Hi Jeff: Overall, "reported" crime is down, but as you know, FBI preliminary data in the past has been incorrect about the degree of change, along with one of three private analysts.
The majority of cities measured by the Major City Chiefs Association has at least one category where violent crime increased.
The National Crime Victimization Survey, for its last official report in 2023, still ranks as the nation's largest increase in rates of violence.
Only a tiny percentage of crime is reported, according to the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Per the FBI's latest report, computer crime-identity theft is up 30 percent in its latest report. Per Gallup, fear of crime is at record highs.
So while your analysis is welcome, and is good news (and I thank you for it-it's a valuable service), the overall crime picture (as you acknowledge) is far more complex.
A contact in NYC law enforcement adds that DAs have a pronounced tendency to downgrade charges and sentences, such that eg assault with a deadly weapon (violent crime) gets charged as possession of the weapon (not a violent crime). The contact adds more and more juveniles are committing crime — so the crime gets charged, sentenced, and recorded as a lower tier of offense or not at all. In light of all this and Len’s good points above, I’d be curious: is the U.S. merely _reporting_ the lowest violent crime/property crime since the 60s, or are we actually _experiencing_ the lowest rates?
Hi: It's been my experience that 20-30 percent of criminal charges in urban areas are dropped, but that's based on old BJS data. Newer BJS data on federal prosecutions claims that some categories exceed 50 percent. Then, 95 percent of the rest are plea-bargained to lower charges or dropped. What gets entered in the NIBRS (original charges or court-altered charges) is uncertain. Len.
Thanks for that helpful context. It seems like one headline would read: “Lowest reported crime rates since 1960s.” But from what you’re saying (and from what I’m hearing), I wonder if another headline worth exploring might be: “Divergence between reported crime and actual crime growing increasingly wide.”As someone who lived through NYC’s transition in the 90s, and then through DC’s lag in its recovery after 2020, I certainly hope that’s not the case! I don’t claim any expertise and would love to be able to dispel that latter interpretation.
We would have to know what the NIBRS is using for data and whether it's corrected by the courts or the prosecutors' office. I do not know, but it would make for an interesting question for the FBI. Jeff probably knows. If the FBI is solely using the initial reports, the crime count per charge would be way off. Len.
Jeff has spoken at length about this in previous posts. We are fairly confident in certain trends because crime stats that are much harder to “game” (IE, murder) tend to parallel other trends.
That’s interesting, thanks for sharing the observation that trends that are difficult to game tend to parallel other trends. Intuitively that makes sense, though we saw during the pandemic (and/or George Floyd aftermath, depending on your perspective), that murder soared while other (*reported*) crime, including violent crime, declined. So I wasn’t sure how reliable one type of crime was as a proxy for the others.
Perhaps your contact can discuss the botched investigation standards of many law enforcement departments across the country. I can personally attest to knowing about a major police department that goes out of their way to clear a scene without conducting a complete investigation (and frankly you don’t need inside sources to know this, listen to enough trials and you will discover the same).
It’s a shame. Many departments are staffed by people who truly care about their community and want it to be safer. Others are disgustingly cynical and like to blame everyone else for their horrible culture. Just an observation.
Lots of skepticism in this comment sections - which is fair. We ought to be sure our stats are solid before we ascribe too much weight to them. However I will say, I find crime stats to be incredibly important politically as otherwise we only have individuals perception of crime which can be skewed by media coverage and/or personal experience. And fear of crime is always used as a reason to increase the militarization of the police, vilify the unhoused, and generally create a sense of distrust in the public. So I guess my point is that in this case, imperfect data is better than no data.
One or two fewer murders in Chicago doesn’t make people feel safer walking around the streets when there’s a murder a day average and hooliganism affects the Magnificent Mile and residential neighborhoods. These stats are always quoted by politicians in attempt to divert from the fact that people don’t feel safe on the streets, because they aren’t…
The primary driver of the peak in crime in the 1990s and the subsequent decline is the removal of lead from the atmosphere. There is a ton of medical literature on this. It turns out that crime follows atmospheric lead levels with a 22 year lag. This is a pattern that is consistent over multiple jurisdictions in multiple countries. The reason is that lead damages the part of the brain associated with impulse control, and the damage is done when the victims are children, but the effects show up in crime statistics in late teens and early adulthood. The source of the atmospheric lead was leaded gasoline, which was phased out in the 1970s. Thus, the peak was 20 years later in the 1990s. Since then, crime has been dropping lockstep with the decrease in atmospheric lead. Now it's about back to baseline and other things will have more of an effect.
In particular, look at Figure 2 in the second reference by Mielke and Zahran.
There is a similar, though less obvious, relation between lead in the soil and crime as well (Guinn, B., 2018. Lead and crime: an ecological study between lead contaminated topsoil and violent crime.) and prenatal exposure (Wright, J.P., Dietrich, K.N., Ris, M.D., Hornung, R.W., Wessel, S.D., Lanphear, B.P., Ho, M. and Rae, M.N., 2008. Association of prenatal and childhood blood lead concentrations with criminal arrests in early adulthood. PLoS medicine, 5(5), p.e101.)
Here's just a taste of the literature:
Taylor, M.P., Forbes, M.K., Opeskin, B., Parr, N. and Lanphear, B.P., 2016. The relationship between atmospheric lead emissions and aggressive crime: an ecological study. Environmental health, 15, pp.1-10.
Mielke, H.W. and Zahran, S., 2012. The urban rise and fall of air lead (Pb) and the latent surge and retreat of societal violence. Environment international, 43, pp.48-55.
Stretesky, P.B. and Lynch, M.J., 2004. The relationship between lead and crime. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 45(2), pp.214-229.
Taylor, M.P., Forbes, M.K., Opeskin, B., Parr, N. and Lanphear, B.P., 2018. Further analysis of the relationship between atmospheric lead emissions and aggressive crime: an ecological study. Environmental Health, 17, pp.1-4.
Herrnstadt, E., Heyes, A., Muehlegger, E. and Saberian, S., 2016. Air pollution as a cause of violent crime: Evidence from Los Angeles and Chicago. Manuscript in preparation.
Bondy, M., Roth, S. and Sager, L., 2020. Crime is in the air: The contemporaneous relationship between air pollution and crime. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 7(3), pp.555-585.
A few additional points about crime data to remember; 1) crime reporting by major metropolitan cities is voluntary 2) Many of these same large cities (that may or may not be reporting) with ‘sanctuary’ status, also outlaw the tracking of any distinction between citizens and non-citizens in crime stats 3) These crimes being reported to the FBI are many times downgraded (or dropped and not even reported) by soft on crime DA’s.
I don’t trust crime stats because of these bad data collection issues and of course, DA’s that affect the prosecution of crimes. If a community knows that a man will get released on bail and the charges likely dropped / downgraded/ hardly punished for assault, this also impacts the likelihood that a woman would even bother reporting the man who assaulted her, for her own safety in many cases. The FBI, if they would like the American public to take their data seriously, should really consider changing the reporting requirements.
There are many politicians who have your exact complaints. When they get in power, they change nothing. Probably because they use the same justifications and excuses purely for political hysteria, and hold no actual beliefs about anything. Something to consider.
Hi Jeff: Overall, "reported" crime is down, but as you know, FBI preliminary data in the past has been incorrect about the degree of change, along with one of three private analysts.
The majority of cities measured by the Major City Chiefs Association has at least one category where violent crime increased.
The National Crime Victimization Survey, for its last official report in 2023, still ranks as the nation's largest increase in rates of violence.
Only a tiny percentage of crime is reported, according to the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Per the FBI's latest report, computer crime-identity theft is up 30 percent in its latest report. Per Gallup, fear of crime is at record highs.
So while your analysis is welcome, and is good news (and I thank you for it-it's a valuable service), the overall crime picture (as you acknowledge) is far more complex.
Best, Len.
A contact in NYC law enforcement adds that DAs have a pronounced tendency to downgrade charges and sentences, such that eg assault with a deadly weapon (violent crime) gets charged as possession of the weapon (not a violent crime). The contact adds more and more juveniles are committing crime — so the crime gets charged, sentenced, and recorded as a lower tier of offense or not at all. In light of all this and Len’s good points above, I’d be curious: is the U.S. merely _reporting_ the lowest violent crime/property crime since the 60s, or are we actually _experiencing_ the lowest rates?
Hi: It's been my experience that 20-30 percent of criminal charges in urban areas are dropped, but that's based on old BJS data. Newer BJS data on federal prosecutions claims that some categories exceed 50 percent. Then, 95 percent of the rest are plea-bargained to lower charges or dropped. What gets entered in the NIBRS (original charges or court-altered charges) is uncertain. Len.
Thanks for that helpful context. It seems like one headline would read: “Lowest reported crime rates since 1960s.” But from what you’re saying (and from what I’m hearing), I wonder if another headline worth exploring might be: “Divergence between reported crime and actual crime growing increasingly wide.”As someone who lived through NYC’s transition in the 90s, and then through DC’s lag in its recovery after 2020, I certainly hope that’s not the case! I don’t claim any expertise and would love to be able to dispel that latter interpretation.
We would have to know what the NIBRS is using for data and whether it's corrected by the courts or the prosecutors' office. I do not know, but it would make for an interesting question for the FBI. Jeff probably knows. If the FBI is solely using the initial reports, the crime count per charge would be way off. Len.
Jeff has spoken at length about this in previous posts. We are fairly confident in certain trends because crime stats that are much harder to “game” (IE, murder) tend to parallel other trends.
That’s interesting, thanks for sharing the observation that trends that are difficult to game tend to parallel other trends. Intuitively that makes sense, though we saw during the pandemic (and/or George Floyd aftermath, depending on your perspective), that murder soared while other (*reported*) crime, including violent crime, declined. So I wasn’t sure how reliable one type of crime was as a proxy for the others.
Perhaps your contact can discuss the botched investigation standards of many law enforcement departments across the country. I can personally attest to knowing about a major police department that goes out of their way to clear a scene without conducting a complete investigation (and frankly you don’t need inside sources to know this, listen to enough trials and you will discover the same).
It’s a shame. Many departments are staffed by people who truly care about their community and want it to be safer. Others are disgustingly cynical and like to blame everyone else for their horrible culture. Just an observation.
Lots of skepticism in this comment sections - which is fair. We ought to be sure our stats are solid before we ascribe too much weight to them. However I will say, I find crime stats to be incredibly important politically as otherwise we only have individuals perception of crime which can be skewed by media coverage and/or personal experience. And fear of crime is always used as a reason to increase the militarization of the police, vilify the unhoused, and generally create a sense of distrust in the public. So I guess my point is that in this case, imperfect data is better than no data.
One or two fewer murders in Chicago doesn’t make people feel safer walking around the streets when there’s a murder a day average and hooliganism affects the Magnificent Mile and residential neighborhoods. These stats are always quoted by politicians in attempt to divert from the fact that people don’t feel safe on the streets, because they aren’t…
The primary driver of the peak in crime in the 1990s and the subsequent decline is the removal of lead from the atmosphere. There is a ton of medical literature on this. It turns out that crime follows atmospheric lead levels with a 22 year lag. This is a pattern that is consistent over multiple jurisdictions in multiple countries. The reason is that lead damages the part of the brain associated with impulse control, and the damage is done when the victims are children, but the effects show up in crime statistics in late teens and early adulthood. The source of the atmospheric lead was leaded gasoline, which was phased out in the 1970s. Thus, the peak was 20 years later in the 1990s. Since then, crime has been dropping lockstep with the decrease in atmospheric lead. Now it's about back to baseline and other things will have more of an effect.
In particular, look at Figure 2 in the second reference by Mielke and Zahran.
There is a similar, though less obvious, relation between lead in the soil and crime as well (Guinn, B., 2018. Lead and crime: an ecological study between lead contaminated topsoil and violent crime.) and prenatal exposure (Wright, J.P., Dietrich, K.N., Ris, M.D., Hornung, R.W., Wessel, S.D., Lanphear, B.P., Ho, M. and Rae, M.N., 2008. Association of prenatal and childhood blood lead concentrations with criminal arrests in early adulthood. PLoS medicine, 5(5), p.e101.)
Here's just a taste of the literature:
Taylor, M.P., Forbes, M.K., Opeskin, B., Parr, N. and Lanphear, B.P., 2016. The relationship between atmospheric lead emissions and aggressive crime: an ecological study. Environmental health, 15, pp.1-10.
Mielke, H.W. and Zahran, S., 2012. The urban rise and fall of air lead (Pb) and the latent surge and retreat of societal violence. Environment international, 43, pp.48-55.
Stretesky, P.B. and Lynch, M.J., 2004. The relationship between lead and crime. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 45(2), pp.214-229.
Taylor, M.P., Forbes, M.K., Opeskin, B., Parr, N. and Lanphear, B.P., 2018. Further analysis of the relationship between atmospheric lead emissions and aggressive crime: an ecological study. Environmental Health, 17, pp.1-4.
Herrnstadt, E., Heyes, A., Muehlegger, E. and Saberian, S., 2016. Air pollution as a cause of violent crime: Evidence from Los Angeles and Chicago. Manuscript in preparation.
Bondy, M., Roth, S. and Sager, L., 2020. Crime is in the air: The contemporaneous relationship between air pollution and crime. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 7(3), pp.555-585.
A few additional points about crime data to remember; 1) crime reporting by major metropolitan cities is voluntary 2) Many of these same large cities (that may or may not be reporting) with ‘sanctuary’ status, also outlaw the tracking of any distinction between citizens and non-citizens in crime stats 3) These crimes being reported to the FBI are many times downgraded (or dropped and not even reported) by soft on crime DA’s.
I don’t trust crime stats because of these bad data collection issues and of course, DA’s that affect the prosecution of crimes. If a community knows that a man will get released on bail and the charges likely dropped / downgraded/ hardly punished for assault, this also impacts the likelihood that a woman would even bother reporting the man who assaulted her, for her own safety in many cases. The FBI, if they would like the American public to take their data seriously, should really consider changing the reporting requirements.
There are many politicians who have your exact complaints. When they get in power, they change nothing. Probably because they use the same justifications and excuses purely for political hysteria, and hold no actual beliefs about anything. Something to consider.
Definitely. If the answer is obvious to me, I’m sure it is to the be bureaucrats. Thanks