John Jefferson
Murder dropped by more than 11% from 2022 to 2023, the largest single-year decline in two decades, according to FBI data released on Monday.
Meanwhile, the broader category of violent crime nationwide decreased about 3%, said the data, which is audited and confirms earlier reporting from unaudited statistics.
Monday’s release of audited data contradicts a talking point that Donald Trump has made on the campaign trail as the Republican presidential nominee seeks a return to the White House during the 5 November election: that crime has been rampant and out of control without him in power.
In its annual Crime in the Nation summary, the FBI said rape decreased by an estimated 9.4%, property crime dropped 2.4% and burglary fell by an estimated 7.6%.
Car theft, however, was up by an estimated 12.6% – and shoplifting had returned to levels seen before the Covid-19 pandemic, from 999,394 reported cases in 2022 to 1.15m in 2023.
The crime agency notes that its 2023 estimates include full-year numbers from “every city agency covering a population of 1,000,000 or more inhabitants”, undermining frequent Republican claims that the numbers look better than they are because they exclude statistics from many major cities.
Monday’s data collection pulls from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and covers more than 315 million people – or 94.3% of the US.
The latest audited figures broadly correspond to data released in June that showed evidence of a decline in violent crime across the country had carried into 2024. Nonetheless, that data will not be released in its audited form until about this time in 2025.
The FBI said 16,009 participating law enforcement agencies submitted incident reports involving 11,862 criminal incidents and 13,829 related offenses as being motivated by bias towards race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said: “Hate crimes are uniquely harmful, traumatizing both the individual and their community,” describing a rise in antisemitism.
Greenblatt said that while it was encouraging to see more law enforcement agencies participating in reporting hate crimes data in 2023, “we still have a long way to go toward ensuring comprehensive data collection that provides a more accurate picture of the lived experience of targeted communities across the country.”
“Data drives policy, and without having a complete understanding of the problem, we cannot effectively address this significant surge in hate violence,” he added.
Separately, Joe Biden’s presidential administration on Monday touted its efforts to reduce gun violence with the release of its first annual report since the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
The US president said he had spent “countless hours” listening to families impacted by gun violence and responded by accelerating his administrations efforts to introduce gun control measures following up on congressional legislation that in 2022 expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers while funding mental health as well as violence intervention programs.
The White House noted that addressing gun crime was essential to addressing violence in the US because firearms are used in about 80% of the country’s murders.
“Our administration has improved and expanded background checks, announced the single largest investment in youth mental health in history, and been an unprecedented resource to states, cities, and local communities,” said Kamala Harris, who is running to succeed Biden in the White House.
The vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee added that she was “committed to continuing this urgent work to ensure that every person in our nation has the freedom to live safe from gun violence”.
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