Written by John R. Lott Jr. for RealClearPolitics
Crime is a major issue in this year’s election, but the mainstream media has ignored the release of a major new government report showing a surge in violent crime. The increase in violent crime during the Biden administration is a record-breaking increase.
The latest data from the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), released Thursday, shows a sharp increase in violent crime under the Biden-Harris administration compared to when President Trump left office.
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During the debate, Muir said, “Mr. Trump, as you know, the FBI says that overall violent crime in this country is down.” But Muir would have been much more accurate if he had said crime was down. Reported The crime rate against police has fallen, which is not the same as the overall crime rate. As Trump pointed out in his response, he may also have acknowledged that less than half of police departments reported complete data to the FBI in 2022.
The NCVS was established 50 years ago to measure total crime because most victims do not report crime. The survey interviews 240,000 people each year.
Since 2020, there has been a sharp increase in total serious violent crimes (rape, robbery, aggravated assault), a category that corresponds to the FBI’s violent crime scale. Total violent crime is 55.4% higher under the Biden-Harris administration than it was in 2023. Rape is up 42%, robbery is up 63%, and aggravated assault is up 55%.
The increase during the Biden-Harris administration is the largest three-year increase ever recorded, more than doubling the previous record.
Days later, the media still made no mention of this massive increase.
The Associated Press did a “fact check” on Friday after Trump’s press conference in California. According to a statement from the acting director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the 2023 rate of violent victimization was higher than in 2020 and 2021, but was not statistically different from the pre-COVID rate in 2019, when Trump was president.
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He didn’t say whether it was statistically different from 2020 or 2021. He didn’t say how much it increased. Trump’s point was that violent crime increased under the Biden-Harris administration. The rate in 2022 was statistically significantly higher than the previous two years. The violent crime rate in 2022 and 2023 was also significantly higher.
From 2019 to 2023, total violent crime increased by 19%, the largest increase only once in a four-year period.
Americans in many parts of the country see that the products in CVS and Walgreens stores are behind plexiglass. The customer has to call an employee to open the glass and wait for the customer to read and examine the other package. Americans know that it wasn’t like this until a few years ago.
Although many argue that the murder rate has declined in recent years, Americans feel that violent crime is on the rise.
Since homicides are almost always reported, the data is relatively reliable. The FBI reports that the homicide rate in 2023 is down 13%, but still 5% higher than in 2019.
The NCVS does not track homicide rates, but data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) contradicts the FBI’s numbers. The FBI reports that homicide rates peaked in 2020 and declined in 2021 and 2022, while CDC data actually show that homicide rates in 2022 were higher than in 2020 (2022 is the most recent year for which CDC data is available).
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The news media is trying to shield Democrats from bad news about crime. This is central to a lot of the Democratic narrative. Democrats have argued that the flood of illegal immigrants can’t be causing crime because crime is down. “The false message (from the Republican National Convention) was that (illegal immigration) is leading to a rise in crime,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Fox News Sunday.
The news media won’t report the shocking numbers. They know that if news spreads that rape, robbery, and aggravated assault rates are 55% higher than in 2020 and far above pre-COVID levels, the Democratic narrative will explode.
John R. Lott Jr. is a contributor. Real Clear InvestigationFocuses on voting and gun rights. His articles have appeared in publications such as: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, New York Post, USA Todayand Chicago Tribune. Lott is an economist who has held research and/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice.
Reported with permission from RealClearWire.
