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Andrea Austria / Media Matters

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Fox News is pushing data from a former Trump official to incorrectly suggest violent crime is rising during the Biden administration

Written by Gideon Taaffe

Published

As the Democratic National Convention continued in the background this week, Fox News personalities attempted to cast over the convention a shadow of supposedly rising crime. The network repeatedly sought to dispel FBI data showing a decrease in violent crime by instead using statistics from a Heritage Foundation fellow and former Trump administration official. By comparing current crime rates to 2019, rather than 2021 when Biden and Harris entered office, Fox News is skewing the narrative to deny that crime rates have decreased during the Biden administration. 

  • Violent crime is trending down under the Biden-Harris administration, despite right-wing media attempts to suggest otherwise

    • Preliminary FBI crime statistics for 2023 suggest that violent crime was down from a pandemic spike and from 2022. While initial data, based on reports from about 80% of U.S. law enforcement agencies, is in line with external research from the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice, the FBI will not publish finalized crime data for 2023 until the fall. [The Associated Press, 3/20/24]
    • Fox News has failed to adequately cover FBI reporting showing that crime rates have decreased, despite the network’s overall fixation on crime coverage. Earlier this year, after running nearly 400 weekday segments on migrant crime in the first 10 weeks of 2024, Fox largely ignored a March release of the FBI’s quarterly report showing that crime in the U.S. dropped significantly last year. By July, Fox had run nearly 1,000 migrant crime weekday segments in 2024. In August, Media Matters reported that Fox did not cover new data on the air showing that violent crime had dropped sharply in major cities in the first half of 2024, even though the network aired over 4.5 hours of violent crime coverage in the same time period. [Media Matters, 3/13/24, 4/3/24, 7/16/24, 8/15/24]  
    • Right-wing media more broadly have been attacking the FBI crime stats, claiming they have been falsified or altered to benefit Democrats. This claim is based on research by former Trump official Mark Morgan, a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center and president of the Coalition for Law, Order and Safety. Morgan’s research uses a different (smaller) data set than the FBI data and compares current rates of violent crime to pre-pandemic crime rates from 2019. [Media Matters, 4/17/24; Washington Examiner, 4/5/24; The Heritage Foundation, accessed 8/22/24; Coalition for Law, Order and Safety, accessed 8/22/24]
    • Morgan’s Coalition for Law, Order and Safety is now claiming that crime is up by 9.6% in 66 cities compared to 2019. A Fox News article falsely cites the data in its subheadline, writing, “Violent crime is actually up nearly 25%, independent data analysis shows.” The data cited claims only that “aggravated assault” is “up nearly 25%” in comparison to 2019. [Fox News, 8/17/24]
    • In part, right-wing claims that the data is wrong are based on the right-wing assertions that large cities like New York and Los Angeles did not submit their data, which is misleading. While it is true that many large cities failed to produce data in 2021 as the FBI switched reporting systems, that issue was almost entirely eliminated in 2022. As crime reporter and data analyst Jeff Asher points out, “There were 18,884 agencies representing 333 million people active in the UCR program in 2022. Of that total, over 15,700 agencies representing around 311 million people reported data in some manner that year (~94 percent population coverage).” [Substack, 6/17/24]

  • Right-wing media are misrepresenting data to incorrectly suggest crime rates are increasing

    • Fox host Lawrence Jones falsely claimed the NYPD and LAPD did not submit their crime data to the FBI in 2022. Jones: “While the Biden-Harris administration claims crime rates are falling, they failed to mention a major law enforcement agency like the NYPD and the LAPD didn't submit their crime report to the FBI in 2021 and 2022.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/21/24]
    • When Fox host Brian Kilmeade said, “They keep saying crime is going down,” co-host Ainsley Earhardt argued, “Violent crime is not.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/21/24]
    • After Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) claimed there was a massive crime spike under the Biden-Harris administration, Fox host Jesse Watters said, “They’re not really reporting all the cities to the FBI.” Watters added, accusing Democrats of ignoring crime victims, “When you put a face on it, it just shames the Democrats, who have been just so out to lunch on a life-and-death issue. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/20/24]
    • On The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld falsely claimed that reporting on a decrease in crime is a “hoax” because “many cities are no longer reporting the stats to the FBI.” Gutfeld: “Another dangerous hoax is saying crime is down. The only reason you can say that is because many cities are no longer reporting the stats to the FBI. When a narrative goes against your senses — what you hear, what you see — trust your senses. Everyone of us intimately knows a victim of crime if we haven't been a victim ourselves, so again this is not like lying about crowd size. This is a lie that hurts.” [Fox News, The Five, 8/20/24]
    • Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins cited Mark Morgan’s group, suggesting violent crime has increased by comparing current numbers with pre-pandemic crime rates from 2019. Jenkins: “The Independent public policy group Coalition for Law, Order and Safety argues that according to their analysis, it’s actually up across 66 major cities. You can see from January to June 2019 data — for that same period in 2024 shows a 9.6% increase in total violent crime, with aggravated assault up nearly 25%, murder up 6.4%.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/20/24]
    • Jones brought up violent crime rising by “9.6%” but didn’t specify that this rate reflects the change since 2019. He said to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg: “When you look at inflation, it’s up 19.4%, when you look at the southern border, it’s 8.1 [million] encounters, when you look at crime — violent crime — across 66 major cities, it’s up almost 10% at 9.6%. Is that a record that you can run on?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/20/24]
    • Kilmeade parroted Morgan’s data, claiming there has been an increase in crime. Kilmeade: “Look at right now, they’re looking at 9.6% increase in total crime. Nearly 25% increase in aggravated assault. 6.4 increase in murders. All negative numbers.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/19/24]