Back in September 2023 the FBI released the 2022 crimes statistics and reported that violent crime in the nation had dropped by 2.1%. Hurray! The White House took a victory lap and it has been a consistent talking point during this election year. Here’s where the “but” comes in. The FBI quietly, and with no reason nor explanation, revised the data and our nation’s violent crime actually increased by 4.5%. Hmm seems like deja vu all over again. Didn’t this just happen with the Bureau of Labor Statistics over-estimating job growth? Violent crime includes murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults. Thousands of these crimes were not in the FBI’s original data. Why?
A Real Clear Investigations (RCI) spearhead by Dr. John Lott decided to compare the original 2022 stats with the newly released data after the RCI questioned a cryptic reference in the FBI’s “UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation” that stated: “The 2022 violent crime rate has been updated for inclusion in CIUS, 2023.” The FBI report made no further explanation on what the update was. No other media outlets looked into the data content that the FBI had nothing to hide (including apparently David Muir with ABC News who tried to fact-check Donald Trump while he was moderating the debate between Trump and Kamala Harris). But it does. Why the sneaky data swap? RCI, however, did the math by downloading the FBI’s new crime data and comparing it to the file released last year.
According to the RCI: “The actual changes in crimes are extensive. The updated data for 2022 report that there were 80,029 more violent crimes than in 2021. There were an additional 1,699 murders; 7,780 rapes; 33,459 robberies; and 37,091 aggravated assaults. The question naturally arises: Should the FBI’s 2023 numbers be believed?” The skewed data news first broke on Real Clear Investigations and Alpha News on October 16, 2024. These changes in the crime data aren’t statistical blips but dramatic changes.
Let’s take a breath here and think about this for a moment. Reported crime data is always questionable since many crimes are not reported. But how do you fail to add 1,699 murders? A crime category that is reported consistently is auto theft and this is because the crime is linked to insurance claims, but that data, too, was originally under reported. The new data shows some 54,216 more motor vehicle thefts in the “revised” data.
Other sources that corroborated the FBI’s data switch. Carl Moody, a professor at the College of William & Mary who specializes in studying crime, told RCI: “I have checked the data on total violent crime from 2004 to 2022. There were no revisions from 2004 to 2015, and from 2016 to 2020, there were small changes of less than one percentage point. The huge changes in 2021 and 2022, especially without an explanation, make it difficult to trust the FBI data.”
Those of use not living in ivory towers nor under a rock always thought the crime data statistics were fishy. Even after other well-established media outlets were touting the good news, many of us were thinking: Are these people not seeing or hearing what I’m seeing? I watch my local news and there is easily a shooting every week. The original FBI report just didn’t jive with what was happening outside our door. Late last year, a Gallup Survey found that 92% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats thought crime was increasing.
“It is up to the FBI to explain what they have done, and they haven’t explained these large changes,” said Dr. Thomas Marvell, the president of Justec Research, a criminal justice statistical research organization. And as you would expect, the FBI has not commented nor clarified the revision. Nor did they respond to RCI’s repeated requests for comment.
From my standpoint this is a perfect example of the FBI believing they are untouchable and not caring about what is right or wrong nor being held accountable. It harkens back to the days and attitude of under J. Edgar Hoover. A major skew in data like this should have at the very least been highlighted in another press release, but there has been no mea culpa from the FBI. We all make mistakes in our jobs and in our lives, we admit it, apologize, fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Was it just sloppy estimation by the FBI to guess unreported crime? The fact is the original data set a tone for the upcoming election, that Biden was on top of crime especially after COVID and the Woke movement, but evidently that is not true according to this new data.
Polls in this election have shown Americans are concerned about crime, yet the FBI and the established media’s lack of attention make it difficult to see true crime rates and changes.
Perhaps David Mustard, the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia who researches extensively on crime said it best.
“This FBI report is stunning because it now doesn’t state that violent crime in 2022 was much higher than it had previously reported, nor does it explain why the new rate is so much higher, and it issued no press release about this large revision. This lack of transparency harms the FBI’s credibility,” he said.
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