The White House insists crime rates are falling, but the data tells a different story.
Despite White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s insistence that “violent crime is at a nearly 50-year low”, the stats and voter’s discontent with crime paint a different narrative.
A recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association refutes the comments made by the White House Press Secretary. While violent crime, defined as offenses that involve force or threat of force, is down from its 2020 pandemic peak, the violent crime rate ‘when compared to Q1 2019 pre-pandemic levels show that homicides are up 16% and aggravated assaults are up 7.5%” across the country.
The April report from the Coalition for Law, Order, and Safety comes to a similar conclusion.
“To say crime is down is like descending from a tall peak and standing on a high bluff, saying you are closer to the ground – a true but misleading statement. The truth is that violent crime is substantially elevated in major cities (and nationally) compared to pre-2020 levels.”
When you include the analysis of non-violent crimes, the outlook on crime becomes even worse. Nationally, for the first time in nearly 20 years, larceny-theft crime rates increased by 7.4%, and the property crime rate increased by 6.7% last year: the first increase since 2001. Right here in Pennsylvania, property crimes rose by 18.46% and hate crimes rose by 24.8% in 2022.
Not only are various crimes on the rise across America and Pennsylvania, the number of police officers per 100,000 people fell 8.9% last year from its 2009 peak. Americans face more crimes all while fewer police officers are on the streets.
The April Harvard CAPS/Harris poll indicates that crime is top of mind for American voters, and those in charge of preventing crime are held in high regard.
The poll asked what the ‘most important issue facing the nation today” is, and 15% percent of respondents said crime and drugs – ranking as the 5th highest issue. Furthermore when asked ‘which of these issues is most important to you personally” 11% of respondents said crime, ranking as the 3rd highest choice.
Also, the same poll shows the military, police, and FBI as 3 of the 4 most approved institutions in the country. Eighty-one percent of respondents favorably view the military, followed by 72% for the police, and 56% for the FBI.
In bad news for the Biden administration, the Harvard/Harris poll asked respondents how they favored the President’s current handling of a litany of crime-related issues, and only 41% of respondents indicated the President was handling the issue of violence and crime well.
Crime is a critical issue to most voters and the current data shows this current administration is not handling it well.
