Despite what you may hear, crime continues to plague far too many American communities, leaving citizens understandably concerned about public safety and the well-being of their families.
You might not realize this if you only follow the mainstream media, which this past week essentially declared our nation's public safety crisis over, touting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data showing a significant drop in crime rates nationwide.
While any decrease in crime is certainly welcome, the FBI's data falls woefully short of providing a complete picture of crime and public safety in America. Let me explain.
The data heralded by the media comes from the FBI's Uniform Crime Report(UCR), which for nearly a century has been one of the key benchmarks for understanding and interpreting public safety in America. This system is a repository of crime data voluntarily submitted by participating law enforcement agencies across the country.
While useful and informative, it can be limited by the number of agencies that actually submit their data – a problem that was worsened in 2021 by a transition from the old reporting methods to a new, more comprehensive system called the National Incident-Based Reporting System.
When the reporting mechanisms switched, thousands of previously reporting agencies failed to adapt to the change, leaving large portions of nationwide crime data unaccounted for. Some of the nation’s largest and most violent cities, like New York and Los Angeles, weren't prepared for the switch, and the absence of their crime statistics undoubtedly skewed the overall findings.
Though many agencies have made the necessary adjustments to submit their data to the FBI since the changes took effect in 2021, far too many still have not.
Adding to the limitations of the UCR data is the fact that it only reflects crimes reported to the police, not all crimes that have been committed. Sadly, for many Americans, reporting crimes often feels like a dead end, especially when they believe perpetrators will never be held accountable by a criminal justice system that increasingly adopts soft-on-crime policies like cashless bail and early release programs.
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