Dueling Crime Statistics

As we approach the presidential election of 2024 along with the races for Congress and other statewide races, crime looms large as an issue that many voters will take into account when they go to the polls. When voters are surveyed, they cite three issues that are at the top of the list, and it doesn’t matter who is doing the survey. Inflation and the economy is number one, the southern border and illegal immigration is number two and crime is number three.

Everybody running for office at election time claims to be an advocate for tough on crime policies including incumbents with a past anti police voting record and who have made inflammatory cop hating statements. No politician wants to be known to the voting public as soft on crime except for state prosecutors who were swept into office because of George Soros money. Even several of those were recalled and kicked out of office. Most candidates seek endorsements from police and sheriff deputy unions and fraternal organizations and proudly announce it if they get the endorsement. This is because it is generally what the voting public supports, and it transcends party affiliation. Everybody wants to be safe and feel safe in their homes, their neighborhoods, and their schools.

The post George Floyd riots have gotten the attention of the public. Cop haters and organizations like Black Lives Matter and Antifa declared and waged war on police. Local legislators in many left leaning cities defunded their law enforcement agencies. This movement caused many officers to leave the profession either outright or by taking early retirement. The hiring to fill the mass exodus has been unable to keep up. Many agencies are working with all-time high vacancies. Response times to calls for service have gone up. Some calls go unanswered, and some crime victims are told to report to police precincts to report even serious crimes with low solvability chances because there are no officers available to respond. In my last column I wrote about the Seattle Police Department no longer responding to burglar alarms without verification that an entry was actually occurring. I thought that was the job of the police. In a car jacking incident in Milwaukee, Wisconsin the 9-1-1 operator asked the caller if the suspect was still on the scene. When the caller responded no, the operator told her to drive to the nearest police district station to report it.

So, with this as the backdrop, let us see what all of this has done to crime rates across America. It all depends on whose statistics you want to use or believe. Statistics are subject to manipulation no matter who is using them. As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics and that they can be used to bolster weak arguments or cast doubt on an opposing convincing argument. Because crime and violence are high on the list of things voters care about, left leaning folks are pushing the narrative that crime rates are down under the Biden administration. On the other side, conservative office seekers are claiming that violent crime has risen since Donald Trump left office.

So, what do the people who collect crime statistics say? The FBI reports that violent crime has decreased under Biden by 15%. Some point out that the FBI is not a statistical agency and that their numbers are unpolished and incomplete. They have no standards for collecting data and that reporting is voluntary, resulting in many large urban agencies not reporting crime incidents to the FBI. The National Crime Victimization Survey put out by the US Department Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that violent crime is up 40% from 2019. The NCVS reports that 55% of people who reported being victimized by a crime did not report it to the police and therefore when you look at reports of crime by the FBI, you are missing a lot of data. Additionally, the FBI only reports year to year data and does not look at crime over a longer period.

This statistical view of crime leaves out an especially essential element. The human the economic element and the psychological damage done not only to victims of crime and violence but the fear it creates in those around it. It is a quality of life issue. It causes people to withdraw from public life and changes their behavior. It disrupts their lives. Crime causes insurance rates to rise not only for the victim, but for those living in high crime neighborhoods. How do you measure that?

The bottom line is that talking about crime strictly from a statistical viewpoint is irrelevant to the human pain it leaves in its wake. There is simply too much crime that occurs for an industrialized and now high-tech nation like the United States. And now there is the emergence of migrant crime due to our open southern border.

To whether crime rates have increased or decreased, I say this. It depends on whose ox is being gored. If it is not disrupting your life, the human nature tendency is to simply turn the page. If it is, you view things through a different lens other than looking at statistics.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of America’s Sheriff LLC, President of Rise Up Wisconsin INC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com