Kerby Anderson
Three months ago, I wrote about the disconnect between the mainstream media and American citizens concerning crime statistics. The media says that crime is decreasing. According to the latest Gallup survey on the subject, nearly all (92%) Republicans and a majority (58%) of Democrats thought crime was increasing.
The disconnect now seems to be between members of the Biden administration and the public. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg went on television to argue: “If you look this up at home, you will know that crime went down under Biden and crime went up under Trump. Why would America want to go back to the higher crime we experienced under Donald Trump?”
As I explained back in my previous commentary, if you decide to defund the police, arrest rates will go down and people will be less inclined to report crime.
Professor John Lott writes about “The Truth About the Crime Explosion.” The American people can see that crime is increasing, he says, when they go into a CVS or Walgreens and find many of the products behind glass. Not only is property crime increasing, but so is violent crime.
He explains that crime is reported in two ways. The first is through the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System, which only counts crime reported to police. The other is the National Crime Victimization Survey that asks about 240,000 people each year whether they have been victims of crime. Those numbers are much higher.
If there are fewer police on the street, there will be fewer arrests. And if people think criminals won’t be caught and punished, they are less likely to report a crime to the police. And some DAs have been downgrading felonies to misdemeanors.
There is a crime explosion even if the media and the administration refuse to admit it.