As Trump Continues To Fearmonger, Stats Continue To Show Drops In Violent Crime Rates

There is no crime apocalypse impending, incipient, or in progress in the United States. But you wouldn’t know by listening to Trump and his supporters.

Former President Donald Trump is wildly distorting new statistics on immigration and crime to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump falsely claimed Friday and Saturday that the statistics are specifically about criminal offenders who entered the US during the Biden-Harris administration; in reality, the figures are about offenders who entered the US over multiple decades, including during the Trump administration. And Trump falsely claimed that the statistics are specifically about people who are now living freely in the US; the figures actually include people who are currently in jails and prisons serving criminal sentences.

On top of everything else that’s wrong with this joint attack on immigration (including legal immigration) and his political opponent, there’s the inconvenient fact that immigrants (whether they’re here legally or not) commit crimes at a lower rate than US citizens.

As for the crime committed by the only Americans Trump claims to care about (that would be natural-born citizens), they did more crime when he was in office.

“Homicides Are Skyrocketing in American Cities Under Kamala Harris,” Donald Trump’s campaign charged this week. Like Trump’s assertion that “our crime rate is going up,” this claim is completely at odds with reality, reports Reason.

FBI data say homicide totals jumped by more than 27 percent in 2020, when Trump was president; rose slightly in 2021, the first year of the Biden administration; and fell by 7 percent in 2022. Preliminary FBI numbers show bigger drops in 2023 (about 13 percent) and this year (26 percent for the first quarter).

To call these “lies” is to give Trump too much credit. I doubt he’s ever looked at crime stats. He just says whatever he believes is right or will get a rise out of his audiences. To say these are “lies” suggests a level of due diligence Trump will never perform. It’s still malicious, but it’s ignorantly malicious. It’s all just a game for him — a zero-sum contest in which he wants to rack up all the unearned “wins” he can because he (incorrectly) assumes every round of applause (or idiotic endorsement), means he’s subtracted an equal amount of support from his opponent’s voting bloc.

But eventually the data can’t be ignored. Crime rates continue to drop, undercutting claims even the FBI continues to make about needing more power (and reduced civil rights) to fight a crime wave that stubbornly refuses to materialize.

Annual data released by the FBI on Monday confirms a clear decline in both violent crime and property crime last year, with homicides and reported rapes accounting for the biggest drops.

The data shows that car theft was one of the few crimes with a notable increase between 2022 and 2023, up an estimated 20 percent.

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According to the report, violent crime dropped 3 percent between 2022 and 2023, with murder and nonnegligent homicide down 11.6 percent. Reported rape offenses dropped 9.4 percent. Property crime decreased 2.4 percent.

And the most violent crime dropped the most, at least in terms of year-over-year reporting.

The drop in murders in 2023 was the largest year-over-year decline reported by the FBI in 20 years.

Now, there are still some fair criticisms of this reporting. First, reporting requirements and crime categorization were drastically altered a few years ago, which has led to incomplete (or even incoherent) crime reporting from responding agencies. On top of that, only about 70% of the nation’s law enforcement agencies send data to the FBI, with the rest either blowing off this responsibility, or still trying to alter their data-gathering to align with the new reporting requirements.

On top of that, the crime numbers rely on reported crime. Anything not reported by US residents won’t be reflected here. But it’s safe to say most murders are being reported. As for property crime, reporting rates are likely tied to residents’ views of their local law enforcement. If they feel cops just don’t care, they won’t report criminal acts. If they believe a report might lead to meaningful action or, at the very least, a competent investigation, they’re far more likely to contact law enforcement.

But that last part has always been a factor in crime reporting. None of that has changed no matter who’s sitting in the Oval Office. But it’s incredibly foolish to continue to pretend reported crime is on the rise when it has been steadily declining. And it’s insanely irresponsible to pretend this nation is overrun by the most violent of criminals when there’s absolutely zero evidence to support that assertions when you’re trying to convert bigotry into violent government action.

But Trump is a dangerous person. And, while he likes to pretend Kamala Harris is some sort of weak-willed, bleeding heart liberal when it comes to crime, the reality is that she spent years as a prosecutor and was the sort of “tough of crime” person Trump would normally ally himself with if he wasn’t running against them.

The reality is we’re still enjoying a pretty much uninterrupted two-decade run of historically low crime rates. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something, whether it’s their own political career or whatever products advertisers are pushing during newscasts.

If there’s anything everyone should keep in mind as they head to the polls in November, it’s Trump and his voting base that are deeply involved in one of the most wide-ranging criminal investigations ever handled by federal law enforcement — one that involves literally hundreds of criminal defendants: the insurrection attempt that followed Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. The party of “law and order” only cares about the laws it can wield against others. The laws that apply to it and its voting base simply no longer matter.