During the September 10 debate between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, a key point of contention arose when ABC News moderator David Muir fact-checked Trump’s claim that “crime in this country is through the roof.” Muir countered, stating, “the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.” This exchange has sparked debate over the reliability of FBI crime statistics, particularly under the Biden administration.
Earlier, the Trump/Vance campaign had issued a memo titled Joe Biden’s Lies on Crime, which challenged claims by the Biden administration regarding violent crime rates. The memo accused President Biden of misrepresenting crime statistics and stated that Biden has overseen a “staggering increase in violent crime.” The Trump campaign noted that while the White House cites FBI data to support claims of declining crime, these figures are deeply flawed due to major gaps in reporting from local law enforcement agencies.
According to the Trump memo, the FBI changed its crime data collection methods in 2021, resulting in fewer local jurisdictions submitting crime reports. By 2023, only 44% of police agencies submitted a full 12 months of crime data for 2022, while 32% submitted no data at all, and 24% only provided partial information. This lack of comprehensive reporting has led to skepticism about the FBI’s ability to accurately represent national crime trends.
In contrast, alternative data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which independently tracks crime victimization, paints a different picture. According to the Trump campaign, the NCVS data shows a surge in violent crime under the Biden-Harris administration, challenging the narrative that crime has decreased. “It’s not crime that’s down; it’s crime reporting that’s down,” the memo asserts.
The reliability of the FBI’s crime data was further questioned when RealClearInvestigations (RCI) reported last week that the FBI had quietly revised its violent crime statistics for 2022. Initially, the FBI reported a 2.1% decline in the violent crime rate for 2022. However, in a revised report, the FBI showed that violent crime had actually increased by 4.5% in 2022. This revision, made without public acknowledgment, casts doubt on the previous claims of declining crime.
Dr. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center noted that the FBI’s revision added 80,029 more violent crimes to the 2022 total, including increases in murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults. Lott emphasized that this discrepancy undermines the Biden-Harris administration’s claims of success in reducing violent crime.
These findings are in line with the latest NCVS data, which shows that the rate of violent crime victimizations has risen each year since 2020. The NCVS data contradicts the FBI’s narrative, revealing a 55.4% increase in total violent crime under the Biden-Harris administration.
As of mid-October, the FBI has not responded to requests for comment regarding its revisions, and the reasons behind the discrepancies remain unclear. Despite the administration’s claims of crime reduction, many Americans continue to perceive crime as a growing problem. A 2023 Gallup poll found that a majority of respondents believed crime had increased in their local areas over the previous year, and gun sales have remained at historically high levels.
Trump’s campaign seized on the FBI’s revisions, asserting that Trump’s warnings about rising crime were accurate. A Trump spokesperson stated, “If Kamala is given another four years to implement her weak-on-crime policies, America will continue to turn into a crime-ridden hellhole.” The spokesperson also criticized the administration’s stance on gun control, linking it to increased crime rates and calling for stronger support for the Second Amendment.
As crime continues to be a central issue in the 2024 presidential election, questions about the accuracy of crime reporting and the effectiveness of Biden’s policies are likely to remain in the spotlight.
