New crime data from the Justice Department appears to support Trump's claims about high crime rates in the debate

WASHINGTON (TN) — The Justice Department released a new report on Thursday showing that crime rates remain elevated under President Biden.

These new data challenge the narrative currently being promoted by the White House and the Kamala Harris campaign. They also demonstrate how difficult it is to obtain an accurate national measure of actual crime trends.

The Justice Department's figures come from a comprehensive annual government survey of crime victims. The report found that 22.5 out of 1,000 residents were victims of a violent crime in 2023 and 102 out of 1,000 were victims of a property crime. Both numbers are statistically unchanged from the previous year. Both are also higher than 2020, the final year of Donald Trump's first term as president. This seems to support the claim that crime remains higher under the Biden-Harris administration than under Trump.

“The public can look at the national crime victimization survey and see that crime is not going down. Once again we are being told not to believe our lying eyes,” said Sergeant Betsy Smith (retired), spokeswoman for the National Police Association.

But the FBI's crime statistics tell a different story: They indicate a decline in crime. These are the numbers the White House is focusing on. This dataset shows that crime is declining year after year, but is still higher than it was five years ago.

However, the FBI data contains massive gaps.

In 2022, fewer than half of the nation's police departments submitted complete crime data reports to the FBI, prompting critics to slam ABC anchors' fact-checking during Tuesday's presidential debate.

At one point in the debate, Donald Trump said, “Crime in this country is through the roof.” To which moderator David Muir responded, “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says that violent crime overall in this country is going down.”

Trump responded: “Excuse me, the FBI – they falsified the data. They didn't include the worst cities.”

The former president stuck to his statement during his press conference on Friday.

I've lost a lot of respect for David Muir. He came to me with things… I was right when I said the crime statistics would go up a lot.”

According to an April Gallup poll, nearly 60 percent of American adults believe reducing crime should be a top priority for the president and Congress.