Annual FBI crime victimization surveys show violent crime is up 10.4% and property crime is up 6.4% between 2019 and 2023.
Each year, the FBI releases headline crime report data for the calendar year prior, and a separate crime victimization survey that asks Americans what crimes they have been the victims of. Comparing these reports provides insight into crime reporting rates and the accuracy of crime statistics.
While earlier reporting demonstrated that theft is worsening and often underreported, the growing divergence between the FBI’s annual crime victimization survey and its tabulations of reported crime indicates worsening trends in theft.
However, recent changes in how crime reporting data is collected, along with anomalous 2020 COVID-era data and reporting, have muddied the waters.
The FBI set a January 1, 2021 deadline back in 2016 for agencies to transition from the paper-based Summary Reporting System, which reports each incident of crime with the worst crime committed in the incident, with the computer-based National Incident-Based Reporting System, which can log up to 10 crimes per incident. But 40% of law enforcement agencies didn’t make the change in time. This included most agencies in populous California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida, and the two largest agencies: New York Police Department and Los Angeles Police Department.
As a result, reported violent and property crime dropped 15.9% and 27.3% respectively between 2020 and 2021, while at the same time victimization for violent crime rose 0.9% and property decreased 3.3%. The ratio of reported violent crimes to victimization declined from 85.6% in 2021 to 71.4% in 2021, while that of property crimes declined from 51.6% to 38.8%, highlighting how the 2021 reported crime figures are the product of a muddled transition in data collection.
Data did improve for 2022 and 2023, with only 17% of agencies failing to submit at least three months of NIBRS data in 2022, and 16,009 agencies covering 95.2% of the national population reporting for 2023. The full 2023 data released at the end of September now shows that violent crime reporting rates — reports divided by victimizations — for property crime are back to 2019 levels, but that property crime reporting rates are 14.4% below 2019 levels, highlighting perceptions that Americans just aren’t reporting as much of the property crime that happens to them.
