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By Monica Sager
Live News Reporter
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The first three months of 2024 saw a "historic" drop in rates of violent crime and murder across the country, according to newly released FBI statistics — but the numbers don't tell the whole story, some analysts say.
Data released by the FBI on Monday showed violent crime incidents dropped 15% between January and March this year compared to the same period in 2023.
John Lott, the president of the nonprofit right-leaning Crime Prevention Research Center who held a brief role in the Dept. of Justice under former President Donald Trump, told Newsweek that the FBI statistics are incomplete at best.
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"It's just a small portion of the issue," Lott said. "The reason why we have the National Crime Victimization Survey [an annual survey conducted by the DOJ] is because we know most crimes are not reported to police."
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According to the FBI statistics, murders decreased by 26.4%, rapes were down by 25.7%, robbery decreased by 17.8%, aggravated assault was down by 12.5%, and property crime was lower by 15% in the first quarter.
But Lott said those statistics make up less than 45% of the violent crimes that are committed in the U.S. and only 32% of property crimes. Victims are not reporting incidents as often because they don't believe anyone will be punished, he said.
Lott claimed that only 8% of total violent crimes in cities result in arrest, and the number is even smaller for property crimes. Newsweek was not able to immediately verify those claims.
The underlying issues are multiple, Lott said. There are fewer experienced officers on the streets, fewer police reports are being made, crime victims are not going down to the station to fill out forms, and — perhaps most significantly — certain reporting standards have changed. For instance, if a felony assault was pleaded down to a misdemeanor in court, it would not be included in the FBI's data.
In a statement provided to Newsweek, the FBI said: "Participation in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is voluntary. The accuracy of the statistics released by the FBI's UCR Program is based on data contributors' participation and adherence to national standards."
"Some of this data may not be comparable to previous years because of differing levels of participation over time," the statement added.
"One thing that's happened over the last few years has been a collapse in the criminal justice system in this country," Lott said.
Other crime analysts have also cast doubt on the FBI data, noting that it only covers 77% of the U.S. population and should be considered preliminary, given that state and local law enforcement agencies have months to report their data and correct any errors.
Jeff Asher, who pens a popular crime analytics newsletter on Substack, wrote Monday that "crime almost certainly declined nationally in the first three months of 2024 compared to the first three months of 2023, but the FBI's data is almost certainly overstating that decline."
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Public opinion polling also suggests that despite the apparent gains, crime remains an extremely potent issue for U.S. voters.
A December 2023 Gallup poll found 63% of respondents described crime as an extreme problem, up from 54% two years prior. More than three-quarters of Americans, 77%, said there was more crime in the U.S. in 2023 compared to a year prior. A majority, 55%, said the same about crime in their area.
"Since 2020, the national crime victimization data measure of reported crimes has been perfectly negatively related to the FBI's reported measure of crimes," Lott said. He referred to a 2022 FBI statistic that showed violent crimes fell by 2%, while the DOJ's victim survey showed a 29% increase.
Attorney General Merrick Garland commended the reported drop in crime, saying in a statement highlighting Monday's report: "This data makes clear that last year's historic decline in violent crime is continuing," adding that the data "represents people whose lives were saved."
At the height of the pandemic, crimes of all sorts spiked precipitously — for reasons still being debated — including a 30% increase in homicide deaths and a 9% increase in auto thefts. There was also increases in domestic violence and nonviolent crimes, such as fraud. While those spikes have leveled off, crime remains a key campaign issue for both the Biden administration and Donald Trump as the election draws nearer.
Biden boasted in his State of the Union address earlier this year that the the number of violent crimes had reached their lowest level in 50 years. In a statement late Monday, the president called the FBI statistics "good news for our families and our communities."
"This progress we're seeing is no accident. My Administration is putting more cops on the beat, holding violent criminals accountable, and getting illegal guns off the street - and we are doing it in partnership with communities," Biden said. "As a result, Americans are safer today than when I took office."
Trump, meanwhile, has been highlighting his enactment of the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform law that reduced some sentencing laws and provided judges the power to give nonviolent drug offenders less time in jail, while also slamming Biden as the head of a "crime family" who has overseen the spike violent crime that began under Trump's own administration.
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