On Sept. 23, the FBI released its 2023 Crime Statistics showing a 3% drop in violent crime, but as I’ve written before, there are issues with it.
“More than 16,000 state, county, city, university and college, and tribal agencies, covering a combined population of 94.3% inhabitants, submitted data to the UCR Program through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the Summary Reporting System,” the FBI release says.”
Here are the 2023 to 2022 comparisons the press release lists:
Murder and non-negligent manslaughter recorded a 2023 estimated nationwide decrease of 11.6% compared to the previous year.
In 2023, the estimated number of offenses in the revised rape category saw an estimated 9.4% decrease.
Aggravated assault figures decreased an estimated 2.8% in 2023.
Robbery showed an estimated decrease of 0.3% nationally.
Bear in mind, in 2021, 70 major cities — nearly a third of the nation's largest law enforcement agencies — did not report their data to the FBI after the agency changed how reporting was collected and processed. The agencies not reporting that year included major cities with crime issues such as Los Angeles and New York, but also Baltimore, Chicago, Nashville, Oakland, San Francisco and New Orleans.
A Crime Prevention Resource Center (CPRC) article on the data points out the major flaw; the FBI revised its 2022 numbers. Emphasis added is mine:
The newly released FBI data shows that reported violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) fell by 3.5% in 2023, but they have revised the 2022 data to show a 4.5% increase. However, it should be compared to the Bureau of Justice Statistics data, which showed 4.1% increase in reported serious violent crime in 2023 (rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, but even though murder isn’t included, it covers only about 1 percent of reported violent crimes and even less of total violent crimes).
USA Today’s headline on the new FBI reported crime data claims “Violent crime dropped for second straight year in 2023, including murder and rape.” There are two errors in their headline. First, that it is the FBI’s measure of reported crime that fell, but that is not the same as all crime nor is it the only measure of reported crime. So they could have written, the FBI’s measure of reported violent crime fell in 2023. The second error is that they are wrong claiming that this was the second straight year, where an adjustment in the data showed a 4.5% increase in 2022. Originally, the FBI said that violent crime had fallen by 2.1% and now they say it increased by 4.5%. Just like the Bureau of Labor Statistics overestimated the number of jobs created.
News outlets are reporting that every agency with a population over 1 million reported data in 2023, yet there is no viable way to check that claim based on the downloads offered by the FBI.
For example, NBC News reported, "Overall, the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) collected information from 700 additional agencies in 2023 compared to 2022. The total population covered by the report is more than 315 million people, or 94.3% of the country."
Ok, which agencies were added? Which are still missing? NBC doesn't elaborate and ends the article with that paragraph.
Most outlets, like Politico are just regurgitating the Associated press report:
The FBI collects data through its Uniform Crime Reporting Program, and not all law enforcement agencies in the U.S. participate. The 2023 report is based on data from more than 16,000 agencies, or more than 85 percent of those agencies in the FBI’s program. The agencies included in the report protect nearly 316 million people across the U.S. And every agency with at least 1 million people in its jurisdiction provided a full year of data to the FBI, according to the report. (Politico excerpt) (Associated Press excerpt)
CPRC’s article also picked up on the media’s inaccurate reporting and the problem with the data.
None of these stories mention that less than two weeks ago the Bureau of Justice Statistic’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) showed a 55% increase in serious violent crime (rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) that most closely matches the FBI data since 2020 and a 19% increase since 2019. The news media ignored the NCVS data when it was just released less than a couple of weeks ago.
With the FBI reported crime data, reported violent crime rate fell by 5.8% from 2020 to 2023, it was essentially flat from 2019 to 2023 (-0.2%). Meanwhile, while murder fell by 16.2% from 2020 to 2023, it is still above the pre-COVID levels by 9.6%. Though the latest homicide data from the Centers for Disease Control shows that the murder rate was higher in 2022 than in 2020.
Folks should read the whole CPRC article.
The FBI’s statistics aren’t particularly jiving with the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) either. The NCVS looks at the rate of violent victimization per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, so the numbers could be higher if it included minors under the age of 12.
Going by the 2023 NCVS, violent crime rose 37% between 2020 and 2023. The total violent crime rate per 1,000 was 16.4 in 2020 and 16.5 in 2021, then it skyrocketed in 2022 to 23.5 and dipped slightly in 2023 to 22.5.
Comparing the 2020 to 2023 NCVS numbers, rape is up 42% and domestic violence is up 32%. Overall violent crime (minus simple assault) is up 55%, assaults by a stranger up 61%, and violent crime with a weapon up 56%.
A Wall Street Journal opinion article written by Jeffrey Anderson, touches on the NCVS comparison and refutes the idea crimes rates are down.
Anderson knows what he’s talking about; he served as director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics from 2017 to 2021. He is now the president of the thinktank American Main Street Initiative.
Anderson challenges the claim that crime rates are falling in America, citing recent data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). He argues that violent and property crime rates have actually increased since 2019, particularly in urban areas and attributes the rise to leftist policies, including the defund-the-police movement and lax legal and arrest enforcement. He contrasts the urban crime spike with relatively stable crime rates in suburban and rural areas, and argues that the NCVS data is more reliable than FBI figures often cited by left-leaning commentators like ABC debate moderator David Muir.
"According to the NCVS, the urban violent-crime rate increased 40% from 2019 to 2023. Excluding simple assault, the urban violent-crime rate rose 54% over that span. From 2022 to 2023, the urban violent-crime rate didn't change to a statistically significant degree, so these higher crime rates appear to be the new norm in America's cities."
Anderson concludes his article by calling for a return to "broken windows" policing policies of Rudy Giuliani's era as mayor of NYC. Broken windows is a sociological idea that rundown areas with visible crime spawn and encourage more crime. Methods to combat that include cracking down on property crimes like vandalism, but also targeting public loitering and intoxication and similar lower level criminal activity that act both as a deterrent for criminals and a sense of law and order for citizens.
"Contrary to the fact-checkers and the debate moderator… there's no statistically significant evidence in the best, most authoritative source that crime is dropping in America," Anderson told Fox News Digital. "There's been a huge increase in urban crime from 2019, right before the summer of George Floyd and the Defund the Police movement to 2023, which are the most recent numbers, which were just released a couple weeks ago. In fact, the increase in urban crime, violent crime is [up] 40% over that period of time."
Anderson told Fox News Digital that removing simple assaults which are the "least serious" of violent crimes, the data shows a 54% increase in urban areas since 2020, which Anderson said is a "huge crime spike in our cities."
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What about North Carolina?
Charlotte news outlet WBTV found the city's violent crime is way up under the 2023 FBI data report:
A snapshot of 2024 Charlotte crime stats show there have been more homicides, robberies, and aggravated assaults so far this year, compared to this time last year.
For instance, by Sept. 23, 2022, there were 4,865 violent crimes in Charlotte. In 2023, that number decreased to 4,567, but has climbed back to 4,858 in 2024, according to the crime stats.
In 2023, juvenile crime spiked to the highest levels in Charlotte in the last five years, a mid-year report by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said.
That actually lines up closer to the Major Cities Crime report which showed Raleigh’s homicide rate spiked 78% and Charlotte’s 36%. Rapes were up in Raleigh by 17% as well.
Per the NC State Bureau of Investigation’s most recent data sets (2022), the number of murders in the state are up and show a 75% increase compared to roughly ten years ago.
The chart below clocks the year, the number of murders in NC, and the percentage change year over year. Note the spike in 2020, which was the main pandemic year.
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