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By
Stephen DinanThe Washington Times
Thursday, September 12, 2024
Crime rates remained elevated last year under President
Biden, according to Justice Department data released Thursday that challenges a prevailing media and White House narrative.
The data comes from a massive annual government-run survey of crime victims.
It found 22.5 of every 1,000 residents reported being the victim of a violent crime in 2023, and 102.2 per 1,000 reported facing a property crime.
Both are statistically unchanged from 2022 but are significantly higher than in 2020, the last year under President
Trump.
The data said Americans aren’t reporting some of the most common crimes to police as often. Just 44% of self-reported robbery victims said they filed a police report last year, down substantially from 64% in 2022.
The numbers indicate that crime has risen under Mr.
Biden and fell during the Trump administration, said John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, who has tracked the data over the years.
He said the new data undercuts claims by the
Biden White House, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and news media figures that crime rates are falling. Their claims are based on FBI data.
“Violent crime increased by 37% under the Biden administration, compared to a drop of 17% under the Trump administration,” he said.
Mr.
Trump’s campaign said the data showed “crime rates remain WAY UP under Kamala Harris — throwing a dagger straight through the heart of claims to the contrary by Democrats and their Fake News allies.”
The Washington Times has reached out to the White House and Ms. Harris’ campaign for response.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics runs the National Crime Victimization Survey, which annually reaches nearly a quarter-million people in 150,000 households.
It is one of two primary national tallies of overall crime rates. The FBI’s national crime reporting database compiles crimes reported to local police departments.
The FBI data suggested that crime reports had dropped over the past couple of years, but the victimization data suggests this is false.
The issue played out during the presidential debate Tuesday when Mr.
Trump made crime rates a theme of attack on Ms. Harris.
“Crime is through the roof,” Mr.
Trump said.
At that point, David Muir, the moderator for debate host ABC, stepped in to fact-check Mr.
Trump using FBI data.
“President
Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country,” he said.
Mr.
Trump said the FBI’s data was suspect, and Mr. Lott said he is right to be skeptical.
In 2020, 97% of police departments reported their data to the FBI, though 10% reported incomplete data. By 2022, 31% weren’t reporting data at all and another 24% were reporting incomplete data.
That means less than half of police departments were reporting complete data to the FBI, Mr. Lott said. A further issue is how often people report crimes to police.
ABC didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics data released Thursday says overall crime reporting rates remained the same from 2022 to 2023 but dropped significantly in some categories, such as robberies and motor vehicle thefts.
Mr. Lott said the victimization data showed significant improvements in several major crimes during the Trump administration. He said aggravated assaults fell by 24% under Mr.
Trump but rose 55% under Mr.
Biden, according to the data for 2023.
Robbery, which fell 6% under Mr.
Trump, is up 63% under Mr.
Biden. Rape, which was flat under Mr.
Trump, is up 42% under Mr.
Biden.
The FBI has better data for one crime: homicide. It is almost always reported, and the victimization survey has no way to measure it.
The latest full-year FBI data, covering 2022, showed a 6.1% drop in homicides from 2021.
Some experts said they don’t think either survey alone is a proper indicator of crime rates and said aggregating the numbers for a national picture doesn’t make sense. Those experts argue that there are too many regional factors.
Looking over a longer horizon, crime rates under Mr.
Trump and Mr.
Biden are much lower than in the early 1990s, when violent crime victimization neared 80 per 1,000 residents, or more than three times their current rate.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at
[email protected].
