very serious. This is the highest percentage since Gallup began asking the question in 2000.
In May, Trump wrongly called FBI data showing a decline in crime “fake numbers.” This month, he erroneously claimed that the FBI’s crime statistics exclude 30% of cities, including the “biggest and most violent.”
He could have been referring to the fact some departments couldn’t report data in 2021 because the FBI switched data reporting systems, but experts say the overall numbers remain valid.
President Joe Biden has also used crime statistics for political gain. In a May campaign email, Biden said that Trump “oversaw the largest increase in murder in U.S. history.” While this is not entirely inaccurate — the country did see the largest one-year increase in murders in 2020 — it omits context regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the social upheaval following George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer.
The latest FBI crime statistics align with other early data from 2024. In May, the Major Cities Chiefs Association released first-quarter data from a survey of 68 major metropolitan police departments showing a 17% drop in murders compared with the same period last year.
