(Newsmax) The Biden administration’s FBI reportedly altered its 2022 crime statistics to show an increase in violent crime after initially claiming a decrease.
RealClear Investigations (RCI) reported Wednesday that the FBI “has quietly” revised 2022 crime data to show violent crime increased by 4.5%, which includes thousands more murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults.
The updated data for 2022 report that there were 80,029 more violent crimes than in 2021.
“This FBI report is stunning because it now doesn’t state that violent crime in 2022 was much higher than it had previously reported, nor does it explain why the new rate is so much higher, and it issued no press release about this large revision,” University of Georgia professor David Mustard, who researches extensively on crime, told RCI.
“This lack of transparency harms the FBI’s credibility.”
When it released the “final” crime data for 2022 in September 2023, the FBI reported violent crime rate fell by 2.1%.
Based on the updated 2022 data, the drop in violent crime in 2023 is only 1.6% instead of the reported drop of 3.5%, RCI said.
Interestingly, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics 2023 National Crime Victimization Survey, based on interviews with 240,000 people each year about their personal experiences, found a 4.1% increase in the reported 2023 violent crime rate.
Democrats campaigning for office have used the FBI’s original 2022 crime data to counter former President Donald Trump’s claims of rising crime.
The FBI made no mention of the data revisions in its September 2024 press release. RCI discovered the change through a cryptic reference on the FBI website that states: “The 2022 violent crime rate has been updated for inclusion in CIUS, 2023.”
