SURPRISE: The FBI Just Stealth-Edited Its Violent Crime Rate, Blows Up

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Prepare to don your shocked face. The FBI has stealth-edited its data on violent crime to show that the rate has not decreased, as previously claimed. That comes after a year of Democrat politicians, the press, and even debate moderators “fact-checking” any Republican who pointed out that crime is a rising problem in the United States.

According to Real Clear Investigations, which discovered the change, the new data represents a reversal from a 2.1 percent decrase to a 4.5 percent increase.

When the FBI originally released the “final” crime data for 2022 in September 2023, it reported that the nation’s violent crime rate fell by 2.1%. This quickly became, and remains, a Democratic Party talking point to counter Donald Trump’s claims of soaring crime.

But the FBI has quietly revised those numbers, releasing new data that shows violent crime increased in 2022 by 4.5%. The new data includes thousands more murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults.

For context, 2022 would be the second most recent year on record as 2024 data is not compiled yet. But if the FBI’s data in that year was so off, why should anyone believe their 2023 data, which claims a three percent decrease in violent crime? Will that data be revised in the coming future as well? I think we can take a pretty guess at that one.

Expectedly, the FBI did not publicize this sudden and dramatic shift in the numbers. When it released its yearly press release on crime rates in September, no mention of the revision was made.

The Bureau – which has been at the center of partisan storms – made no mention of these revisions in its September 2024 press release.

RCI discovered the change through a cryptic reference on the FBI website that states: “The 2022 violent crime rate has been updated for inclusion in CIUS, 2023.” But there is no mention that the numbers increased. One only sees the change by downloading the FBI’s new crime data and comparing it to the file released last year.

Democrat politicians and their press allies have made hay with the 2022 crime figures for the last year (the 2023 numbers only came out a few weeks ago), repeatedly claiming that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ushered in a decrease in violent crime. That “fact” had become a centerpiece of the Harris campaign, with many news outlets chastising any Republican who alleged violent crime was increasing.

Those with eyes and any sense of perception were always skeptical, though. For example, RedState questioned the data when it was released back in 2022, noting the inconsistentices with it.

SEE: Big Questions About Accuracy and Bias After FBI Releases New Crime Data

It also couldn’t be ignored that around 40 percent of police departments were no longer even sharing crime data with the FBI. That left the bureau increasingly relying on a questionable system of estimation to produce its published crime rates.

The FBI’s crime stats revisions reveal how much guesswork is involved in even the “final” numbers often seized on by politicians. The FBI doesn’t simply count reported crimes. Instead, it offers estimates by extrapolating data from police departments that report only partial-year data. The Bureau also makes estimates for cities that report no data. The FBI’s method of generating these estimates changes over time, and it affects the figures they report.

The next thing someone may be wondering is if these revisions are normal. To put it simply, they aren’t. Carl Moody, a professor at William and Mary College, looked into past years and found that no revisions happened between 2004 and 2015 while 2016 to 2020 saw only minute changes of less than one percent. It wasn’t until Biden and Harris took office that the FBI started producing these massive revisions for 2021 and 2022 (and no doubt, eventually, 2023).

It can’t be understated how big of a deal this is. The idea that violent crime is “down” has been a mainstay of Democratic Party politics for the last several years. Will the press report on these changes that flip the narrative? The answer is almost certainly not.