Wednesday, September 18, 2024

The Media’s Criminal Misreporting on Crime

‘President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.”

That was ABC News’ David Muir “fact checking” Donald Trump during his debate with Kamala Harris.

Two days later, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released the results of its national crime victimization survey, which showed that the number of victims of violent crime was 41% higher in 2023 than in 2020.

There were almost 170,000 more rapes, 300,000 more robberies, 1.4 million more assaults, 300,000 more claims of domestic violence, and almost 400,000 more crimes with a violent weapon.

This provides a much more accurate picture of crime in the U.S. Up until 2020, these two reports – the Uniform Crime Report and the Crime Victimization Survey – generally tracked each other.

‘President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.” That was ABC News’ David Muir “fact checking” Donald Trump during his debate with Kamala Harris.

That same survey showed a significant jump in crime victimization in 2022 – something we noted in this space back in July.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ massive crime victimization survey asks about 240,000 people each year whether they have been victims of crime, and whether or not they reported those crimes to the police.

But “the two measures have diverged since 2020: The FBI has been reporting less crime, while more people say they have been victims,” notes John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/17/the-medias-criminal-misreporting-on-crime/

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