The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently revised its national violent crime statistics for 2022, quietly revealing that violent crime increased by 4.5% instead of the initially reported 2.1% decrease.
RealClearInvestigations reported that the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report initially indicated that the United States experienced a 2.1% decrease in violent crime from 2021 to 2022; however, the recent change shows that violent crime actually increased by 4.5% from 2021 to 2022. The FBI’s quiet revision of the 2022 violent crime statistics comes shortly after the FBI announced that the 2023 Uniform Crime Report showed a 3% decrease in violent crime.
Carl Moody, a professor at the College of William & Mary, told RealClearInvestigations, “I have checked the data on total violent crime from 2004 to 2022. There were no revisions from 2004 to 2015, and from 2016 to 2020, there were small changes of less than one percentage point. The huge changes in 2021 and 2022, especially without an explanation, make it difficult to trust the FBI data.”
Moody told RealClearInvestigations it was “disappointing that there were “no news articles” published in order to correct the “misimpression” the media circulated regarding the initial violent crime statistics for 2022. Moody also questioned whether the FBI would have a similar revision for the 2023 violent crime statistics.
According to RealClearInvestigations, the updated violent crime numbers show that there were 80,029 more violent crimes in 2022 than in 2021, including an additional 37,091 aggravated assaults, 33,459 robberies, 7,780 rapes, and 1,699 murders.
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RealClearInvestigations noted that the revised violent crime statistics were discovered due to a statement on the FBI’s website, which says, “The 2022 violent crime rate has been updated for inclusion in CIUS, 2023.” However, the outlet explained that the FBI does not mention the increase in violent crimes and that the change can only be seen by downloading the data from 2021 and 2022 and comparing the two files.
Jeffrey Anderson, who led the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics from 2017 to 2021, told RealClearInvestigations, “We definitely would have highlighted in a press release or a report the 6.6% change recorded for 2022, which moved the numbers from a drop to a rise in violent crime.”
David Mustard, who researches crime and is a professor at the University of Georgia, described the FBI’s report as “stunning” since the agency did not publicly report that violent crime was “much higher than it had previously reported” and did not explain why the percentage of violent crime was “so much higher.” Mustard added, “This lack of transparency harms the FBI’s credibility.”
