The Federal Bureau of Investigation has quietly updated its 2022 crime data to show an increase in violent crime, despite previous data showing a decline in violent crime in the year that was touted as a victory for the Biden-Harris administration. Ta.
“For some reason, the media chose crime data that they thought would make Democrats look as good as possible, even though the crime data they relied on was revealed by the very source of that data.” It's a mistake and no one is going to fix it,” Lott, founder and director of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told FOX News Digital in a Zoom interview this week.
Last year, the FBI released its annual national crime data for 2022, which found that violent crime was down 2.1% compared to 2021, Lott explained. The data was hailed by Democrats and the media as part of a turning point in America's crime problem following the 2020 crime wave. This was at a time when police protests and riots were sweeping the nation, pandemic stay-at-home orders were being overturned daily, and budgets were being cut. life.
Well, this data reflects a net increase of 80,029 violent crimes in 2022 compared to 2021. Lott found that an additional 1,699 murders occurred under the violent crime umbrella. 7,780 rapes. In the same year, there were 33,459 robberies and 37,091 aggravated assaults.
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Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris (left) and President Joe Biden attend a campaign event at IBEW Local Union Union Hall 5 on September 2, 2024 in Pittsburgh. (AP/Jacqueline Martin)
“To give people an idea of the scale of the change, when the 2022 data was released in September 2023, they initially reported that violent crime was down 2.1% in 2022.…Maybe. Here's the final data for 2022: The final data released last month claimed that instead of falling by 2.1%, violent crimes actually increased by 4.5% in 2022, a change of 6.6 percentage points. Lott told FOX News Digital. .
“We're going from a decline to an increase. And what's strange to me is that in the year since the 2022 data was released, we've seen headlines and headlines saying, 'Violent crime is down, people are getting it wrong.' 'And they were relying on this data, you know, and we're seeing corrections in the news.' “Oh, the FBI data we were relying on was wrong. There was actually a decrease, not a decrease. There was an increase,” he added.
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President Biden and the Harris campaign have touted that violent crime has fallen under their leadership, with Biden calling the decline in reported violent crimes “historic,” citing the latest data from the FBI.
“This year, homicide and violent crime rates continue to decline rapidly from their peaks during the previous administration,” Biden said in an official White House statement late last month. “… Communities across our country are safer than they were when I took office.”
In another White House statement in August, Biden added, “Americans are safer today than when Vice President Harris and I took office. We can't stop now.” Promoted data. Police chiefs nationwide.
Former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a campaign rally at Findlay Toyota Arena on Sunday, October 13, 2024 in Prescott Valley, Arizona. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
When asked about the data correction, the Trump campaign declared victory, saying, “President Trump was right…again!”
“The federal government lied about Biden's cognitive decline, they lied about the employment numbers, and now they're lying about the crime numbers,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt told Fox News Digital. I knew it was on me,” he said. “Kamala Harris must admit she was wrong and say how she plans to quell the growing crime crisis. All of the major media reporters who were quick to correct President Trump have even the slightest bit of integrity. If it remains, we must report this new revelation.”
On the campaign trail, President Trump repeatedly said that under the Biden-Harris administration, “crime in this country has increased by an extraordinary amount,'' despite past statistics promoted by the FBI showing that violent crime is on the decline. I've been speaking out.
Asked about the amendment, the White House claimed that violent crime is at “the lowest level in nearly 50 years” following the passage of the American Rescue Plan in 2021 under the Biden-Harris administration.
“Under the previous administration, our nation experienced the largest increase in homicide rates in history. President Biden and Vice President Harris immediately launched efforts to turn the situation around, leading to American Rescue, the largest federal investment in public safety in history. As a result, violent crime is at its lowest level in nearly 50 years and continues to decline this year, according to independent data from police chiefs in the nation's largest cities.'' – Patterson told FOX News Digital on Wednesday.
Administration officials added in comments to FOX Digital that “the FBI often adjusts crime estimates as more data is reported.”
“During the previous administration, the FBI revised crime data upward for the past three years: 2018, 2019, and 2020. These adjustments are standard practice,” the official continued, referring to this week's Lott article on the data. quoted. “Real Clear Investigations does not note that the number of agencies participating in FBI data collection declined sharply in 2021 as the FBI temporarily disapproved of previous collection methods. I switched to the previous method.”
Lott explained that he noticed the quiet update when the FBI released its 2023 crime data set last month, adding, “It was very easy to see that things were changing.”
“There have been some changes in the previous years, especially for 2022 and 2021, but they were very small. The changes for 2021 and 2022 were very large. You know, I I looked at the press release that the FBI put out.''I looked at the Uniform Crime Report summary report issued by the FBI and there was no mention of them changing the data in the past few years. There is one footnote there that vaguely mentions that the data was updated in 2022. There was no mention of updating in 2021 or any other time,” he said, calling the findings “shocking.”
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This data update is similar to when the Bureau of Labor Statistics overestimated the number of jobs created in the U.S. by 818,000 between March 2023 and March 2024, Lott said.
On July 26, 2024, police from the NYPD Crime Scene Unit arrived at the scene to investigate after two women were shot to death near Gracie Mansion in Manhattan, New York, United States. ((Photo by: Kyle Mazza/Anadolu, Getty Images))
Lott wrote an article this week about the Real Clear Investigations data, and the 2022 update to statistics shows whether the 2023 statistics showing an estimated 3% decrease in violent crime compared to 2022 are valid. Please open the door to doubts.
“Without the increase, the decline in violent crime in 2023 would have been less than half, just 1.6% instead of the reported 3.5% decline,” Lott wrote.
Although FBI data shows a decline in violent crime in recent years, other government datasets show an increase in crime in recent years.
The Biden-Harris administration says crime is down, but independent data shows violent crime is increasing in 66 cities.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation seal is seen outside the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Washington, DC, on August 15, 2022. Threats to the FBI and law enforcement agencies have increased following the search and seizure of top secret documents from former President Donald Trump's Mahr. -a-Lago mansion where he lives. (Mandel Gann/AFP via Getty Images)
Crimes such as rape, sexual assault, aggravated assault and robbery increased from 2020 to 2023, according to the Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics The incident was revealed last month as part of a national crime victimization survey. Overall, the study found that the total number of violent crimes reported increased from 5.6 per 1,000 individuals age 12 and older in 2020, when President Trump was still in office, to 8.7 per 1,000 individuals in 2023. It turned out that
Public safety group discovers FBI violent crime data is higher than originally reported
Lott, who also served as senior adviser for research and statistics in the Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs, wrote an op-ed last month in Real Clear Politics, saying that a Department of Justice study shows that the total number of violent crimes in 2023 will increase compared to the previous year. It detailed that it was found to have increased by 55.4%. At the end of President Trump's term in 2020, rape crimes increased by 42%, robbery by 63%, and aggravated assault by 55%. Although the Department of Justice's investigations do not include homicide investigations, that category almost always includes homicide investigations. reported to the police stationwhich is then sent to the FBI and accounts for about 1% of all violent crimes in the United States, he noted.
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Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI and Harris campaign regarding the 2022 data, but did not immediately receive a response.
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