WASHINGTON DC —The Council on Criminal Justice, a non-partisan think tank, has released its midyear report, showcasing decreased trends in several violent, property, and drug crimes in 39 cities over the past six years, according to a Washington Post news story.
However, the CCJ also reports statistics documenting such rates have fallen short and continue to remain improperly documented.
According to the Washington Post, CCJ reports after an increase in violent crime and property offenses in the years preceding 2020, statistics now show crime rates reverting to 2019 levels.
According to the CCJ report, 11 of the 12 offenses covered were lower in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023. The article continues discussing how “political rhetoric interacts with the public’s long-standing tendency to believe the worst about crime.”
Twenty-three out of 27 Gallup polls accounted for since 1993 revealed, “at least three-fifths of American adults believed crime had risen over the previous year” regardless of annual trend rates decreasing, wrote the Washington Post.
Despite recent decreases, the reality of these crimes remains with “trauma and insecurity” tending to linger, noted the Post, adding seven cities provided data on carjacking which continues to remain 68 percent higher than in the first half of 2019, according to CCJ’s report.
However, in order to mitigate the public’s concern with fluctuating crime rates, the government must consistently publish precise and up-to-date statistics, said CCJ. The FBI issues annual reports every October informed by the previous 18 months.
Yet, according to the CCJ in the Post story, these reports are voluntarily and with varying degrees of accuracy reported to the bureau by 18,000 police agencies.
On the other hand, crime rates are gathered by the National Incident-Based Reporting System, “which collects details on crime reported to law-enforcement,” and by the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, “gathered directly from individuals about their experiences with crime,” reported the Post.
According to the article, the FBI’s new incident reporting platform, intended to improve data quality, has continued to cause problems including becoming more time-consuming, and complex for law enforcement to share information to Washington.
For local and smaller agencies, nearly half of which have 10 or fewer officers, the platform has become increasingly difficult to use and as a result only two-thirds of the country’s agencies currently use it as of 2021, said CCJ..
Optimistically, CCJ predicts, according to the Post, 83 percent of the population will be added into the new system, including large cities like New York and Los Angeles.
However, money and effort is a necessity in order to reach 98 percent by 2027, as CCJ recommends, citing recent budget decreases have caused the prospects of reaching such a high percentage to become difficult.
According to the Post’s coverage, last fiscal year the Bureau of Justice Statistics received $35 million, less than the $78 million President Biden had requested and less than the $42 million the bureau received the previous year. Comparatively, the Bureau of Labor Statistics received $698 million.
