A dose of perspective on crime rates

This week saw the release of the FBI’s 2021 Uniform Crime Reporting data, the bureau’s attempt at a national roll-up of criminal justice statistics. The data this year are something of a Rorschach test: Observers of every stripe will find something to support their pet cause. But the real challenge comes in not letting these data become an excuse to return to the failed policies of the past. 

First, the numbers: The marquee data point is that the estimated number of murders increased from 22,000 in 2020 to 22,900 in 2021, a 4.3 percent increase. But that’s a significant leveling off from 2020, which saw a spike of nearly 30 percent. Overall, it’s estimated that violent crime dropped about 1 percent overall in 2021, led by a significant drop in robberies.

But note the word “estimated.” Changes in how law enforcement agencies report their data caused significant data gaps this year, with some of the nation’s largest cities — including New York and Los Angeles — reporting no data. The FBI has used statistical analysis to estimate crime frequency and rates, but the accuracy of these estimates is up for debate. That’s truly unfortunate at a time when crime has become a salient political issue.

Even in their incomplete state, what are these data telling us? As we get a little further from the spike in violent crime that occurred in 2020 — especially an eye-popping number of murders in some cities — it’s become clear that the increase was not a fluke. Whatever its causes, America really does have a murder problem. This surge has been tied to the dislocations of the pandemic and the lockdowns. Although the increases are levelling off, the surge has been sustained even after the lockdowns ended. That suggests that the pandemic was merely a catalyst for a set of more entrenched causes, likely including easy access to guns. 

At the same time, historical context and some perspective should cause us to push back against the false narrative that American towns and cities are on fire with violence or assigning simplistic causes to complex phenomena. The FBI also released the results of the National Crime Victimization Survey in late September, a companion to the UCR that relies on surveys about whether a person has experienced or reported a crime. The report finds that violent victimization largely held steady across most categories from 2020 to 2021 — a welcome trend, since some observers had expected substantial increases. 

But both reports show that the country continues to experience historically low levels of violence. The murder rate per capita in 2021 (about 6.5 per 100,000) remains well below the modern high of 1980 (about 10.2 per 100,000). And reported victimization in the NCVS is sharply down over the past decade or more. In fact, the violent victimization rate is actually down about half since 2000. It’s a mere quarter of the rate in 1993, the all-time high in the survey. While the increase in some violent crimes, especially murders, is real enough and requires a serious response from policymakers, the past 30 years have been some of the most peaceful in modern times in American cities and towns.

It’s also notable that rates of reporting crime to police were up sharply in 2021, especially in minority communities. So, the entrenched narrative that police and urban communities are at odds is also complicated by the facts.

The data should also put to a stop to unfounded accusations that the spike in murder rates has been driven by “progressive” criminal justice reforms such as ending cash bail, reducing mandatory minimums or diverting non-violent criminals from incarceration. There is no correlation between a rise in homicide rates and whether a city has a “progressive prosecutor.” The same is true of whether or not a city enacted bail reform. And partisan lean doesn’t matter: Homicide rates rose at nearly uniform rates in cities run by Democratic mayors and the much smaller set of cities (such as Jacksonville, Omaha and Tulsa) run by Republican mayors. The increase in violent crime appears to be national in scope and driven by national, not local causes.

As for whether efforts to “defund the police” caused crime: It didn’t, because it largely did not happen. Something like 13 cities reduced police budgets in 2020 and 2021 — out of 18,000 law enforcement departments nationwide. “Defund the police” was arguably more theoretical than real, and pretty inconsequential to crime rates.

But criminal justice reformers should also recognize that the increase in homicides isn’t a mirage or a figment of Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) imagination. It’s real, and its deadly consequences require a response. Luckily, data points to real solutions here, including revitalizing public spaces, investing in effective approaches like community-based violence intervention, and even curtailing alcohol sales in high-crime areas after dark. Reformers also need to be prepared to accept that part of the response should be better trained police. We can make policing more effective without returning to the failed tactics of the drug war, especially racist stop-and-frisk policies.

There’s no doubt that there’s too much crime in America, including too many homicides. That problem requires a smarter, more effective response, especially when it comes to reducing the number of guns on American streets, which drives many crimes of violence. But take the long view, and it’s clear that the increase in violent crime in the country in the past two years, especially homicides, is a challenge, not a crisis. With smart policy responses, it need never become one. Most of all, meeting that challenge requires clear, data-driven thinking — not hysteria on the one hand, or denial on the other.

Michael Novogratz serves as a founding partner of the criminal justice reform organization REFORM Alliance, chairman of The Bail Project and has made criminal justice reform a focus of his family’s foundation. Novogratz is the founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital. 

This piece has been updated.