The FBI has a great clarity issue. The internet has been claiming that murder has decreased for a time using the FBI’s estimates of described violence. When the FBI made its 2023 statistics public in September 2024, it concealed the fact that there had been a gross increase in crime over the years of 2022 and 2023. It had also concealed the revision of its earlier crime statistics for 2021 and 2022. The FBI continues to conceal the edits just days before a big election in which crime has been a big concern.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the head of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, requested on Thursday that the FBI explain why it had hid this enhance despite Democrats and the media’s claims that it had risen since then to boost their vote chances.
In actions to investigators over the past couple of weeks, the FBI has claimed:” The FBI stands behind each of our Violence in the Nation papers. In 2022, the estimated violent crime rate decreased 1.7 percentage from 2021″.
But the FBI’s revised statistics are obvious. The FBI previously reported in October 2023 that the number of reported violent acts fell from 1, 253, 716 in 2021 to 1, 232, 428 in 2022 — a 1.7 percent fall. The statistics released afterwards, in September 2023, showed a fall from 1, 197, 930 in 2021 to 1, 256, 671 in 2022 — a 4.9 cent increase. That is a 6.6-point jump.
In their report or in their media responses, the FBI did n’t explain why the numbers in 2022 changed. As a past director for USA Today, David Mastio, wrote about the FBI’s reaction to examination:” Here’s what I’ve learned in decades of covering Washington: When bad news is misleading, company press people go out of their way to make it crystal clear that reports are absolutely not true. When bad news is actually coming out, company press employees spit a wall of mist over you and destroy you in contradictions or other distractions.
The FBI’s inability to expressly recognize what their own data blatantly indicates gives the legacy media an excuse for overlooking the apparent rise in crime.
( The change in the estimated reported violent crime rate, which adjusts for population changes, is comparable and increased from a decrease of 2.1 % to a 4.5 % increase. )
The FBI’s recent estimated cut in described violence in 2023 is greater than the increase in 2022. According to updated statistics, 20 537 violent acts were reported in 2023 compared to 2021.
The FBI omitted these changes from its media launch from September 2024. The FBI’s” Summary of Crime in the Nation” document contained a one sentence note on site 11 that faintly stated:” The 2022 violent crime rate has been updated for participation in CIUS, 2023″. The increase was not mentioned in the note. One even notices the change when one downloads the FBI’s novel crime data and compares it to the file that was released last year.
” The FBI’s failing to properly report crime statistics and be visible regarding edits is unacceptable”, notes Comer’s notice to the FBI. Baker demanded” total communications and records between the FBI and the White House relating to the 2021, 2022, and 2023 Violence in the State figures.”
Better Data
The FBI does n’t just take the crimes that have been reported to police. Some police agencies just report their data largely, while others only report their information. The FBI does n’t assume that there were no crimes for those departments, it makes guesses, and how it does so can change.  ,
But, there is better information on offense than the FBI’s. It’s crucial to distinguish between full violence and reported offense.
For years, we have known that most crimes are n’t reported to the police. The Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which answers questions 240 000 people every year about their experiences with violence, was established by the US Department of Justice. A , a measure of overall violence that includes both reported and undetected crime, is provided by the NCVS.
The effects of the , 2023 NCVS, released in mid-September, show a very different tale. From 2019, before Covid, to 2023, NCVS shows a 19 percent increase in murder, robbery, and aggravated assaults. Over only the course of the Biden administration, there was an extraordinary 55.4 percent increase, though there were several problems that were unique to 2020 owing to Covid.
Democrats and the media have focused only on the FBI data, probably because they reveal the desired design in crime. Business media, however, refused to run reports acknowledging the errors they made over the past year when the FBI uncovered a secret revision of its data.
Democrats are aided in making these claims by the FBI’s democratization.
