Among the issues on which the Joe Biden administration — and by association Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid to succeed him as president — is being judged is the state of crime in America.
Donald Trump, the former president and Harris’ Republican opponent, claims crime is “through the roof.” Harris says that’s not true.
There should be an objective way to tell who is right, but an excellent explanation by Magnolia Tribune says that’s not as easy as it seems because of changes in the way crime data is reported to the FBI and recent fluctuations in participation by local law enforcement agencies.
The FBI had originally reported that violent crime went down 2.1% from 2021 to 2022, leading the Biden/Harris camps to boast about it. Recently, though, the FBI revised that data, showing that crime had not fallen but rather risen during that time by 4.5%. The revision led Trump supporters to allege that the FBI had tried to cover up the increase to help Democrats hold onto the White House.
Not to disappoint the conspiracy theorists, but Magnolia Tribune — a Mississippi news outlet that leans Republican — reports that “the truth is more complicated” than that.
Starting off, the FBI, which has been tracking national crime data for almost a century, transitioned in 2021 to a more detailed reporting system. It took some local law enforcement agencies a while to adapt. That year, the data turned into the FBI covered only 65% of the population, down from about 95% the prior year. Although the FBI’s number crunchers tried to fill the gap using historical data, some data experts say that 2021’s calculation is unreliable and should be discounted.
Since then, the participation rate has improved, in part because the FBI allowed smaller jurisdictions to continue to use the less complicated reporting system. In 2023, about 94% of the population was covered by the data, close to what it was before the reporting change.
In 2023, according to the FBI, the violent crime rate was 363.8 per 100,000 residents, almost identical to what it was in 2019, before crime took a modest jump during the COVID-19 pandemic and the social unrest that followed the police-inflicted death of George Floyd.
Taking an even longer view, violent crime has been on a three-decade-long decline. In 1994, 713.6 violent crimes were committed for every 100,000 residents. The most recent figure is almost half that.
Thus, what is being portrayed as a major issue is in actuality more of a non-issue. Except for a statistical blip caused by a change in methodology and some unusual short-term circumstances, violent crime has been on a downward trend through both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Thus, if discussed honestly, the state of crime in America is something for which neither camp should take credit or receive blame.
