Claims That Crime Rates Are Plunging By the Media? Those Are Criminally Inaccurate
Years ago in Broward County, Florida, the sheriff’s department announced how a new enforcement program had led to a significant drop in juvenile arrests. At the time, then Sheriff Scott Israel promoted this as a success, with others suggesting that this could be a model program for other regions to take up. But in looking into the data there was a revelation. Crime statistics held relatively steady in year-over-year reports, despite a significant drop in juveniles arrested.
An agreement was brokered between the sheriff’s office and the school board to address juvenile crime in new fashions. The “program” involved refraining from arresting a high number of juveniles and instead offsetting them into the school disciplinary system, “to encourage schools to use alternatives to expulsion or referral to law enforcement agencies by addressing disruptive behavior through restitution, civil citation, teen court, neighborhood restorative justice, or similar programs.” As the agreement stated, certain crimes that normally resulted in arrest would be “handled outside the criminal justice system.”
Can you guess the result? The lack of executing juvenile arrests led to a drop in juvenile arrests! In similar pathetic fashion we are today seeing something similar playing out, but on a nationwide scale. A combination of forces are at play, particularly in the manner of reporting crimes, and this is leading to deeply misleading reports.
In more than one way we are seeing a lax approach to enforcement of the laws in this country, and yet the press is touting how we are experiencing a significant drop in the crime rate. This is being done to burnish the character of President Biden and shield him from responsibility in the realities witnessed by citizens.
In one outlet they did manage to couch this good news with a curious detail included. The Guardian dared to say that approaching this data should be done cautiously, as it is relying on “incomplete” data. What is this all about then?
The primary issue here is a new crime reporting system implemented by the FBI, used to compile its annual crime statistics. In 2021 the FBI instituted a new state of the art reporting system; great for the Bureau, but as we will see it became horrible for accuracy. The main issue is the Feds would rely only on data submitted into this new system, yet many local law enforcement agencies were incapable, for a number of reasons, of implementing this new reporting method. As a result, the FBI had to rely upon incomplete data to put out its annual statistical reports.
The Marshall Project analyzed the submission process and found that thousands of LEO crime reports were not filed with the FBI, many from the largest metropolitan areas, including New York City. What this leads to are the claims that in 2023 saw a -13% drop in murders, -6% drop in all violent crimes, and -5% drops in aggravated assaults, as well as with robberies. However, this is all based on collected data from only 79% of municipal law enforcement authorities. Other cities that failed to include data included Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
As the Marshall Project showed, these omissions are significant. In just one category - hate crimes - the FBI initially posted numbers showing a significant decrease. But the conclusion was made while missing reports from 40% of LEOs. The FBI was compelled to reach out to seven thousand police departments and have them submit hate crime stats into the old reporting system. Once that data came in - hate crimes were shown to have climbed by 12%.
This lax approach to crime statistics is hardly isolated. Reports abound for some time now of District Attorneys in select cities refraining from pursuing serious criminal convictions, and police departments showing a willingness to either hold back from arrests, or later releasing suspects without booking. While these actions feed into recidivism, the cities where these are seen are also many of the same not reporting.
In another effort to deflect on behalf of the administration, there is a commonly seen excusal made on behalf of the fentanyl crisis. Claims are made repeatedly that Biden’s open-door border policy is not the cause of the increase in the fatal drug amounts. What is being sold are two canards; most of the fentanyl comes in through ports of entry, and a majority of those trafficking are US citizens, not illegal entrants.
Okay, first off, we need to point out that this in no way removes Biden from responsibility – the drugs are still coming into the country, even if this claim is believed, so how is this considered better? The problem is not being stopped, so yes, Biden is still on the hook. But there is also a convenient game being played by the press on this matter.
The ports of entry dodge is entirely based on statistics of confiscated drugs, and the arrests of those trafficking. So yes, if US citizens are attempting to bring in fentanyl, they will do so attempting to come back into the country through those POEs. Few citizens will travel into Mexico and then make the desert trek to come back across through illegal areas. The cartels using drug mules are not looking to arrive through the ports, so they come in undetected, and likewise undetected are the drugs. And of those captured, as we have seen, arrests are frequently bypassed, so that further skews the stats.
But the border issue brings us to yet another crime stat that has been bastardized and then used by the press. Even as the growing list of illegal immigrant crimes keeps getting reported the press continues to trot out the claim that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes. Now it is probably hateful and racist for me to say this, but it stands to reason that of those people entering the country illegally, the number of them committing a crime trends close to 100%.
Ignoring that blatancy, the press keeps pushing this claim that illegals do not lead to more crime. One way they arrive at this is by analyzing incarceration rates; well, given the reluctance of law enforcement to detain and ultimately charge those arrested, you can see how this number screws up the Bell Curve in that category. And there are still more reasons to give these claims the side-eye treatment.
In a lengthy excuse-making piece on the topic, NBC News sells this fable by first relying on the already fraudulent “lower national crime rate” narrative. Very deep in that article - 16 paragraphs in - we unearth this rather telling segment, which completely obliterates all of the insistent protective prologue. (I use boldface for one phrase here, because I cannot use neon and flashing lights.)
National crime data, especially pertaining to undocumented immigrants, is notoriously incomplete. The national data comes in piecemeal and can only be evaluated holistically when the annual data is released. The data is incomplete on how many crimes each year are committed by migrants, primarily because most local police don’t record immigration status when they make arrests.
Well now, if this not yet another dose of lack of activity leading to a conclusion of convenience! So the already compromised national crime statistics become screwed up even further. Most of those municipalities considered “sanctuary cities,” as we have seen prior, are not detailing their crime statistics for the feds, and now most police in general do not include immigration status at all in their police reports.
This is all a show of abject sloth taking place, and the crime in all of this is not reporting crimes in the first place. This means all of the claims of crime rates dropping are entirely due to an unwillingness to admit when crime takes place, so those are consistently completely fraudulent.
Not reporting is not the same as not happening. This goes for both, law enforcement, and the news media.
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