“Our crime rate is going up,” former President Donald Trump claimed at last week’s Republican National Convention, when he vowed to “make America safe again.” However, the most significant recent increase in homicide rates occurred during the Trump administration, and violent crime has been declining ever since.
The gap between Republican rhetoric and reality is consistent with long-standing public views on crime, with Americans often saying crime rates are rising even as they are falling. Trump hopes to capitalize on this misunderstanding, promising during his campaign to reverse non-existent trends by “restoring the economy.”[ing] Law and order.
Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply since 1993, when the homicide rate was 9.5 per 100,000 residents. By 2013, it was less than half that number.
Despite its ups and downs since then, the homicide rate remains significantly lower than it was thirty years ago. The same goes for robberies, aggravated assaults and property crimes.
The largest recent increase in murders occurred in 2020, when the murder rate rose by 30%. It fell by about 7% in 2022, and preliminary estimates suggest it will fall again in 2023, by about 13%, one of the largest annual declines on record. So far this year, according to data from more than 200 cities, the homicide rate has dropped even more: about 19%.
The one major exception to recent positive crime trends is auto theft, which increased by 4% in 2021 and 10.4% in 2022. Weak arguments.
Fortunately for Trump, the numbers don’t seem to make much of an impression on most Americans. Last October, 77% of respondents told Gallup they believed crime had increased in the United States compared with the previous year.
That’s roughly consistent with results in the years after 1993, when a majority of Americans still said crime was getting worse, even though data showed otherwise. Even in 2013, when the homicide rate fell to its lowest level in recent history, 64 percent of Gallup respondents believed crime was on the rise.
Starting from the false premise that crime is generally on the rise, Republicans accuse Democrats of allowing crime to occur. “The rule of law has collapsed under Joe Biden,” Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmidt asserted at the Republican National Convention. “Crime is rampant. Our communities are under siege.”
More specifically, Republicans say President Joe Biden’s border policies have triggered a wave of “immigration crimes.” To support this claim, Trump cited three murders committed by men who were in the country illegally.
While these crimes are shocking, they do not prove the Republican argument, which seems inconsistent with recent crime numbers. As Cato Institute immigration expert David Bier points out, “the worst crime surge in recent years occurred in 2020, when illegal immigration levels remained at historically low levels until the end of the year” because of pandemic-related restrictions.
Cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, New York and Los Angeles have seen huge influxes of immigrants due to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s busing program. Still, their crime rates dropped.
Expecting the opposite to occur is based on the assumption that illegal immigrants are particularly vulnerable to committing crimes against people or property. But extensive research shows that overall, immigrants are less likely to commit such crimes than native-born Americans, and the same appears to be true for unauthorized immigrants, although the finding is more controversial.
“Because they’re bringing criminals into our country, our crime rates are going up and crime statistics are going down around the world,” Trump said last week. Whatever you think of Trump’s attempts to blame Biden for the alleged rise in crime rates. The “ridiculous, crazy and very stupid policies” of the Deng administration seem to be looking for answers to the questions.
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