Debate Desk
Is Crime Falling, So Does America Have No Crime Problem?
Crime fell from its recent peak, but crime statistics miss unreported offenses, and public safety depends on citizens' confidence as much as on numbers.
The claim
Some argue that national crime statistics show falling rates, that fear of crime is fed by news coverage and politics, and that talk of a crime wave is exaggerated. Reports of lower murder rates, they say, prove that current policies are working.
The answer in three points
- Falling from a peak is not the same as being low. Murders rose sharply in 2020 and 2021, and a decline from that high leaves many places with more killings than before. A rate that is lower than a very bad year is not a safe city.
- National totals hide local reality. Crime is concentrated in particular neighborhoods and blocks, and a drop in the national figure does not help a family on a street where violence continues.
- The numbers themselves have limits. Many crimes go unreported, especially thefts that people think the police will not pursue, and the FBI's transition to a new reporting system made national comparisons harder. A person who has stopped calling the police does not appear in the data.
Good news about crime should be welcomed and used to sustain what works.
The numbers
- The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports recorded a rise in murders of nearly 30 percent in 2020, the largest one-year increase it had recorded.
- The Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey, which asks households directly, found that only about 4 in 10 violent victimizations were reported to police in recent years.
- The FBI moved national crime reporting to the National Incident-Based Reporting System in 2021, and the transition left gaps in national data for that year.
What they will say next
"The murder rate fell in 2023 and 2024." It did, and that is good news. It followed a sharp rise, and the work that helped, such as police hiring and focused enforcement, should continue and not be treated as complete.
"Violent crime is lower than in the early 1990s." Yes, and the early 1990s were exceptionally violent. The standard we should hold is safe neighborhoods, not just comparison with the worst year.
"Fear is out of proportion to risk." Fear is influenced by news, and it also reflects what people see, such as retail theft, open drug markets and disorder. Those experiences are real and matter for quality of life.
"Property crime is down." Statistics can lag behavior, and the reporting problem is especially large for property crime. Retail chains have reported high losses that do not appear in police data.
Honest reporting counts what went right as well as what remains wrong. Public safety is a job that is never finished.
"Police clearance rates are low in many cities." They are, and that is a reminder that falling counts do not mean that crimes are solved. A victim whose case is closed without an arrest is not reassured by a statistic that the city is safer than last year.