Highlights
An overview of the first full report on violent and property crimes for 2023 for select cities and the complexities involved in understanding the numbers.
The question is whether city data is useful as a gauge of national crime statistics.
The most recent 2022 numbers from the USDOJ (issued in December 2023) are available at Violent and Property Crime Rates In The U.S. Per The National Crime Victimization Survey, violence grew by 44 percent, the largest increase in the nation’s history.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Thirty-five years of explaining crime data while directing multi-award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies.Retired federal senior spokesperson. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet.
Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention 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 advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University. Former police officer.
Author of ”Success With The Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization” available at Amazon and additional booksellers.
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Quotes
All quotes are edited for brevity.
Introduction
The Council On Criminal Justice is the first to offer comprehensive crime data using city crime dashboards for 2023. Just understand that the use of crime dashboards is a new and uncertain method of gauging what’s happening in the country. I’ll start with an overview of items readers need to consider, present the Council’s findings, and finish with additional things people need to understand about crimes reported to law enforcement.
Article
The first thing to understand about the report below from the Council On Criminal Justice is that it’s a count of city crime dashboards and not national crimes reported to law enforcement as published by the FBI.
Why offer city crime dashboard data? It’s simple. The Council On Criminal Justice’s report for 2023 was released in January of 2024 instead of waiting for the FBI’s full report for all participating police agencies for 2023 which won’t be offered till December of 2024.
It gives us a “possible” look at city crime data months ahead of the FBI’s yearly report. It’s “possible” that it provides insights as to what’s happening nationally for the past year without waiting for December’s USDOJ reports. The Council also compares data from 2019 to provide a long-range overview. Note that the FBI is now releasing (without narratives) quarterly reports of city crime data.
Is it accurate? Who knows? Only time will tell if the insights offered by city crime dashboards provide useful information as to national crime trends. Homicide counts are probably 90 percent accurate, but there are still cities having problems defining homicides. Nevertheless, those of us writing about crime welcome it; it provides a glimpse into what’s happening regarding crime in the US.
Does it provide helpful information? The difference between the three groups offering city crime dashboard data and the official yearly reports from the FBI (crimes reported to law enforcement) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (a survey of citizens about their crime experiences) is night and day as to clarity.
To suggest that navigating the FBI’s website is confusing would be today’s understatement. The National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice is described by some as difficult to read and understand. The Council On Criminal Justice’s report is beautifully written and illustrated making their information easy to read and comprehend.
Are others using a similar big-city crime dashboard strategy? Yes. Criminologist Jeff Asher and The Major Cities Chiefs Association offer similar data. Both offer a larger number of cities examined. See Violent and Property Crime Rates In The U.S. for a current overview.
Unreported Crime Is A Huge Factor To Consider
What are the biggest stumbling blocks to using city crime dashboard data or numbers from the FBI? The vast majority of crime is not reported to law enforcement. Per the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the USDOJ, 42 percent of violent crimes are reported. 32 percent of property crimes are reported.
When we discuss overall crime in the US, we acknowledge that up to 80 percent are property crimes. If 32 percent of property crimes are reported, that means that city crime dashboards (as well as national FBI data) are woeful undercounts. It’s the same for violent crime. It’s more than possible that claimed decreases in crime are actually increases. There are additional reasons for accuracy concerns below.
The National Crime Victimization Survey
Do you want a count crime that doesn’t rely on crimes reported to law enforcement? See the National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Is their data different? Considering that the National Crime Victimization Survey is a count of total crime (with some exceptions) the numbers are much larger than those of reported crime.
The Survey stated that there was a 44 percent increase (the largest increase ever reported) in violence for 2022 (latest report). There are huge increases in violence for groups. The FBI for 2022 (latest report) stated that there was a slight increase in violence.
The problem with the Survey, which is now 50 years old, is that it’s challenging to read which is why, in my opinion, it’s not used by the media or practitioners.
Does the National Crime Victimization Survey offer crime data for states, cities, and metropolitan areas? They are experimenting with localized data. See an overview at City and State Crime Rates-Most Dangerous Cities.
The Council On Criminal Justice Crime Data For 2023 (direct quotes)
This study updates and supplements previous U.S. crime trends reports by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) with data through December 2023. It examines monthly rates at which 12 offenses are reported to law enforcement in 38 American cities. The 38 cities are not necessarily representative of all cities in the United States. The data used to measure the crime trends are subject to revision by local jurisdictions and often differ somewhat from other published data.
The number of homicides in the 32 study cities providing homicide data was 10% lower—representing 515 fewer homicides—in 2023 than in 2022.
Looking at other violent offenses, there were 3% fewer reported aggravated assaults in 2023 than in 2022 and 7% fewer gun assaults in 11 reporting cities. Reported carjacking incidents fell by 5% in 10 reporting cities but robberies and domestic violence incidents each rose 2%.
Among property crimes, reports of residential burglaries (-3%), nonresidential burglaries (-7%), and larcenies (-4%) all decreased in 2023 compared to 2022. The number of drug offenses increased by 4% over the same period.
Motor vehicle theft, a crime that has been on the rise since the summer of 2020, continued its upward trajectory through 2023. There were 29% more reported motor vehicle thefts in 2023 than in 2022.
Most violent offenses remained elevated in 2023 compared to 2019, the year prior to the outbreak of COVID and the widespread social unrest of 2020. There were 18% more homicides in the study cities in 2023 than in 2019, and carjacking has spiked by 93% during that period.
Property crime trends have been more mixed. There were fewer residential burglaries and larcenies and more nonresidential burglaries in 2023 than in 2019. Motor vehicle thefts more than doubled (+105%) during this timeframe, while drug crimes fell by 27%. A dashboard of all crime rates and percent changes from 2019 to 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 is located at the end of this report.
Overall, crime rates are largely returning to pre-COVID levels as the nation distances itself from the height of the pandemic, but there are notable exceptions. While decreases in homicide in the study cities (and many other cities) are promising, the progress is uneven and other sources of crime information, including household surveys of violent victimization, indicate higher rates and more pronounced shifts than reports to law enforcement agencies.
The variance in trends now requires leaders to shift attention from broad national explanations to local factors. It is essential to identify what’s driving crime in local communities and what law enforcement and community interventions, as well as other efforts and forces, may be having impact.
Even in cities where homicide has returned to pre-2020 levels, it is still intolerably high, with some 20,000 lives lost to intentional violence last year. Other trends, such as motor vehicle theft and carjacking, also merit significant attention. Motor vehicle theft, for instance, is considered a “keystone” crime because stolen vehicles are often used in the commission of a robbery, drive-by shooting, or other violent offense. For these reasons and to achieve long-term reductions, local, state, and federal governments, along with communities and industries, must invest in evidence-based crime prevention efforts.
Crimes Reported To Law Enforcement Have Additional Issues With Reliability and Accuracy
Beyond being a small subset of total crime, there are other issues to consider with reported crimes:
There is a long history of manipulating data (including homicides) downward at the local level for endless reasons. In Washington, D.C., there are disputes over what counts as a homicide.
There is well-documented mistrust among some minority communities and law enforcement leading to a reluctance to report crimes.
The majority of violent crimes involve someone the victim knows (including family members) making crime reporting difficult. Many of these events are seen by the victim as a private matter.
The wait times for police officers to arrive at a crime scene can be considerable, well over an hour is common. We have lost thousands of police officers due to resignation and retirement. If there’s no report because people were tired of waiting for officers to arrive, there’s no crime counted.
Major law enforcement organizations are still having issues transitioning to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (although the percentage has greatly improved). Some suggest that it’s having an impact on crime reporting.
There are over 18,000 police agencies in the US. Getting all to define and report crime accurately is a daunting task. For example, there are thousands of law enforcement agencies stating that there were no hate crimes in their jurisdiction for the latest reporting period.
Some states and cities promote “crime-free” housing meaning that occupants could lose their homes if a crime (i.e., domestic violence) is reported.
Note that arrests have plummeted over the last two decades and arrests declined sharply since the beginning of the police use of force protests (2014) and COVID-19 (2020) thus there is evidence that events affect numbers. If there’s no arrest, was the crime counted in official statistics? Crimes solved have also declined considerably.
It’s also important to recognize that there are dozens of cities reporting increases in major categories of violent crime with many reporting increases in homicides, some with considerable gains.
City crime reports may (or may not) be a good predictor of a state’s total crime numbers. For example, Baltimore has very high rates of crime and violence and they seem to be declining per 2023 police reports. But Maryland can be seen as one large city (with some rural counties with small crime numbers) thus crime reductions for the state may increase regardless of Baltimore’s contribution.
An Explanation For Reported Big City Crime Decreases
Per one measure of big city crime dashboards from The Major Cities Chiefs Association (includes US and Canadian cities), from 2019-2022, homicides increased by 50 percent and aggravated assaults went up by by 36 percent.
Are the projected declines in big city crime what methodologists call a regression to the mean (average) or an acknowledgment that big spikes (or decreases) in crime are not forever? Crime goes up and down for reasons we can’t fully identify. It’s been that way since the beginning of crime statistics.
Cities, police chiefs, and advocates are taking credit for decreases when reductions may have nothing to do with their initiatives.
Conclusions
Crime in the United States is difficult to understand which is why the Council on Criminal Justice’s report is welcomed along with the city crime dashboard reports from The Major Cities Chiefs Association and Jeff Asher.
But readers need to understand that all crime reports have their difficulties (an understatement for USDOJ reports) and one has to dig a little deeper and be thoughtful when reading them.
If percentage differences are large (i.e., vehicle thefts and carjackings) it creates a sense of trust as to the direction of crime(s).
If the percentage of crimes is small, it’s more than possible (except for homicides) that a 7 percent decrease in one category could really be a 20 percent increase due to the lack of crime reporting and other factors.
Regardless, data from city crime dashboards is useful “if” one is aware of the complexities.
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