US Crime Drops Significantly Despite Donald Trump Claims

While many on the right, especially Donald Trump and his far-right allies, have claimed that US crime is rising, the actual crime numbers have now been released, and it actually dropped quite considerably.

New Orleans-based crime data analyst Jeff Asher, who has worked with both the CIA and the US Department of Defense, has reviewed crime data released by the FBI and spoke with USA Today. Despite leaning towards caution when it comes to crime trends, he found that crime is actually declining throughout the United States, disputing the former president's claims.

Asher admitted that he was very careful about overstating thing, so he said that there is indeed a big decline in crime that is continuing and that he had "seen enough" and was ready to declare that the country is indeed "experiencing a major drop in killings."

"Murder plummeted in the United States in 2023, likely at one of the fastest rates of decline ever recorded," he said, adding that this decrease s is "potentially historically large" and that the preliminary 2023 FBI data "paint the picture" of a big decrease in overall crime.

USA Today noted that this is quite contrary to Donald Trump's claims as he has been fearmongering and playing on his base's fears about crime in the US while also painting political rival Joe Biden as weak on crime.

"The suburban housewives actually like Donald Trump. You know why? Because I'm the one who's gonna keep them safe," he claimed, but so far, the data being released by those who actually know about the situation shows otherwise.

How Much Has US Crime Dropped in New FBI Data?

The Guardian has also obtained the new 2023 US Crime data from the FBI and it saw that murder rates have actually dropped by 13% since 2022. It also showed that both robbery and aggravated assault dropped by 5% while all violent crimes declined by 6%.

It should be noted, however, that these FBI numbers were still incomplete as they only came from 79% of law enforcement agencies around the US. However, this is still a significant drop as the numbers already come from a vast majority of US law enforcement. The full crime numbers for 2023 will be released by the FBI this October.

Still, the US government was happy, with Attorney General Merrick Garland praising the US crime drop.

"In May 2021, the justice department launched our violent crime reduction strategy aimed at addressing the spike in violent crime that occurred during the pandemic," he said. "Since then, our prosecutors, agents, and grantmaking experts have worked in close partnership with police departments and communities across the country to go after the recidivists and gangs that are responsible for the greatest violence; to seize illegal guns and deadly drugs; to make critical investments in hiring more law enforcement officers; and to fund evidence-based, community violence intervention initiatives."

Donald Trump Trying To Pin US Crime to Illegal Immigration

As for Donald Trump, his crime rhetoric is tying his debunked claims about rising crime to illegal immigration. This was recently fact-checked by Factcheck.org which once again debunked Trump's claims on crime and immigration.

"At the micro-level, studies consistently document that foreign-born individuals - first-generation immigrants - are less involved in crime as both offenders and victims compared to the native-born, including the children of immigrants," the website quoted the book, "Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock" by Charis Kubrin. "This pattern of findings - negative or null relationships between measures of immigration and crime - is also evident in studies of undocumented immigrants specifically."

The website also pointed out that "Overall crime is down year over year in Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, New York and Los Angeles. Crime has risen in Washington, DC, but local officials do not attribute the spike to migrants."

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH: Crime in almost every category went down across U.S. in 2023, FBI reports - NBC News