The statistics tell us that crime is decreasing. That’s truth of both violent and non-violent crimes. You don’t need to take my word for it. A quick Google search reveals that.
However, indirect measures seem to tell a somewhat different story. Those indirect measures include businesses leaving major cities, individuals leaving major cities, one-way van rental, etc.
As it turns out I’m not the first person to notice this apparent discrepancy. Alan Ehrenhalt wrote at Governing back in January:
As I write this, we are witnessing a decline in violent crime approaching the one that occurred in the 1990s. If the lessons of that decade are a reliable guide, public confidence in urban safety should be bouncing back again. This time, though, it isn’t happening.
The numbers themselves, especially the latest ones, are pretty striking. According to the FBI, the number of murders in the United States fell in 2023 by the steepest rate ever recorded. That pattern persisted in 2024. As of October, homicides were down about 16 percent nationwide, just compared with the previous year.
Not all cities enjoyed the same relief, but most did. Detroit was on track in 2023 to record its lowest homicide rates in 57 years. Washington, D.C., which had a disturbingly high rate of violent crime in 2023, saw it drop precipitately in 2024. Killings in the district fell from 273 to 190 during the same period. After a spike in violence that coincided with the worst period of COVID-19, the numbers in many places were lower than they were before the pandemic came along.
The streets may have grown significantly safer in a remarkably short time, but so far at least the public doesn’t seem to be buying it. A 2024 Gallup poll found that 25 percent of respondents identified crime as an extremely serious problem, one of the highest rates of concern in a long time. In another survey, two-thirds of respondents said they believed crime was increasing.
He went on to remark on how shoplifting, in particular, was increasing and becoming more organized and how random many crimes seemed to be.
I’ve already documented why there’s plenty of room to be suspicious of crime statistics here in Chicago except for homicides. However, our homicide rate adjusted for population is at the lowest level since 2015.
Do the statistics actually reflect the reality? Or is people’s behavior a better gauge of reality than the statistics? Or is it possible the statistics to tell us the crime is down are right but people are correct in believing it isn’t?
One last point. As this article at the Council on Criminal Justice notes, there is a disparity between the trends for violent non-lethal crime about black Americans and other races and ethnicities.
If you dont like the statistics you just make them up? I dont think there is a big mystery here. 22 out of the last 25 years per Pew (Gallup) people believed crime was increasing. People essentially always think crime is increasing. It’s largely due how crime is reported. It’s almost always the leading story on TV and they have broadened the coverage so that now you local news is also covering crimes committed 1000s of miles away. Moving has much more to do with housing pricing and availability.
There are something like 10-20 organization reporting crime and crime rates. They all strongly agree on the trend. If people really think crime is increasing and it actually is it should be easy to prove it. However, it won’t happen. First, because it isn’t and second it is much more useful to keep people scared about crime then it is to collect data that will probably prove you wrong. (Note that the retail store association keeps track of losses including shoplifting. They have the best incentives for good data and best access to data. They haven’t been showing an increase in shoplifting.)
Steve
What am I making up?
I wasn’t specifically meaning Dave Schuler just responding to people who dont believe the many sources of numbers available. However, you also keep suggesting the official numbers are wrong. You are welcome to believe whatever you want but if you want to convince me shoot me the numbers.
Steve
My observation is two things:
One is that people see disorder and they think crime. IOW, people’s perceptions differ from what crime statistics capture. For example, every city has places where there are lots of homeless people and drug addicts. People view those areas as crime-ridden, even though there may not be many crimes occurring, let alone reported crimes that make it into official statistics.
Secondly, crime statistics in the US are pretty poor:
– Lots of crimes don’t get reported or are severely underreported.
– Crime reporting is voluntary, and agencies covering somewhere between 10-20% of the population do not report to the FBI. There are lots of data consistency problems.
So I don’t have complete trust in crime statistics. They may be a good barometer for high-level trends in murders and high-end violent crime, but ought to be treated with skepticism.
The exact numbers really arent that important. What you look for is agreement among the many sources tracking crime, which is what we see, and especially that the trends are going in the same direction. No methodology is perfect, which appears to be what Dave wants. That’s true for any of the numbers we routinely discuss so if that is what you want then we should just abandon any discussions involving numbers and make up ones we like or just discuss how we feel about the issue.
Steve
No. I want the perception and the actions based on the perception to conform to the statistics at least directionally. Perhaps the perception is wrong; perhaps the statistics are fraudulent; perhaps some of both.
There you go again. If you think the numbers are wrong provide some numbers to support that belief. If you are trying to claim that policy generated by our politicians is not in line with the actual numbers, I agree. You get a lot fo votes by claiming crime is worse than it really is and claiming you will crack down on it.
Steve
That people are leaving in significant numbers are the numbers you are seeking but you prefer to believe that people spend their own money to pull up stakes and leave cities like Chicago because they’re deluded.