FBI Crime Stats Revision Disrupts Political Rhetoric
Each year the FBI collects crime data and publishes it in a public report. In September 2023, when the FBI published the final data for the year 2022 it reflected a 2.1% drop in violent crime.
If your party is in office that really helps play up the story that crime is dropping and gives you an opportunity to take credit for it and of course, the Biden-Harris administration has done that. I'm sure that if Trump was currently in office he too would have taken credit for the reported drop in crime.
What is concerning is the rather careful and quiet manner the FBI updated the 2022 report. As the FBI released the 2023 report recently they also took the moment to update the 2022 report with new numbers and those numbers reflect a 4.5% increase in violent crime instead of the 2.1% drop previously reported.
Think back on the timeline. 2020 and even 2021 were full of civil unrest, BLM protests, and a major spike in various types of violent crime as wearing masks became commonplace and America quarantined.
We would all hope and be willing to believe that in 2022 some of that would decrease and we would see a return to a safer America and that is the story the FBI report initially told. Now we know differently. Violent crime continued to climb in 2022 despite the end of quarantining and the absence of rioting, protests, and masked faces.
John Lott, founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center seems to be the first to make this discovery and uncover the change in the reports. He published a 1450-word report revealing all the changes.
From Lott's report he states:
“While the FBI claims that serious violent crime has fallen by 5.8% since Biden took office, the NCVS 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 (National Crime Victimization Survey) started, the largest previous increase over three years was 27% in 2006, so the increase under Biden was slightly more than twice as large.”
The media outlets you would expect to protect the Biden administration have been predictably quiet about this new revelation while Fox News host Greg Gutfeld did cover Lott's report.

A graph from Lott showing the increases YOY from 2021 to 2022
This is an election year so you can swing this new revelation in whatever direction you want to support whatever view you have and you would probably be justified at least in some degree but my greater concern is the absolute fact that our society is a more dangerous place.
According to Lott:
“The actual changes in crimes are extensive. 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.
That is a major concern since we saw a continuous drop in violent crime in this country over the course of about 6 decades only to have that trend reversed most clearly in 2020. Make no mistake, the America you live in today is less safe than it was 10 years ago and at this point, it isn't clear how long the trend will continue.
I think by now most of America knows the FBI is now the enemy of this country, and can not be trusted.
68 years in Federal service across several agencies have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt the only obscene word I can use in mixed company Is “GOVT”.
Heavily political influence assures bending which ever the wind is blowing. It takes uncommon
personal courage to voice truth and accuracy in service to the USA. Hopefully the personal agenda is left at the door each morning. Relying on verifiable evidence is the best option but
at times tricky because someone changes the statistics to bolster their own agenda.
Never easy!!!