FBI data released Monday for the first six months of 2024 shows a sizable decline in crime persisting through midyear, but it’s probably still overstating the trend by a healthy amount, reports crime analyst Jeff Asher. About 82 percent of the U.S. population was covered by an agency reporting quarterly data to the FBI.
Missing were major cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans and Milwaukee, but murder and violent crime is down in all of those places. Just because a place isn’t included doesn’t mean the the overall trend is wrong.
Quarterly reporting is a new product from the FBI The year-end estimates that the FBI publishes take data from thousands of agencies and fills in the gap of what is missing with an informed estimation procedure.
The quarterly data, by contrast, is simply a recitation of what is reported to the FBI for that period. Agencies still have time to fix reporting errors and the errors are prone to be more impactful earlier in the year when there are fewer offenses reported overall and agencies have more time to fix problems. The fourth quarter reports are probably going to be significantly more accurate than the first and second quarter reports. Comparing the FBI’s quarterly data to the Real Time Crime Index data through June shows a roughly 5 percent overstatement of each trend. Still, murder is down at the fastest rate ever recorded, easily eclipsing 2023’s previous record decline. Violent crime is down a fair amount — 4 or 5 percent — and will likely be the lowest reported violent crime rate since 1969 considering that 2023’s violent crime rate was virtually tied with 2014. Property crime is down a ton thanks to the massive decline in motor vehicle theft following several years of huge increases.