Violent crime numbers in Atlanta under Trump vs. Biden | Check

ATLANTA – Atlanta’s crime record is being drawn into the political debate.

It all started with a remark made by former President Donald Trump during a recent rally in Atlanta that drew an immediate response from city leaders.

“Atlanta is like a battlefield, and your governor should get off his ass and do something about it,” Trump said at a rally in Georgia on August 3.

He added: “Since I've been president, the number of aggravated assaults in Atlanta has increased by 17%… Murders have increased massively.”

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens fired back on Instagram, saying, “He told lies about the city of Atlanta, about our crime rate, that it's a battleground, etc. I mean, no statistics. Atlanta, Georgia, had the fourth largest drop in crime of any major city in the United States of America.”

Following this post, the Trump team sent out a flood of emails claiming that cities in swing states had become safer under his administration.

Were fewer violent crimes reported in Atlanta during the Trump administration than during the Biden administration?

Atlanta Police Department

Yes, fewer violent crimes were reported in Atlanta during the Trump administration than during the Biden administration.

Crime can be defined in many different ways, but for this story, we looked at what the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program categorizes as “violent crimes” – such as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

We also looked at the crime data that APD self-reported on its website during the Trump administration compared to the Biden administration.

Since 2024 is only halfway through, we only examined the first 32 weeks of each government's final year for the purpose of a balanced comparison.

The data shows that from 2017 to 2020, the last year of Trump's term in office, 348 murders, 812 rapes, 3,946 robberies and 7,132 aggravated assaults were reported in Atlanta.

In comparison, the data from 2021 to 2024 shows more murders and aggravated assaults. In fact, aggravated assaults increased by nearly 39%, which is even more than Trump said. However, rapes and robberies both decreased.

If we add up the categories, just over 12,000 violent crimes were reported from 2017-2020 and more than 13,000 from 2021-2024.

It is important to note, however, that while Atlanta's murder and aggravated assault rates peaked in 2022, all four categories of violent crime declined in 2023.

So when Mayor Dickens says crime in Atlanta has gone down in the past year, he is telling the truth.