Preliminary FBI reports indicate considerable drops in murder and other violent crimes as well as in property crimes in first half of 2019
As summarized effectively in this Crime Report piece, headlined "Violent, Property Crime Reports Fell In 2019’s First Half," the the FBI has just reported some very encouraging crime data. Here are the basic details:
All categories of violent crime offenses decreased between the first half of 2018 and the first half of 2019, for an overall decrease in violence of 3.1 percent, the report says. This includes murder, down 3.9 percent, robbery, down 7.4 percent, rape, down 7.3 percent and aggravated assault, down .3 percent.
Property crime also declined during the same period, including burglary, 11.1 percent lower, motor vehicle theft, 6.7 per cent lower and larceny theft, 4.2 percent lower.
It was the third consecutive year of reported crime declines in the first half of the year. In 2016, all violent crime categories increased compared with the first half of 2015.
The FBI called the data preliminary. Its final report for 2019 is not expected until September. In that month, the bureau also plans to issue a preliminary report for the first half of 2020.
Federal sentencing fans know that the first half of 2019 was also the first months in which the federal FIRST STEP Act was applicable. Though I would not be inclined to assert that enacted of that Act somehow contributed to the crime drop, I am inclined to celebrate the fact that opponents of the FIRST STEP Act cannot use early 2019 crime data to contend that the Act somehow made the nation less safe.
I also find intriguing the regional FBI data that shows that all regions except the South experienced bigger crime declines than the national average. My sense is that, in rough terms, fewer Southern states have embraced various criminal justice reforms (including marijuana reform) than states in other regions. Again, these data in no way prove that various criminal justice reforms (including marijuana reform) makes us more safe, but it does seem to help undercut any claims that these reforms make us less safe.
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