Violent crime dropped in 2023 — despite Trump insisting it was ‘through the roof’

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Violent crime rates dropped in the United States in 2023, despite Trump claiming that they “through the roof”, according to data in a new FBI report.

Donald Trump’s claim that in the US: “Our crime rate is going up, while crime statistics all over the world are going down", has now been debunked as false by official FBI data recorded for over 14 million criminal offenses in 2023.

By estimation, violent crime declined by 3 per cent in 2023 compared to the previous year while murders and non-negligent manslaughter crimes decreased by nearly 12 per cent.

The crime of rape saw more than a 9 per cent reduction while aggravated assault decreased nearly 3%. Overall property crime decreased by more than 2 per cent, but motor vehicle theft incidents shot up nearly 13 per cent. The motor vehicle theft rate last year — nearly 319 per 100,000 people — was the highest since 2007.

The only slight drawback to the FBI data is that it collects statistics through its Uniform Crime Reporting Program, meaning that not all law enforcement agencies in the U.S. participate.

Therefore, the 2023 report is premised on data from over 16,000 agencies – more than 85 per cent of the agencies are in the FBI’s program.

Listed in the report are a collection of agencies that protect nearly 316 million people across the U.S.

Each one, with at least one million people in its jurisdiction, provided a full year of data to the FBI, according to the report.

“Are we looking at crime rates at a return to pre-pandemic levels? I think a reasonable person would look at that and say, ‘Yes, that’s what has happened,’” Deputy Assistant Director Brian Griffith of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division told Associated Press.

“What you’re not seeing in that number are a lot of very small agencies," he added.