CV NEWS FEED // The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Monday released a report showing that the rate of several violent crimes in the country has significantly fallen compared to one year ago.
Many observers quickly pointed out, however, that the new data were inherently flawed. Deep-blue cities – where a significant portion of the nation’s crime occurs – do not always report their crime statistics to the Bureau.
The FBI reported that compared to the first three months of 2023, during January through March 2024, “violent crime decreased by 15.2 percent.”
The Bureau specified: “Murder decreased by 26.4 percent, rape decreased by 25.7 percent, robbery decreased by 17.8 percent, and aggravated assault decreased by 12.5 percent. Reported property crime also decreased by 15.1 percent.”
Kyle Griffin, a producer for MSNBC and well-known left-wing personality on X (formerly Twitter) stated that the report is evidence that violent crime has “plummeted.”
Former FBI agent and whistleblower Kyle Seraphin called Griffin – and the Bureau – to task.
“The FBI has a dubious relationship with Truth,” said Seraphin, CatholicVote’s 2023 Hero of the Year.
“It won’t be surprising to Americans who are paying attention that the FBI doesn’t engage in outright lies – but rather the more manipulative ‘lie of omission,’” he continued. “It is more sophisticated, but only to an uncritical audience.”
“Anyone who takes government agencies statistics without skepticism hasn’t been paying attention for the last couple years,” Seraphin emphasized.
Another former FBI agent, R R Holiman, also disagreed with Griffin and the new FBI report. He replied to Griffin on X, challenging the data he cited.
“Since most of the major Democrat cities have stopped reporting their crime stats to the FBI (some partially, some fully), I would be surprised to see [crime rates] do anything else,” Holiman wrote. “Less crime is a lot different than less crime being reported, but it can sure look the same on the surface.”
In a subsequent post replying to a user asking him for evidence, Holiman wrote that the alleged underreporting “didn’t start in 2024.”
“It’s been going on a while, but the problem is getting worse,” he indicated.
In a reply to another user, the former FBI agent clarified:
The problem is, that all the cities didn’t stop sending arrest data in at the same time. The problem has been getting worse and worse as mayors got tired of claiming crime was down and then being called liars by people pulling up the FBI reported crime. Their answer increasingly became to just stop reporting the crimes (and also there was some reclassifying of violent crimes as well, like calling an armed robbery a larceny).
A conservative writer known as “Bonchie” also replied to Griffin, writing: “Pretty amazing what happens when left-wing cities just stop reporting crime to the FBI.”
He cited a 2022 NewsNation report headlined: “Cities nationwide not reporting crime data to FBI.”
The report cited an analysis from the nonpartisan Marshall Project, which determined: “Nearly 40% of law enforcement agencies around the country did not submit any data in 2021 to a newly revised FBI crime statistics collection program.”
The Marshall Project noted that this left “a massive gap in information sure to be exploited by politicians in midterm election campaigns already dominated by public fear over a rise in violent crime.”
“The gap includes the nation’s two largest cities by population, New York City and Los Angeles, as well as most agencies in five of the six most populous states: California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida,” according to the Project.
Though explicitly nonpartisan, the Marshall Project is considered by some observers to have a left-wing bias. The group is known to advocate for criminal justice reform and has connections to organizations associated with controversial billionaire George Soros.
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