FBI confirms: Violent crime in 2022 was up, not down as it reported last year | Opinion

Yesterday, right-leaning RealClearPolitics reported big news: In a routine update to its website, the Federal Bureau of Investigation revised the 2022 crime statistics. FBI data now says that crime went up in 2022, not down as their previous “final” numbers had reported.

That undermines a major talking point of the Kamala Harris campaign and calls into question the data fact-checkers have used to blast Trump for falsehoods that could be true.

In October 2023, the FBI released its “final” 2022 data stating, “national violent crime decreased an estimated 1.7%”

The FBI went into detail on the numbers last year:

• “Murder and non-negligent manslaughter recorded a 2022 estimated nationwide decrease of 6.1%.”
• “Offenses in the revised rape category saw an estimated 5.4% decrease.”
• “Aggravated assault in 2022 decreased an estimated 1.1%.”

But then according to RealClear, on Sept. 23, the FBI updated them and whoops, the storied federal crime fighters reported “there were an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes … and 37,091 aggravated assaults.” The 1.7% decrease in violent crime under the Biden-Harris administration turned into a 4.5% increase.

That shatters a key talking point put forward by the Harris campaign and raises obvious questions about whether the decrease in crime the FBI reported for 2023 is in need of revising as well. The confusion at the FBI is coming at a time when the FBI and police departments all over the country are struggling with new systems for reporting crime. The mistakes may be unintentional even if they are politically convenient for Harris.

And the false FBI data is still being reported. Just a few weeks ago, on the same day the FBI quietly updated its numbers, USA Todat published a headline: “Violent crime dropped for third straight year in 2023, including murder and rape.” That’s not true.

The one hole in the RealClear story is that the writer wasn’t able to talk to the FBI before publication even though reaching out several times.

So if the FBI wouldn’t talk to RealClear — or any of the other conservative outlets who reported the story on Wednesday — I thought maybe officials would talk to me and The Kansas City Star.

Turns out they would, sorta. I called the FBI and talked to a nice lady at the press office who told me she didn’t know anything about it, but asked me to send an email to the agency asking my questions. So I did.

This is the gobbledygook I got back:

“In response to your inquiry regarding the FBI’s crime statistics, please see the following statement which is attributable to the FBI:

“The FBI stands behind each of our Crime in the Nation publications. In 2022, the estimated violent crime rate decreased 1.7 percent from 2021. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program transitioned from the traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS) to the more comprehensive National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) for the 2021 data collection year. A significant number of agencies were unable to complete the transition to NIBRS in 2021. Due to the lower volume of participation, the FBI was unable to produce the traditional national estimates for 2021. To provide a confident comparison of crime trends across the nation, the UCR Program performed a NIBRS estimation crime trend analysis. The analysis used NIBRS estimation data of violent and property crimes from 2020 and 2021. In 2022, the FBI resumed collecting SRS data in addition to NIBRS to present nationally representative data. In order to compile reliable estimates for the yearly trend, the FBI used a statistical sampling of 2021 data to augment the 2021 information collected via NIBRS for the 2022 publication.

“September’s release of Crime in the Nation, 2023, was the first phase in the FBI’s efforts to provide the public with more timely data. The next phase will see a shift to monthly data releases to promote transparency and provide an opportunity for consumers to review data based on more timely crime counts with the understanding that data will be continuously updated. As part of this movement, the FBI has moved towards automation, allowing for past years’ estimates to be updated as data are submitted. Therefore, 2021 counts now showing in the 20-year estimation tables reflect only estimates based on the data directly reported to the FBI. This explains why the figure appears different than the computed estimation published in the Crime in the Nation, 2022. “

“Best regards,

“National Press Operations Unit

“Office of Public Affairs

“Federal Bureau of Investigation”

If you are not clear on what that says, that is by design. The first sentence asserts that the FBI stands behind both the report that says crime was down in 2022 and the new report that says crime was way up in 2022.

Here’s what I’ve learned in decades of covering Washington: When bad news is false, agency press people go out of their way to make it crystal clear that reports are definitely not true. When bad news is true, agency press people spew a wall of fog and bury you under an avalanche of distractions or in this case, contradictions.

Judging from the ridiculous answer the FBI sent me, the right-wing media reports are true. Reporters covering the campaigns of Trump and Harris now have to start asking some questions of the vice president and digging out a better answer from the FBI.

This story was originally published October 17, 2024 at 10:24 AM with the headline "FBI confirms: Violent crime in 2022 was up, not down as it reported last year | Opinion."