New DOJ crime data appears to support Trump's debate claims about high crime rates

WASHINGTON (TND) — The Department of Justice released a new report on Thursday showing that crime rates remain elevated under President Biden.

This new data is challenging the narrative currently being pushed by the White House and the Kamala Harris campaign. It also highlights how difficult it is to get an accurate nationwide measure of where crime is actually trending.

The DOJ numbers come from a massive annual government survey of crime victims. The report found 22.5 out of every 1,000 residents reported being the victim of a violent crime in 2023 and 102 of every 1,000 reported being the victim of a property crime. Both of these numbers are statistically unchanged from the year before. Both are also higher than 2020, the final year of Donald Trump’s first presidential term. This appears to back up claims crime remains higher under the Biden-Harris administration than under Trump.

"The public can look at the national crime victimization survey and see that crime is not going down. Again we are told to not believe our lying eyes," said Sgt. Betsy Smith (ret.), spokesperson for the National Police Association.

But the FBI crime statistics tell a different story indicating drops in crime. These are the numbers the White House is focusing on. This set of data shows crime decreases year-to-year, but is still higher than five years ago.

The FBI data, however, has massive holes.

In 2022, less than half of the police departments in the country gave the FBI complete crime data reports, causing critics to slam the fact check by ABC moderators during Tuesday's presidential debate.

At one point in the debate, Donald Trump said, "Crime in this country is through the roof." To which moderator David Muir responded, "President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country."

Trump responded, "Excuse me, the FBI -- they were defrauding statements. They didn't include the worst cities."

The former president doubled down during his press conference on Friday.

I lost a lot of respect for David Muir. He came at me with things ... I was right about the crime stats going way up."

Gallup polling from April found nearly 60% of American adults believe reducing crime should be a top priority for the president and Congress.