FBI: Violent Crime Is Down, Property Crime Is Up

Violence has receded to pre-pandemic levels, according to agency's annual reports
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 16, 2023 3:11 PM CDT
FBI Says Violent Crime Is Down to Pre-Pandemic Levels
The FBI released its annual crime report Monday.   (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

Violent crime across the US decreased last year—dropping to about the same level as before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic—but property crimes rose substantially, according to data in the FBI's annual crime report released Monday. The report comes with an asterisk: Some law enforcement agencies failed to provide data. But a change in collection methods in compiling 2022 numbers helped, and the FBI said the new data represents 83.3% of all agencies covering 93.5% of the population. By contrast, last year's numbers were from only 62.7% of agencies, representing 64.8% of Americans.

Violent crime dropped 1.7%, and that included a 6.1% decrease in murder and non-negligent manslaughter, the AP reports. Rape decreased 5.4%, and aggravated assault dropped 1.1%, but robbery increased 1.3%. Violent crime had also decreased slightly in 2021, a big turnaround from 2020, when the murder rate in the US jumped 29% during the pandemic that created huge social disruption and upended support systems. The violent crime rate of 380.7 per 100,000 people was a tick better than 2019—the year before the pandemic hit the US, when the rate was 380.8 per 100,000 people.

"By and large what we're seeing is simply a return to something approaching normal after the big changes associated with the pandemic," says Richard Rosenfeld, criminal justice professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Despite the waning violence, property crimes jumped 7.1%, with motor vehicle thefts showing the biggest increase at 10.9%. The FBI said carjackings increased 8.1% from 2021, and the vast majority of carjackings involving an assailant with a weapon. Someone was injured in more than a quarter of all carjackings.

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This year's report showed that while the the number of adult victims of fatal gun violence decreased 6.6%, the estimated number of juvenile victims rose 11.8%. Gun-safety advocates decry the loosening of gun laws, especially in conservative-leaning states around the US. Assaults on law enforcement officers rose 1.8% compared to 2021. An estimated 31,400 of the 102,100 assaults resulted in injuries in 2022, up 1.7% from the previous year. Violent crime overall remains far lower than the historic highs of the 1990s.

(More violent crime stories.)

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