In his quest to reclaim the White Home, former President Donald Trump has usually criticized President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for crime on their watch.
“Kamala Harris has presided over a 43% enhance in violent crime,” Trump mentioned Aug. 23 at a Glendale, Arizona, marketing campaign cease. “These are authorities numbers by the best way, together with 58% enhance in rape, 89% enhance in aggravated assault and 56% enhance in theft through the riots of 2020.”
The presidential campaigns have regularly traded blame for crime tendencies on this race, however Trump’s particular statistics had been new to us.
After we requested the Republican Nationwide Committee for the supply of Trump’s numbers, spokesperson Anna Kelly confirmed that they got here from the Nationwide Crime Victimization Survey, which the Justice Division publishes yearly. The survey covers crimes throughout an 18-month interval, so the 2022 survey consists of incidents that occurred between July 2021 and November 2022.
Utilizing this knowledge level doesn’t inform the Biden administration’s full statistical story. Information from different sources, overlaying the identical interval and the time since, present violent crime declining, not growing, since Trump left workplace.
What’s the Nationwide Crime Victimization Survey?
To compile the crime victimization survey, researchers ask a consultant pattern of People 12 years or older whether or not they have skilled sure crimes previously six months. The crimes embrace rape or sexual assault; theft; aggravated or easy assault; purse snatching or pocket choosing; housebreaking or trespassing; and motorcar or different thefts.
Trump has precisely acknowledged the rise between the 2020 survey and the 2022 survey. However to get the total image of crime patterns, it’s vital to grasp how the victimization survey’s methodology differs from that of the opposite extensively adopted federal supply of crime knowledge, which the FBI compiles yearly.
The FBI knowledge counts crimes reported to native police departments; the victimization survey is predicated on respondents’ private recollections.
Researchers say each approaches have worth. The FBI knowledge tends to be extra rigorous as a result of it’s based mostly on formal police studies; its disadvantage is that not all crimes could also be reported to police. (Trump and others have mentioned the FBI knowledge is due to this fact unreliable, however consultants disagree.) The victimization knowledge could seize a few of these unreported crimes, however it could additionally seize occasions that don’t rise to the extent of against the law.
Additionally, the victimization survey excludes murders, the crime for which officers have the most effective data total.
Traditionally, these two federal metrics have tended to maneuver in tandem, however they didn’t in 2022, for unclear causes. From 2020 to 2022, a interval that largely overlaps with the victimization survey knowledge Trump cited, the FBI knowledge confirmed violent crime falling by about 4%, moderately than rising; it ended up just about tied with 2019’s prepandemic degree.
The information is previous, and newer knowledge reveals crime lowering
One other concern: lagging knowledge.
The newest official full-year FBI knowledge covers 2022, making it a 12 months and a half previous. The 2022 crime victimization survey — the latest obtainable — stretches again even additional, overlaying crimes from July 1, 2021, to Nov. 30, 2022. Which means that the earliest crimes within the victimization survey occurred greater than three full years in the past; Biden and Harris had been in workplace for lower than six months by then.
Each the FBI knowledge and the crime victimization survey are scheduled for launch later this 12 months. Till then, we will get an early take a look at crime patterns past the annual federal releases.
The FBI has launched preliminary knowledge for 2023, displaying that violent crime dropped by 5.7% from 2022 to 2023. Additionally, nongovernmental teams have launched knowledge, sometimes based mostly on figures reported by a cross-section of a number of dozen cities.
This knowledge from 2023 and 2024 aligns with the FBI’s preliminary numbers, displaying that violent crime has continued to fall since 2022.
As an illustration, the nonpartisan Council on Felony Justice discovered that via 2024’s first six months, “murder and most different violent crimes have dropped to or barely under ranges seen earlier than the onset of the COVID pandemic and nationwide protests that adopted the killing of George Floyd.” The group based mostly its conclusions on crime tendencies in a cross-section of 39 cities.
Additionally, the Main Cities Chiefs Affiliation, a police group, discovered that violent crime dropped in 2024’s first quarter in contrast with 2023’s first quarter in every violent crime class: homicide, rape, theft and aggravated assault. The group’s knowledge coated 68 cities.
The non-public firm AH Datalytics has discovered murders decreased 17% via late August 2024, in contrast with the identical interval in 2023.
Our ruling
Trump mentioned, “There’s been a 43% enhance in violent crimes since I left workplace.”
The Nationwide Crime Victimization Survey, which the Justice Division conducts yearly, reveals a 43% enhance between the 2020 survey and the 2022 survey, the latest obtainable.
By focusing solely on this knowledge level, nevertheless, Trump has cherry-picked the one discovering that reveals crime rising underneath the present administration.
The opposite federal knowledge set overlaying roughly the identical interval — the FBI’s annual report — discovered that crime went down, not up. And the crime victimization research’s time-frame ends on the shut of 2022; each federal and nongovernmental evaluation accomplished since reveals crime falling in 2023 and 2024.
We price the assertion Largely False.
