FBI's Latest Crime Stats Continue To Undermine AG Sessions' Criminal Apocalypse Fantasies
from the WE'RE-ALL-GONNA-DIE!-EVENTUALLY.-OF-NATURAL-CAUSES,-MOST-LIKELY... dept
Crime rates continue to remain at historic lows. We're safer than we've been since the mid-1960s. We should be celebrating this. Law enforcement should be celebrating this. But there's no celebration. Certainly not at the federal level. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made remarks at a number of law enforcement events in recent months. And they've all been loaded with doom, gloom, and questionable citations.
Here's Sessions on September 19, 2018:
Colossal mistakes have been made by politicians and leaders that have had particular catastrophic consequences for the people of cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and St. Louis.
From 1991 to 2014, we saw an historic nationwide decline in violent crime. Murder dropped by half. Violent crime overall dropped by half.
Rape decreased by more than a third, and robbery plummeted by nearly two-thirds.
But nationally in the last two years of the previous administration, the trends ominously reversed.
From 2014 to 2016, the violent crime rate went up by nearly seven percent. Assaults and rape went up nearly 10 percent. Murder shot up by more than 20 percent.
Here's Sessions a week later:
Big mistakes were made, some saw police as the problem. And as a result, in the last two years of the previous administration, the violent crime rate went up by nearly seven percent. Assaults went up nearly 10 percent. Rape went up by nearly 11 percent. Murder shot up by more than 20 percent. That’s what was happening when he took office.
This was especially shocking because from 1991 to 2014, violent crime had dropped by half. Murder dropped by half. So did aggravated assault. Rape decreased by more than a third, and robbery plummeted by nearly two-thirds.
From a month earlier:
We know whose side we’re on. We’re on the side of the good people, public safety, law, faith, and community. We defend our people and our values against outlaws.
You know the challenges we face. From 2014 to 2016, the violent crime rate stopped declining and went up by nearly seven percent. Robberies went up. Assaults went up nearly 10 percent. Rape went up by nearly 11 percent. The murder rate increased by more than 20 percent.
These numbers are shocking. They cannot continue.
But the numbers aren't shocking. There have been increases over the last couple of years, but violent crime rates are still lower than they were a decade ago and have decreased considerably over the last 20 years. The population of the US grew by 55 million over that period. Despite that, 300,000 fewer violent crimes were reported in 2018 than in 1998.
Sessions wants Americans to believe a couple of years of increases in isolated areas represents an irreversible trend brought on by a collective lack of respect for law enforcement and interference by groups that defend the public's rights, like the ACLU.
The FBI's latest crime stats have been released. They show the categories Sessions is hot and bothered about have reversed their two-year "trend."
Compared with last year, the national rate for property crime has declined by 3.6 percent, the violent crime rate is down by 1 percent, and the homicide rate has decreased by 1.9 percent.
What will the administration do with crime rates that won't conform with the narrative? Will Trump and co. take credit for the reduction, citing their full-blooded support of anything law enforcement-related? Or will it simply be glossed over to take potshots at activists for somehow ruining policing with their insistence on Constitutional law enforcement activities?
The messages AG Sessions delivers won't change. As the head of the DOJ, he has something to sell. It isn't justice, despite the name over the door. It's prosecution, which is only part of the justice equation. All crime news is bad news, even as crime rates continue to decline. Welcome to America, where the crime rates are at historic lows but everyone thinks each successive year is the worst it's ever been.
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Filed Under: crime, doj, jeff sessions, stats
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It IS worse than it looks
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Well they do have to justify their budgets and bullshit
Lets not forget laws that sunset and they keep asking to extend because 'reasons'.
I'm pretty sure Sessions and folks like him don't want anybody asking questions like this even anecdotally.
They're just keeping the FUD machine going.
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They'll take credit for the drop while claiming that things will get worse if they don't spend more money to enforce their policies.
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for example: A 10% gain over a 20% loss is still a 10% loss.
Any other way you put it is a lie.
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Comparrisons??
lets see..
23 years of decline to compare to 2 years of incline??
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Misleading with percentages.
If you gain 10% on that, you have 88.
If you have a 50% loss then a 50% gain, you are only back to 75.
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Re: It IS worse than it looks
1) at the inauguration
2) from the Erdogan body guards
3) from the white supremists in NC
4) at most all Trump victory tours
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Re: Comparrisons??
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"Sessions has something to sell: prosecution"
And that illustrates the central failure in the US legal system.
Our state is not interested in justice but conviction. And that leads to mass incarceration: warm bodies for prison cells.
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Re: Misleading with percentages.
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Re: Re: Comparrisons??
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Unleaded Gasoline Mandate
That's the most significant known factor, since the decline in crime correlates to the unleaded mandate at the county and municipality level. Lead makes us crazy!
I wanted to think it was the accessibility of porn on the Internet, but no, it had to be something mundane like air pollution.
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No, proves that lack of liberal's "gun control" is good.
You foreigners don't have the Right to own firearms, so you're happy to see Americans lose ours. But that trend is reversed too: about half of US states now don't even require a permit for CONCEALED carry.
Of course, you'll contradict this with next staged event that triggers you. This piece is just another way to attack core American Rights.
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Re: No, proves that lack of liberal's "gun control" is good.
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Re: No, proves that lack of liberal's "gun control" is good.
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