FBI data shows murders and other violent crimes have fallen in the US in the past year

WASHINGTON — Crime, including serious violent incidents like murder and rape, declined nationwide between 2022 and 2023, according to new data released Monday by the FBI.

Violent crime fell about 3% from 2022 to 2023, and property crimes saw a similar 2.4% drop, the FBI reported in its annual “National Crime Summary.” The most serious crimes fell significantly: Murders and manslaughter fell an estimated 11.6% — the largest single-year decline in two decades — while rapes fell an estimated 9.4%.

Preliminary data shows that crime rates in 2024 also fell earlier this year, continuing a trend of declining crime as the U.S. emerges from the pandemic.

Among property crimes, burglary fell by an estimated 7.6%. Motor vehicle theft, however, rose by an estimated 12.6% between 2022 and 2023. Recorded shoplifting incidents also rose, from 999,394 in 2022 to 1,149,336 in 2023, which is roughly the same level of incidents reported in 2019, before the pandemic. (Shop closures and COVID-19 safety measures likely reduced shoplifting in 2020 and 2021 and may have had an impact on incidents in 2022 as well.)

The public’s perception of crime often lags behind the facts, especially in the age of social media, easy digital communication between neighbors and doorbell cameras, when Americans may be more aware of individual crimes than they otherwise might have been.

However, new FBI data shows that the violent crime rate declined between 2022 and 2023, from 377.1 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2022 to 363.8 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2023.

During a campaign visit to Kittanning, Pennsylvania, on Monday evening, former President Donald Trump had a different take on the numbers, saying crime was “skyrocketing.”

“Only a fool would say crime is down,” Trump said. “You don’t have to know anything about the numbers. If you live in this country, you know crime is up.”

As part of his 2024 campaign, Trump has tried to push the notion that the United States is undergoing a crime wave and called previous FBI data a “fraud” during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, saying that some cities were not included. But the FBI includes information gaps in its estimates. The bureau noted that its 2023 data included a full year’s worth of numbers from “every municipal agency with a population of 1 million or more.”

In total, the FBI’s National Incident Reporting System (NIBRS) collected information from 700 additional agencies in 2023 compared to 2022. The total reporting population is more than 315 million people, or 94.3% of the country.

President Joe Biden issued a statement Monday saying FBI data confirms that “Americans are safer than when they took office,” adding that the violent crime rate is near its lowest point in 50 years.

“None of this happened by accident. Vice President Harris and I have invested in public safety and taken action to stop the illegal flow of guns into our communities. Our American Rescue Plan — which every Republican in Congress voted against — helped provide more than $15 billion in public safety funding, allowing more than 1,000 state, city and county governments to avoid cutting police budgets, invest in community violence response, and take other necessary steps to keep communities safe,” Biden said.