https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/20/fbi-stats-show-crime-still-declining-despite-the-assertions-of-alarmists-and-political-opportunists/ [ ] Techdirt. [ ] * Sign In * Register * Preferences Techdirt [ ] * TechDirt * GreenHouse * Free Speech * Error 402 * Ctrl-Alt-Speech * Deals * Jobs * Support Techdirt [podcast-ti] A Lazy Press Falsely Claims Musk's Starlink Left Amazon Tribes Addicted To Porn Daily Deal: The Complete MATLAB Programming Master Class FBI Stats Show Crime Still Declining, Despite The Assertions Of Alarmists And Political Opportunists [overhype] Overhype from the things-are-still-pretty-pretty-pretty-pretty-good dept Thu, Jun 20th 2024 09:30am - Tim Cushing There's a large contingent of people who want you to believe each successive year is worse than the last one. Despite being the beneficiary of a two-decade run of historically low crime rates, the United States is often portrayed as a crime-ridden wasteland where only the bravest dare to police the mean streets. This year is no different. Opportunists and alarmists are claiming crime rates are spiking again, backing up these assertions by pointing to highly local anomalies. They then make this worse by conjuring up their favorite ideological boogeymen to support their claims about the Dangerous States of America. They claim "progressive" prosecutors are increasing crime rates by not prosecuting enough low-level crimes and prosecuting too many police officers. That claim might make sense if there were actually enough "progressive" prosecutors to have this sort of effect. But there are thousands of prosecutors across the nation, ranging from the county to the federal level and only a couple dozen of them could generously be considered to be "progressive." They also claim "defunding" law enforcement agencies has led to spikes in crimes because there's not enough money being spent on cops. This, again, is bullshit. There has been no serious "defunding" of any law enforcement agency anywhere. At most, some funds have been diverted to support the formation of units composed of mental health professionals to handle distress calls cops probably shouldn't be handling anyway. Then there's the most ridiculous supporting argument for their false claims: cops aren't doing their jobs because the public just doesn't deserve their help. This is pretty much just blaming the victims. But the origin of this theory goes back to the cops themselves. An unjustified killing is often met with protests. Protests lead to legislators temporarily pretending to care about police accountability. Lots of stuff gets said. Every so often, a bill that barely changes the accountability status quo gets passed. A bunch of cop union reps say dumb things about cops being "unfairly targeted." And then cops just stop doing their job because... they were threatened with, at most, a mild increase in accountability. TL;DR: cops won't do their actual jobs if they're not being showered with unconditional love from the public. All of these arguments are stupid. And none of them can support the theory the country is descending into a new period of historically high crime rates. You know what else doesn't support this theory? Actual crime rates. The latest edition of the FBI's Uniform Crime Report has been released. And it shows across-the-board drops in violent crime rates. A comparison of data from agencies that voluntarily submitted at least two or more common months of data for January through March 2023 and 2024 indicates reported violent crime decreased by 15.2 percent. Murder decreased by 26.4 percent, rape decreased by 25.7 percent, robbery decreased by 17.8 percent, and aggravated assault decreased by 12.5 percent. Reported property crime also decreased by 15.1 percent. Now, there are caveats, of course. And some of those will be used by tough-on-crime opportunists to justify their latest fusillade of misinformation to score points with constituents or further their anti-criminal justice reform theories. As the FBI notes, only 72% of the nation's law enforcement agencies contributed to this report, so there's still a lot of crime that hasn't been reported to the FBI. Whether or not that would change the overall percentages is unknown, but this is not a completely comprehensive view of the nation's crime rates. On top of that, the FBI drastically altered how crimes were reported in 2021. This has led to less participation as local agencies get used to the new reporting requirements. It also means some crimes are being categorized incorrectly, which may result in under-reporting or over-reporting of certain types of crimes. That being said, the UCR has never had a 100% participation rate. It's always been much lower than that. And the add-on to this FBI reporting -- use-of-force reporting -- has been significantly lower since its inception more than two decades ago. There's reason to question what's reported by those participating, as well. It's not unusual for law enforcement agencies to polish stats, either to make their efforts look more useful than they are or to demonstrate spikes in crimes that might be useful when annual budgets are being discussed. Like anything else, this reporting involves thousands of people with their own motivations and their own ability to generate clerical errors. That being said, it has historically been used to provide a useful snapshot of crime rate trends. And for that reason, despite its drawbacks, there's little reason to believe the decreases reported by the FBI are so off the mark, they can't possibly be trusted. This is a straight-up year-to-year comparison utilizing the same reporting requirements and with basically the same amount of participation as last year's reporting. So if the reporting is flawed, at least this year-to-year comparison involves similarly flawed data sets. This is not to say there aren't places in the United States where crime rates are going up. But it's unhelpful, if not actually untruthful, to claim the US is becoming increasingly dangerous. It simply isn't. And after two decades of historically low crime rates, we should probably expect a slight shift back towards the mean. But anyone telling you the country's in worse shape than it's ever been is trying to sell you something. Filed Under: crime data, fbi, use of force 12 CommentsLeave a Comment If you liked this post, you may also be interested in... * FBI Informant/Leaker Sues Iran For $5 Million Because It Has Allegedly Tried To Kill Him Multiple Times * DC Court Smacks Feds For Going Judge Shopping After Their Warrant Request Was Denied * Having Secured A Clean 702 Reauthorization, The FBI Gets Back On Its Backdoor Search Bullshit * Senate Approves Section 702 Reauthorization, Keeps Only The Bad Stuff * Sextortion Is A Real & Serious Criminal Issue; Blaming Section 230 For It Is Not * * * * * * * * * * * * Rate this comment as insightful Rate this comment as funny You have rated this comment as insightful You have rated this comment as funny Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam You have flagged this comment The first word has already been claimed The last word has already been claimed Lightbulb icon Laughing icon Flag icon Lightbulb icon Laughing icon Comments on "FBI Stats Show Crime Still Declining, Despite The Assertions Of Alarmists And Political Opportunists" Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment * Filter comments in by Time * Filter comments as Threaded * Filter only comments rated Insightful * Filter only comments rated funny LOL * Filter only comments that are Unread 12 Comments Collapse all replies This comment has been deemed insightful by the community. [6e98d8b86c]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 9:46 am There's another factor underlying this A lot of the people wailing about "a historic crime wave" don't care about preventing crime - at all. They care about pandering to their base (in the US: old racist white people in suburbs who think cities are hellholes) and ensuring that their supporters (like police unions) are well-funded. Unsurprisingly, these are the same people who vociferously oppose every proposal to stop crime well before it happens. They campaign/ vote against school lunches, education programs for the unemployed, housing for the homeless, lead paint/pipe removal (yes, it's linked to crime rates), youth recreational programs, substance abuse help, mental health counseling, offender rehabilitation, etc. - every possible thing that could actually help people so that they're not so desperate that they resort to crime. So every time you hear someone trumpeting "law and order", know that what you're really hearing is a vicious, sadistic thug who is willing to doom tens of millions of people to miserable lives in order to pander to the wealthy and privileged. Collapse replies (1) Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word Threaded [2] [0be328ea1c]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 1:05 pm Re: Yes, it's true. Good, productive White people also have in-group preferences and don't want their communities overrun (or even just infiltrated) but disgusting, criminally-inclined, low impulse control blacks. Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it. [7ee394e551]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 9:50 am Major crime going down, but believe you me, crime gone up. Little piddly stuff that doesn't count, it doesn't matter how much it adds up to as a whole. Shoplifting, car theft, nothing to see here... Not go pay your taxes and kiss the ring. Collapse replies (2) Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word Threaded [2] [4ff1194827]mick says: June 20, 2024 at 10:39 am Re: "Believe me" even though I have no source for my idiotic beliefs. lol Collapse replies (1) Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word Threaded [3] [6508cb6714]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 1:03 pm Re: Re: Shut up, Paddy. Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it. [user-default]Koby (profile) says: June 20, 2024 at 10:07 am Refund The Police Even California is about to revolt and repeal Proposition 47. Less crime is a good start. But after crime doubled in 3 years across several major cities, 15% off the peak is not the brag that you think it is. Collapse replies (5) Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word Threaded [2] [4f23d96bb5]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 10:22 am Re: "not the brag that you think it is" Brag? Why choose that word? I think the point is there is a lot of bullshit out there. Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word Threaded [2] [6c550e4379]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 10:38 am Re: Yeah! Steal money from poor people and then jail them! I only wish stupid idiots like you personally had to fund your stupid ideas. Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word Threaded [2] [3f0f6dd406]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 10:55 am Re: You're right on one thing, Koby. 15% off the peak isn't so much a brag than it is ACTUAL FUCKING FACT. But then again, you don't think insurrection is a crime. Collapse replies (2) Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word Threaded [3] [9fe792380a]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 12:26 pm Re: Re: Leftists will be sent to death camps. Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word Threaded [3] [7a609130ae]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 1:04 pm Re: Re: Republicans have been pro-rape for decades, not too surprising they're pro-treason Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it. [14e515a77b]Anonymous Coward says: June 20, 2024 at 3:14 pm Fake and gay - major cities have stopped reporting crime to the FBI, thus leading to the crime wave 'reduction' you are talking about here. Reply View in chronology Make this comment the first word Make this comment the last word --------------------------------------------------------------------- says: Add Your Comment Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here Name [ ] Email [ ] [ ]Subscribe to the Techdirt Daily newsletter URL [ ] Subject [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Comment * [ ] Comment Options: (*)Use markdown. ( )Use plain text. Make this the ( )First Word or ( )Last Word.(*)No thanks. (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this? What's this? Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. 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