The Straight Scoop on Crime Rates

Want to know the truth?

Here are five facts about crime in America. They don’t come from sound bites, talking heads, internet memes, or bloviating politicians. They come from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (or BJS). And they’re brought to you by the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank.

The rate of violent crime has fallen sharply over the last 25 years. Both the FBI and BJS data show a steep decline in the violent-crime rate since the early 1990s.

So has the rate of property crime. This category includes things like theft, burglary, and vandalism. Generally, they’re a lot more common than violent crime.

We, the public, can’t seem to handle the truth. Time and again in opinion polls, a majority of Americans say they believe crime is up, even when it’s down by double-digit percentages.

There are big differences in crime rates depending on where you live. This may not surprise you. The FBI attributes it to factors like population density and economic conditions, among others.

Many crimes go unreported. That may not surprise you, either. Although the FBI does not track unreported crime, the BJS does. We get the most complete picture by studying both data sets. According to the BJS, there are a variety of reasons why people don’t report crime. These include a feeling that police would not or could not do anything to help or that it was a personal issue or too trivial to report.