Highlights
The Bureau of Justice Statistics states that the violent victimization rate dropped 22 percent in 2020. This is the largest decrease in violence ever reported by BJS.
Per 2020 FBI final statistics, the number of homicides increased nearly 30% from 2019, the largest single-year increase the agency has recorded since it began tracking these crimes in the 1960s.
Confused? A comprehensive overview of violent crime in the United States is available at US Crime Rates.
Author
Opinion
Readers simply want to know if violent crime is up or down. According to two Department of Justice agencies, it’s both. There are dramatic differences.
Regardless of exploding violence in cities both large and medium-size, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) through the National Crime Victimization Survey states that the violent victimization rate dropped 22 percent in 2020. By my account, it’s the largest decrease ever recorded by BJS.
In 2020, The FBI recorded the largest increase in homicides with increases in overall violence.
If you find this bewildering, you are not alone.
Violent and Property Crime Rates In The U.S.
A comprehensive overview of violent crime in the United States is available at US Crime Rates. This document provides a non-technical summation of violent crime during recent years.
There are no official statistics from either the FBI or the Bureau of Justice Statistics for 2021, although data from researchers for 2021 is included.
What’s below is a summation for 2020, based on the latest full reports.
National Crime Rates And Totals Are Confusing
Yes, understanding national crime rates and totals is confusing. Sometimes massively so. Even those of us spending a lifetime examining national crime statistics become bewildered with the complexity of crime and its accurate reporting.
To give you an indication as to the complexity of crime statistics, the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice states that the violent victimization rate dropped 22 percent in 2020, Criminal Victimization 2020. This is the largest decrease in violence ever reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). It was released in October 2021.
Per 2020 FBI statistics released in September 2021, the number of homicides increased nearly 30% from 2019, the largest single-year increase the agency has recorded since it began tracking these crimes in the 1960s.
Homicides have historically served as an indicator of overall violent crime.
Quick Summation Of Violent Crime Data For Recent Years
Bureau of Justice Statistics-National Crime Victimization Survey
The Bureau Of Justice Statistics released Criminal Victimization 2020 in October of 2021 indicating that the violent victimization rate dropped 22 percent in 2020. The number of violent crimes also decreased, from 5,813,000 in 2019 to 4,558,000 in 2020.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics is now indicating that the rate and numbers for violent crime decreased in 2019, including simple assaults. This contradicts previous reports from BJS. Per preceding data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were no statistically significant changes in total numbers of robbery, aggravated assault, or simple assault from 2018 to 2019.
We had a 28 percent increase in all violent crimes (including simple assaults) per the National Crime Victimization Survey (2015-2018), with increases in serious violence.
FBI
Per 2020 FBI statistics released in September 2021, the number of homicides increased nearly 30% from 2019, the largest single-year increase the agency has recorded since it began tracking these crimes in the 1960s. There were more than 21,500 murders last year, a total not seen since the mid-1990s.
In 2020, violent crime was up 5.6 percent from the 2019 number. The estimated number of aggravated assault offenses rose 12.1 percent, and the volume of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses increased 29.4 percent.
The estimated number of robbery offenses fell 9.3 percent and the estimated volume of rape (revised definition) offenses decreased 12.0 percent. Property crimes continued to decrease. The exception is motor vehicle thefts which rose 11.8 percent, Homicides and Violent Crime Increases.
Violent crime was either flat or decreased slightly for previous years.
Summation-Opinions
Is there an explanation for the two divergent Department of Justice reports?
The pandemic and the lifting of 2020 COVID restrictions plus the death of George Floyd plus the resulting riots and protests plus declining numbers of police officers per the Bureau of Labor Statistics and issues related to the proactivity of officers added to an increase in violent crime for many American cities per FBI data.
I offer my reasons why The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ crime data was confounded by COVID lockdowns and distractions as to data collection in Violent Crime Dropped 22 Percent. There are simply too many unexplainable findings; too many extraordinarily large decreases. The data simply doesn’t make sense.
By April 2020, about half of the world’s population was under some form of lockdown, with more than 3.9 billion people in more than 90 countries or territories having been asked or ordered to stay at home by their governments. Although similar disease control measures have been used for hundreds of years, the scale seen in the 2020s is thought to be unprecedented, Wikipedia.
It’s interesting to note that during most American lockdowns, there were dramatic reductions in violence and crime in 2020. That could partially explain the findings from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
But to have the largest increase in homicides and with violent crime increasing per the FBI, it substantiates the explosion in violence after the lockdowns. The riots costing over two billion in insurance claims had an impact.
There are those insisting that we have never lived in safer times due to an almost continuous (and considerable) twenty-year plus decline in crime, but that argument ended since the increases in violence began in 2015 per BJS and the dramatic events of 2020-2021.
It’s my opinion that findings from Criminal Victimization 2020, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics are inconclusive.
Any firm statistical conclusion or consensus as to violent crime rising or falling remains murky based on the two conflicting USDOJ reports. This is reflected in the almost complete absence of media articles if you search for “Criminal Victimization 2020” (the title of the BJS document). Few journalists know what to do with the data; they don’t buy the claim that violence is down by record numbers.
But most Americans remain convinced via surveys studying fear of crime, gun and security sales, and movement from cities that violence, especially homicides in urban areas, is rising rapidly.
See More
See more articles on crime and justice at Crime in America.
Most Dangerous Cities/States/Countries at Most Dangerous Cities.
US Crime Rates at Nationwide Crime Rates.
National Offender Recidivism Rates at Offender Recidivism.
An Overview Of Data On Mental Health at Mental Health And Crime.
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