Fact check: Trump falsely claims US crime stats are only going up. Most went down last year, including massive drop in murder
Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed on Tuesday that US crime statistics are “only” going up. In fact, most US crime numbers went down last year – and the decreases included one of the largest national declines in murder ever recorded.
Trump’s speech in Michigan focused on crime perpetrated by people who illegally entered the US. After he said that crime in Venezuela has fallen amid a wave of emigration from the South American country – and exaggerated the extent of Venezuela’s improvement – he added, “Wouldn’t we love to have a statistic where crime is down 67%? Ours is only going in one direction.” He pointed sharply upward with his hand.
Facts First: Trump’s claim that US crime statistics are only going up is false. Murder, other kinds of reported violent crime and reported property crime all dropped in 2023, according to preliminary statistics published by the FBI. Crime data expert Jeff Asher says that, if confirmed by final data, the roughly 13% decline in murder would be the single biggest one-year drop on record in US data dating back to 1960, while the roughly 6% decline in reported violent crime would be one of the biggest on record; reported violent crime declined in every quadrant of the country, in cities of all sizes and in in rural communities. In addition, as Asher has pointed out, partial urban data for early 2024 shows that the number of murders again declined sharply in the first two months of this year.
This is Biden’s biggest problem. A big chunk of people watch Fox News when they just say how bad Biden is over and over and over ad nauseam.
Propaganda works.
It's everywhere. Trump is the dictator of choice for fascists, oligarchs, and foreign powers.
Not Fox News...radical fascist AM radio. It is still by far the biggest disseminator of propaganda and the entire goal of eliminating the Fairness Doctrine and passing the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Anyone below early Gen Z has no concept of an America in which there was not a propaganda onslaught. We fell right into Orwell's dystopia.
What you say is true, but I know too many people with full time jobs that aren’t listening to AM radio that think this way for it to be the only problem.
BTW, Father Caughlin started this in the early days of radio.
Sinclair Media and Clear Channel Communications have a near-monopoly on local TV and radio news networks. NPR is increasingly dominated by AEI goons and associated corporate flakes. There's still a substantial amount of money to be made selling people door cams and home security systems and school/office metal detectors and private security services.
So we get a steady diet of "Crime Rates Skyrocketing!" from even the most benign-seeming news agencies that need advertising revenue and corporate patronage to exist.
"Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed"
Lied. The word they should be using is "lied."
Lied would imply he knew. The dumbass likely doesn't know. He knows what his base wants to hear and that it will make Biden look bad.
It takes a pathological personality to lie so freely and a psychotic individual to believe unquestioningly.
Weirdly, he's not even lying.
He doesn't have any idea what the truth is, and just doesn't care.
Whatever he wants to say is true he just says and reality isn't even a factor.
In some ways, that's even worse.
I've heard tales of people who thought that whichever direction they were facing was North, this is about the same level of mental gymnastics.
I saw dead and decapitated babies with my own eyes.
I agree with you though
He's speaking from personal experience. He knows how many crimes he committed last year and is extrapolating to the wider population.
Cuz to him he’s a rich guy who committed x amount of crimes and a poor and desperate person has to be committing at least 20x what he is.
That’s called projection…
While we argue about his lies and point out their inaccuracy, voters gave accepted his lies and moved on to the next one. That's the shitty part about trying to fact check, when voters don't care about facts. Btw, anyone still claiming to be undecided on Trump in 2024 is full of shit
Belief is social. When you say something like "Trump is lying" people don't evaluate that for truth. They take it as a personal attack on their personal safety. That's how the brain works typically. Group membership is on par with physical safety.
The best bet is probably to find some other group where they also have membership in, and appeal to that.
So you could maybe try to convert them by appealing to patriotism , but the right wing has largely coopted that.
This is well worn Nazi propaganda.
They constantly claimed crime was out of control during the Weimar era, when it was lower than before WW1
What? The person who lies at every opportunity lied? Shocking.
Don't get me wrong there's value in fact checking him but at this point if he said something that's true it was probably an accident.
Gotta give him credit, though. He’s been doing his level best to make it go up.
Crime rates have been dropping steadily since the mid-90s.
But "It Bleeds, It Leads" news coverage hasn't meaningfully abated since the heyday.
So you get failing crime rates, but a steady diet of crime journalism, crime TV drama, and hysterical crime "breaking news" headlines (Missing White Lady Syndrome, police blotter local news reports, True Crime podcasts, vague angry rants from AM Radio news jockeys).
What am I supposed to believe? Your occasional odd statistics? Or my endlessly bombarded ears/eyes?
My favorite coincidence of data was that the year that Doom came out was the same year that violent crime & murder rates started declining in the 90s
The only time Trump gets fact checked is when he already got the lie across and it is too late.
Wait wait I got it —
Trump is only ever concerned with Trump, so when he says crime is rampant, it’s because of all the crimes he’s committing.
Remember, every accusation is a confession.
Trump falsely claimed….
So he spoke. You’re saying he spoke words.
One of the frustrating parts of these "Trump said..." headlines is that they don't counter the prevailing view. They just entrench the view behind "Do I like/trust Donald Trump?"
Because, if you're MAGA, then you're going to use this as evidence of the Lying Mainstream Media.
And if you're a Bidencrat, you're going to use this as evidence of Lying Trump.
But at the end of the day, both these cohorts are still going to be sold on Nextdoor "there was a black person in my neighborhood!" grainy door-cam footage and Sinclair Media police-sirens local "nonpartisan" media coverage.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In fact, most US crime numbers went down last year – and the decreases included one of the largest national declines in murder ever recorded.
In addition, as Asher has pointed out, partial urban data for early 2024 shows that the number of murders again declined sharply in the first two months of this year.
“Trump’s implication that the crime rate is only going up is false,” said Anna Harvey, a political science professor and director of the Public Safety Lab at New York University.
Still, given the declines in 2023 in national numbers on everything from murder to rape to aggravated assault to robbery to arson, there is no basis for Trump’s claim that US crime statistics are only going up.
In fact, Asher told CNN, the available data suggests that the national rates of murder and overall violent crime were lower in 2023 than they were under Trump in 2020, when the country experienced social and economic upheaval on account of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The available evidence from the FBI suggests reported violent crime has fallen since 2020 including a large decline in murder over that span.
The original article contains 545 words, the summary contains 184 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Plot twist... in many cities...
Reported crimes and arrests for crimes went way down... ?
Distorting stats?
Yes it no?
Limitless Peace
Was there supposed to be a coherent statement in there somewhere?
This is some solid-gold Q-Posting, in honor of their fallen lord.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/the-benefits-of-fewer-nypd-arrests/384126/
https://jacobin.com/2020/06/nypd-police-slowdown-defund-demilitarize
https://reason.com/2017/09/26/study-finds-nypd-slowdown-in-petty-law-e/
We've been in a deliberate organized police-union led slowdown for years now. One of the curious upshots of the slowdown has been that fewer arrests have not led to an increase in gross reported crimes. However, it has resulted in a handful of known bad actors engaging in repeated criminal actions without fear of arrest.
So we get a dicotomy - falling crime data overall indicating an aging population less prone to violent crime, but a plethora of "repeat offender" stories that highlight how existing police institutions have basically given up doing anything other than collecting a paycheck.