While the Biden-Harris Administration has touted preliminary data released by a coalition of cities last week as evidence of a decline in violent crime under the administration, a crime data expert told Fox News Digital that analysis of crime report data shows violent crime is actually increasing compared to levels prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Americans are safer now than when Vice President Harris and I took office,” President Biden’s office said in a statement. “We cannot afford to stop now, which is why I will continue to call on Congress to pass commonsense gun safety reforms, including an additional 100,000 police officers, funding for crime prevention and community violence intervention programs, and a ban on assault weapons.”
The Major City Police Chiefs Association (MCCA), which has been releasing annual data statistics on crime in 69 major cities across the U.S. since 2014, released a preliminary data set showing a decline in violent crime levels from January to June 2023 compared to 2024, dropping from 3,783 incidents in 2023 to 3,124 incidents in 2024.
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The Harris-Biden administration is touting low crime data. (Bloomberg/Contributor/Kali9 Getty Images Signature)
MCCA Executive Director Laura Cooper told Fox News Digital that the association requests violent crime data from its member agencies, which include only the largest police departments in the U.S. The data is shared voluntarily by each department on a quarterly basis. MCAA does not use public or open source data and is exclusive to its participating agencies.
However, looking at the data over a longer period of time rather than simply yearly comparisons reveals that crime is actually on the rise, although it may be subject to under-reporting and changes in crime classification.
“In this game of telephone, authorities don’t always submit the correct data, and MCCA can make typos or screw up data, so we have issues with data being shown that doesn’t match what law enforcement is publishing.”
“Compared to pre-COVID, it looks like we’re moving in a good direction, but aggravated assaults are up over 16% from 2019,” Cooper said. “That’s pretty significant. Aggravated assaults are a better barometer of sentiment when it comes to crime than homicides, especially at a time when people are feeling anxious about crime. Murders are still up since 2019.”
According to an Axios review of MCAA data, violent crime in 69 cities fell 6% in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period last year. The study found that 54 of those cities reported a decline in violent crimes, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, in the first half of 2024.
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The cities surveyed included Albuquerque, New Mexico; Arlington, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Aurora, Colorado; Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Boston; Buffalo, New York; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina; Chicago; Cincinnati, Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; DeKalb County, Georgia; Denver; Detroit; El Paso, Texas; Fairfax County, Virginia; Fort Worth, Texas; Fresno, California; Honolulu, Houston; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Florida; and Kansas City, Missouri.
But the Coalition for Law, Order and Safety (CLOS), an independent public policy group, claims its analysis shows violent crime is on the rise in 66 major cities.
CLOS data from January to June 2019 suggests that overall violent crime increased by 9.6 percent over the same period in 2024, with aggravated assaults up by nearly 25 percent and homicides up by 6.4 percent.
“In this game of telephone, agencies don’t always submit the correct data, and MCCA can make typos or screw up the data,” CLOS executive director Sean Kennedy told Fox News Digital. “So we run into issues with data being shown that doesn’t match what law enforcement is publishing.”
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“The most egregious examples are published on the Philadelphia website,” Kennedy said. “The number of murders that occurred in Philadelphia during the time period they state is double the number reported by the MCCA.”
CLOS violent crime data was initially shared with Fox News Digital, but excludes Oklahoma City, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, New Orleans and St. Louis County due to missing data.
“Data sets are prone to error,” Kennedy said. “No data is perfect. The FBI data isn’t perfect. The MCCA data isn’t perfect. Even law enforcement data isn’t perfect. They’re all trying to estimate trends and volumes of crime in the U.S. So you can look at your local area, see what the numbers are like there, what the factors are for that area, and ask, ‘Does this trend hold true in other areas?'”
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A Milwaukee police vehicle at a crime scene. (Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images)
As an example, Kennedy said Washington, D.C., has not become safer than it was in the first six months of the Biden administration, contrary to Axios’ analysis: While murder rates have remained unchanged, rapes have actually increased in the first half of 2024 compared to 2021, according to CLOS data.
CLOS reported that there were 1,025 robberies reported in the first six months of 2024, up from 817 during the same period in 2021, indicating an increase in robbery rates. Aggravated assaults decreased from 755 to 538, but the decrease is modest compared to historical levels.
Overall, however, violent crime in Washington, DC, is up slightly, with a total of 1,744 violent crimes reported in the first half of 2024, compared to 1,747 in 2021. This suggests that while crime is down from the previous year, it is still higher than it was in President Biden’s first six months in office.
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“Some of the numbers, like robberies, make sense in context. When you compare those numbers, the first half of 2020 to the first half of 2024, things have actually gotten worse in some categories. That makes perfect sense if you know what you’re looking at. So the first half of 2020 saw an overall decrease in robberies in many jurisdictions due to the impact of COVID-19,” Kennedy said. “Essentially, if people aren’t there, they can’t be robbed.”
