FBI Quietly Revises its Cover Up of Increasing Violent Crime

In the middle of perhaps the most pivotal presidential election in modern history, the Biden Administration’s FBI has quietly revised the nation’s violent crime numbers after reporting that the violent crime rate fell.

As John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center,  explains at RealClearInvestigations:

RCI discovered the change through a cryptic reference on the FBI website that states: “The 2022 violent crime rate has been updated for inclusion in CIUS, 2023.” But there is no mention that the numbers increased. One only sees the change by downloading the FBI’s new crime data and comparing it to the file released last year.

The updated data for 2022 report that there were 80,029 more violent crimes than in 2021. There were an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies, and 37,091 aggravated assaults. The question naturally arises: should the FBI’s 2023 numbers be believed?

“The FBI claims that serious violent crime has fallen by 5.8% since Biden took office, the National Crime Victimization Survey numbers show that total violent crime has risen by 55.4%. Rapes are up by 42%, robbery by 63%, and aggravated assault by 55% during Biden’s term. Since the NCVS started, the largest previous increase over three years was 27% in 2006, so the increase under Biden was slightly more than twice as large.

What is it with government agencies deliberately rigging positive statistics, whether it is jobs numbers or crime numbers, and then suspiciously adjusting them when no one is looking?

California has been doing this with unemployment numbers for years, most evidently by former Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration, and now with the Newsom administration. They report lower unemployment numbers, and then quietly adjust them the next quarter.

But crime numbers? When did federal employees become so callous and partisan? Or is this coming from the top?

California’s violent crime rate increased by 5.7%, from 468 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2021 to 495 in 2022, the Public Policy Institute of California reported recently. “While the rates for robbery (theft with force) and aggravated assault increased by 9.9% and 5.2%, respectively, homicides reversed a two-year upward trend, dropping by 6.1%, and rapes remained essentially the same (0.1% decrease). Expect to see revisions of this as well.

In 2022, aggravated assaults were 67% of reported violent crimes; 25% of violent crimes were robberies, 7% were rapes, and 1% were homicides.”

And while the PPIC appears to be playing this down claiming that even though the violent crime rates are higher, they remain low. However, they also report, “Of the state’s 58 counties, 36 saw violent crime rise in 2022, with rates in 13 counties increasing by 20% or more.”

So which is it?

Violent crime is on the rise, just in time for the November Election, and for California voters to pass Proposition 36, the ballot initiative which will reform the disastrous Prop. 47, which reduced a host of felonies to misdemeanors, including drug crimes, date rape, and all thefts under $950, even for repeat offenders who steal every day.

Prop. 47 also decriminalized drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, removed law enforcement’s ability to make an arrest in most circumstances, as well as removing judges’ ability to order drug rehabilitation programs rather than incarceration.

A “yes” vote on Proposition 36 supports making changes to Proposition 47 approved in 2014, including:

• classifying certain drug offenses as treatment-mandated felonies;
• increasing penalties for certain drug crimes by increasing sentence lengths and level of crime;
• requiring courts to warn individuals convicted of distributing illegal drugs of their potential future criminal liability if they distribute deadly drugs like fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine; and
• increasing sentences for theft based on the value of the property stolen.

As the Globe reported in September, California’s ongoing crime crisis is everywhere – no one is spared, except high ranking politicians and Hollywood elite who have security. Crime and rampant retail theft throughout California cities has caused thousands of small business and store closures. Escalating fentanyl overdoses are killing young Californians at a stunning rate. Voters want reforms immediately.

Crime impacts small, medium and large businesses. Crime hurts homeowners and renters. Crime strikes children and adults. Crime harms visitors and tourists – even San Francisco 49ers receiver Ricky Pearsall was shot in attempted robbery.

The defund the police movement has dramatically hurt effective policing, with the number of police officers declining because of deliberate city budget cuts.

Lott explains: “One result is that police departments nationwide – from  Charlottesville and Henrico County, Va., to Chicago, Ill. and Olympia, Wash. – are no longer responding to calls unless the perpetrator is still there actively committing the crime.”

He continues:

After the FBI released its new crime data in September, a USA Today headline read: “Violent crime dropped for third straight year in 2023, including murder and rape.”

It’s been over three weeks since the FBI released the revised data. The Bureau’s lack of acknowledgment or explanation about the significant change concerns researchers.

“I have checked the data on total violent crime from 2004 to 2022,” Carl Moody, a professor at the College of William & Mary who specializes in studying crime, told RealClearInvestigations. “There were no revisions from 2004 to 2015, and from 2016 to 2020, there were small changes of less than one percentage point. The huge changes in 2021 and 2022, especially without an explanation, make it difficult to trust the FBI data.”

As one RCI reader surmised, “The FBI’s propaganda efforts for Democrats were a transparent failure even before this stealth edit.”