Highlights
Is there a corollary between the media’s lack of coverage of the President’s cognitive abilities before the debate and their inaccurate portrayal of crime statistics?
Media have ignored a 2023 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics showing huge increases in crime. Even when it’s brought to their attention, it’s still dismissed. Why?
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention and Statistics for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of Criminology and Public Affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former police officer. Retired federal senior spokesperson.
Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Produced successful state anti-crime media campaigns.
Thirty-five years of directing award-winning (50+) public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed thousands of times by every national news outlet, often with a focus on crime statistics and research. Created the first state and federal podcasting series. Produced a unique and emulated style of government proactive public relations.
Certificate of Advanced Study-The Johns Hopkins University.
Author of ”Success With The Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization” available at Amazon and additional booksellers.
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Opinion
Unofficial preliminary data from the FBI in 2023 shows modest reductions in violent and property crime.
Unofficial preliminary data from the FBI for the first quarter of 2024 shows substantial reductions in crime.
Yea! Crime is going down. Or is it?
Is FBI data an accurate portrayal of crime?
Here’s an honest answer; the FBI DOES NOT MEASURE CRIME. The FBI measures REPORTED crime. In my decades of crime discussions with savvy veteran crime reporters, they understood that. Now, because of major financial and personnel hits to the media, superbly knowledgeable crime reporters have almost disappeared.
The Facts:
Per the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice, 42 percent of violent crimes are reported to law enforcement. Thirty-two percent of property crimes are reported to the police.
That means the overwhelming majority of what we call crime is not reflected in FBI crime statistics. That means you would have to have SUBSTANTIAL reductions or increases in crime trends for FBI data to be meaningful.
The big reductions for the first quarter of 2024 are unreliable per me and many others writing about crime. Many (most?) law enforcement agencies “dump” their data at the end of the year thus first-quarter statistics are bound to change.
4,000 police agencies did not participate in crime reporting to the FBI in 2023.
The effort to get law enforcement agencies to fully use the FBI’s new National Incident-Based Reporting System remains a problem.
Murder is down 26 percent in the first quarter of 2024 but that’s a reflection that urban homicides increased by 50 percent in the cities measured (2019-2022) per the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Crime statistics cannot grow by those percentages without substantially declining in subsequent years regardless of interventions. It’s always been that way.
Is Reported Crime Decreasing?
For 2023, there was a PRELIMINARY-UNOFFICIAL decrease in violent crimes of 3 percent for metropolitan areas (where most Americans live). There was a 5.7 percent overall decrease in violence for the entire country. The official report will be released this fall.
For 2022 (and previous years), the OFFICAL NON-PRELIMINARY FBI figures offer 12 categories of crimes (13 including hate crimes). Four categories decreased, six categories increased and one (burglary) was flat. Hate crimes increased.
The FBI’s crime statistics estimates for 2022 show that national violent crime decreased an estimated 1.7% in 2022 compared to 2021 estimates.
You could legitimately state that violent crime did not increase in 2021 based on numbers from the FBI and the National Crime Victimization Survey.
But it’s equally correct to state that, per the FBI, homicides increased considerably between 2019 and 2021 (nearly 30 percent in 2020 and 4.3 percent in 2021).
So for recent years yes, there has been a modest decrease in violence in the country not counting the first quarter of 2024 which few believe is accurate.
Then Why Am I Reading That There Are Huge Decreases In Crime?
It’s politics. We have a presidential election running concurrently with Gallup reporting that fear of crime is at its highest level in years backed up by numerous polls suggesting that crime and violence are very important to voters.
President Biden insists that crime is at its lowest point in 50 years but you can prove anything if you are willing to cherry-pick baseline data decades ago.
Media source after media source keeps offering articles insisting that Americans are being unrealistic-stupid-silly as to their concerns about crime.
There is a counter-reaction to progressive thoughts on crime throughout the country and liberal prosecutors are losing their jobs in droves. New legislation is “correcting” the balance in laws designed to cut consequences for criminal activity. Police funding is being restored. Per the UK’s Daily Mail, “George Soros has halted funding for several unpopular liberal prosecutors that he helped elect as they face uphill battles to remain in office.” For some progressives, it’s necessary to spin a narrative that REPORTED crime is substantially declining to reverse these losses.
Is There Official Data From The USDOJ Stating That Crime Increased?
There are two types of crime reports from the US Department of Justice, official full-year data and preliminary statistics which may (and probably will) include different numbers.
The National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice in an “official” 2023 report states that violent crime increased 44 percent (per analyst Jeff Asher and The Marshall Project) with large increases in violence for groups for 2022. A 44 percent increase in violence would be the largest ever recorded.
There has never been an increase in violent crime of this magnitude. A companion report on juvenile crime also offers data on greatly expanded violence. Both use a polling methodology similar to the US Census.
“The best available figures, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), show a whopping 58 percent rise in violent crime in urban areas from 2019—before the summer of George Floyd, BLM, and the “defund the police” crusade—to 2022, the most recent year for which finalized federal statistics are available.”
“The numbers are even worse on closer inspection. If one removes from that period the bar fights and other similar encounters that make up much of the “simple assault” category, urban areas have seen a 73 percent spike in more serious violent crimes,” City Journal.
We need to note that mainstream media have ignored the 2023 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Even when it’s brought to their attention, it’s still dismissed. Why?
So Who Is Telling The Truth About Crime?
Who told you the truth about the President’s cognitive decline before the debate? There are post-debate articles about a pissed-off media rebelling against a narrative that the President’s abilities are as sharp as they ever were. After a disastrous debate performance, the nation understands that mainstream media either covered up the President’s abilities or didn’t have the fortitude to tell us the truth.
It’s the same with crime.
Rather than examine the Bureau of Justice Statistics report stating that we just had the largest increase in violence in our nation’s history, the mainstream media chose to ignore it.
Rather than tell the nation that the overwhelming percentage of crime does not show up in FBI statistics, mainstream media chose to run with the administration’s assertions that there are huge decreases in reported crime based on FBI statistics.
Conclusions
This article has nothing to do with favoring President Biden or Trump or progressive or conservative politics. This is about telling the truth.
Why did the mainstream media ignore a US Department of Justice report stating that we just had the largest increase in violent crime in the nation’s history when it’s based on polling methods similar to the US Census designed to capture ALL CRIME, not just REPORTED crime?
The media mostly ignores the far more accurate (based on the numbers analyzed) National Crime Victimization Survey. There are 11,000 hate crimes yearly per the FBI and approximately 250,000 hate crimes yearly per the NCVS. For policy purposes, which data would you choose?
It’s partially due to the almost complete lack of knowledgeable crime reporters who could have pushed back against a false narrative on crime.
But after watching the recent debate (if I was still a cop, I would have taken a similar man into custody for his protection) it is obvious that the mainstream media knew or should have known that the President is in trouble.
I have great respect for the President and his decades of public service but now I understand why Barack Obama suggested (when Biden contemplated a run for president), “Joe, you don’t have to do this.”
But like the President’s cognitive decline, the media seems unable or unwilling the give the American public unvarnished facts about crime. They would rather offer article after article about huge declines and that Americans are just silly creatures due to their unrealistic fear of crime.
Yes, REPORTED crime has declined somewhat in recent years. But it’s not the huge amount claimed by the administration and it pales in comparison to the US Department of Justice’s findings as to big increases in violence through the National Crime Victimization Survey. Reported crime may decrease substantially in 2024 but we are far from having official data.
FBI data is good for trends, but not for precise numbers. The Department of Justice and just about everyone else said as much when the National Crime Victimization Survey started 50 years ago.
The U.S. surgeon general declared gun violence a public health crisis, driven by the fast-growing number of injuries and deaths involving firearms in the country.
“People want to be able to walk through their neighborhoods and be safe,” Murthy told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “America should be a place where all of us can go to school, go to work, go to the supermarket, go to our house of worship, without having to worry that that’s going to put our life at risk.” So even the Biden administration acknowledges a crime problem.
We depend on the media to protect democracy. We depend on the media to tell the best available version of the truth. They are deficient regarding the President “and” crime.
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