Highlights
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Per the USDOJ’s updated National Crime Victimization Survey, record rates of violent crime continue. Urban violent crime increased.
If the majority of mayors are saying that crime and violence by young people are serious issues, then we should probably respect their observations.
Seven in ten Americans say that the level of crime and violence in American cities is at an unacceptable level. Should we ignore them?
The great majority of media reports I read say that reported urban crime is declining.
Per Gallup, the US and Canada are seeing deterioration in fear-of-crime scores, while the rest of the world is experiencing improvement (forthcoming article).
Those suggesting that decreases in reported crime in cities are due to their policies may be (probably are) exaggerating their claims. In all probability, it’s crimes returning to averages after a 50 percent increase in urban homicides and a 36 percent increase in aggravated assaults.
Through the existing numbers of reported and total crime, one can make any claim about crime they want. But as long as the fear of crime is at near record numbers, cities will not prosper.
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Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention and Statistics for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of Criminology and Public Affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former police officer. Retired federal senior spokesperson.
Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Produced successful state anti-crime media campaigns.
Thirty-five years of directing award-winning (50+) public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed thousands of times by every national news outlet, often with a focus on crime statistics and research. Created the first state and federal podcasting series. Produced a unique and emulated style of government proactive public relations.
Certificate of Advanced Study-The Johns Hopkins University.
Author of ”Success With The Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization,” available at Amazon and additional bookstores.
Crime in America.Net-“Trusted Crime Data, Made Clear.”
Quoted by The Associated Press, USA Today, A&E Television, the nationally syndicated Armstrong Williams Television Show (30 times), Department of Justice documents, US Supreme Court briefs, C-SPAN, the National Institute of Health, college and university online libraries, multiple books and journal articles, The Baltimore Sun, The Huffington Post, JAMA, The National Institute of Corrections, The Office of Juvenile Justice And Delinquency Prevention, The Bureau of Justice Assistance, Gartner Consulting, The Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center, The Marshall Project, The Heritage Foundation via Congressional testimony, Law Enforcement Today, Law Officer.Com, Blue Magazine, Corections.Com, Prison Legal News, The Hill (newspaper of Congress), the Journal of Offender Monitoring, Inside Edition Television, Yomiuri Shimbun (Asia’s largest newspaper), LeFigaro (France’s oldest newspaper), Oxygen and allied publications, Forbes, Newsweek, The Economist, The Toronto Sun, Homeland Security Digital Library, The ABA Journal, The Daily Express (UK) The Harvard Political Review, The Millennial Source, The Federalist Society, Lifewire, The Beccaria Portal On Crime (Europe), The European Journal of Criminology, American Focus and many additional publications.
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A comprehensive overview of crime for recent years is available at Violent and Property Crime Rates In The U.S.
Note
There is a significant difference between reported crime, as reported to the FBI (the great majority of crime is not reported to law enforcement), and total crime as collected by the updated USDOJ National Crime Victimization Survey.
Article
We have a dilemma. We are being told that reported crime in cities is declining, which is correct. Most American cities are offering reductions in reported crime, according to the FBI and independent sources.
USDOJ Record Violent Crime Rates Increase For The Third Year
At the same time, the USDOJ’s National Crime Victimization Survey indicates record increases in violence, an increase of 44 percent for 2022 and 2023. According to Gallup, the fear of crime is at near-record highs.
In a report delivered on September 29, 2025, the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the USDOJ states that “In 2024, the rate of violent victimization was 23.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, which was not significantly different from the rate in 2023. There were also no significant changes from 2023 to 2024 in the rates of specific types of violent crime.”
Urban violent crime increased.
Most Mayors And Americans Are Telling US That There Is A Crime Problem
Now we have the majority of urban mayors telling us that “juvenile” crime is either serious or very serious.
Seventy percent of Americans say that crime in cities is unacceptable.
How are politicians, criminologists, and the public supposed to interpret all of this? If reported crime in American cities is declining, why are mayors telling us that crime by young people is a serious or very serious issue? Why do we have continuing record increases in violent crime rates from the National Crime Victimization Survey?
Politico: Nearly six in 10 mayors called juvenile crime “serious or very serious” in the nonpartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors’ survey of 60 city leaders, shared first with POLITICO.
“It’s a pretty widely held belief,” says the global polling firm’s vice president Mallory Newall. “Around seven in ten Americans say that the level of crime and violence in American cities is at an unacceptable level.”
Per the poll, only 14 percent say that crime decreased in their communities.
Gallup
The US and Canada are seeing deterioration in fear-of-crime scores, while the rest of the world is experiencing improvement (forthcoming article).
A Disconnect
When you consider that there is an entire industry committed to convincing Americans that urban crime is declining, and when you contemplate that 95 percent of what you read or watch indicates that crime is plummeting in cities, there is an obvious disconnect.
Well-funded foundations are pouring a substantial amount of money into convincing you that things are dramatically improving regarding reported crime. Seminars and podcasts encourage the notion that crime is down significantly. One source wants the media to tone down their photos when covering police and justice issues. Websites insist that urban reported criminality is improving. One reader suggested that Americans are stupid for not believing it.
Is Urban Juvenile Crime Increasing or Decreasing?
So we have the majority of urban mayors saying that juvenile crime is “serious or very serious.”
For many cities, “juvenile” crime means crime committed by people aged 25 and younger. A basic tenet of criminology is that younger people commit most crimes. The most criminalogenic age category includes those 15 to 25 years of age.
It’s almost impossible for the term “juvenile” crime to be interpreted with accuracy. If we are relying on crime victims, the average person going through the trauma of being victimized is unable to tell the difference between a 17-year-old and someone many years older. All he or she knows is that they were victimized by a person who looked young.
We can’t count on juvenile arrests, which have plummeted in recent years, something that was literally celebrated by officials in the previous administration’s Office of Justice Programs within the US Department of Justice.
We are being told that reported crime is decreasing in most American cities, which is correct, but there is a difference between reported crime and total crime.
The Vast Majority Of Crime Is Not Reported To Law Enforcement
The vast majority of urban crime is not reported to law enforcement, per the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice. Politicians tout the reduction of reported crimes, which is correct; the majority of American cities are reporting crime reductions.
But relying on reported crimes is telling a small part of the story.
Reported Crimes In 2020–2023: About 38% of violent victimizations in urban areas were reported to police, which was lower than the percentages in suburban (43%) and rural (51%) areas. The reason for considering this data is that urban areas drive most reported crimes in a state.
74 percent of violent victimizations against juveniles were not reported to the police, and juvenile crime seems to be growing in some cities.
For identity theft, roughly 7 percent of incidents were reported per the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
There are 120 million porch package thefts in 2024, far more than all categories of property crime recorded by the FBI in 2023. Twenty-three percent of porch package thefts are reported to law enforcement. These are private-sector estimates with differing methods — treat as approximate.
About 12,000 hate crime incidents were reported to the FBI, and approximately 250,000 yearly hate crime incidents were recorded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey.
So the point is that we will never understand the crime and fear of crime issues without looking at the totality of the data from the US Department of Justice, Gallup, and other sources.
How Do Conflicting Crime Statistics Affect Our Understanding Of Crime?
The National Crime Victimization Survey in a 2023 report for the calendar year 2022 offered the largest increase in violent crime in the nation’s history (44 percent), according to analyst Jeff Asher, and The Marshall Project.
Per the press release (September 12, 2024) from the US Department of Justice for the new 2023 report, “Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) indicate that in 2023, the rate of nonfatal violent victimization in the United States was 22.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, which was similar to the 2022 rate of 23.5 violent victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older.”
The new NCVS survey for 2024 states that rates of violent crime remain unchanged. Urban violent crime increased.
Fear Of Crime
Fear of crime is not exclusively connected to crime statistics, but the difference in declines in reported crimes and the results of the National Crime Victimization Survey (total crime) are massive and provide some insight.
The latest data from the FBI, based on crimes reported to the police, indicate that violent crime decreased by an estimated 4.5 percent in 2024. The FBI’s crime statistics estimates, based on reported data for 2023, show that national violent crime decreased an estimated 3.0 percent in 2023 compared to 2022.
Decreases of 4.5 and 3.0 percent are welcomed, but it’s not much to celebrate, especially when you consider that homicides increased by 50 percent and aggravated assaults increased by 36 percent from 2019 to 2022, per the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
Crime reductions were inevitable after rising so dramatically, what criminologists call a regression to the mean or average.
So data is suggesting that, via overall crime in America, we have a huge increase in rates of violence, and rather small decreases in the numbers of violence via reported crimes through the FBI.
Having said the above, criminological literature tells us that most citizens judge crime by what they see, feel, taste, smell, and touch. They depend on their own experiences and those of friends and neighbors.
According to Gallup and other sources, we are currently at a near-record level of fear or concern about crime. Large national polls show very high concern — for example, Gallup and other surveys have recently found majorities (often 6–8 in 10, depending on the question and date) saying crime is a serious problem in the U.S. and in large cities.
Summation
Yes, reported crime is decreasing in cities throughout the country, and it’s good news. But total crime through the National Crime Victimization Survey is indicating massive and continuing increases in violence. Urban violence increased in the latest USDOJ-National Crime Victimization Survey report. Fear of crime is at near record highs. Most crime is committed by younger people.
Those suggesting that decreases in reported crime in cities due to their policies are possibly exaggerating claims. Suppose reported crime is declining in most cities, in all probability, it’s crimes returning to averages after a 50 percent increase in homicides and a 36 percent increase in aggravated assaults via the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
Through the existing numbers, one can make any claim about crime they want. But as long as the fear of crime is at near record numbers, cities will not prosper.
If most urban mayors and the great majority of American cities are expressing concern about crime, we have a disconnect between what we are told about reported crime and what’s actually happening.
If the majority of mayors are saying that crime and violence by young people are serious issues, then we should probably respect their observations. If the great majority of those polled say that crime in cities is increasing, ignoring them is not in our best interest.
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