Independent data shows violent crime increasing in 66 cities, despite the Biden-Harris administration's claim that crime is decreasing.

The crime data expert tells Planet Chronicle Digital that his analysis of crime reporting data shows that violent crime is increasing compared to levels prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the Biden-Harris administration citing preliminary data from a coalition of cities as evidence of reduced violent crime under its watch.

"President Biden's office claims that Americans are safer today than when he and Vice President Harris took office. However, the president believes that the country cannot stop now and will continue to urge Congress to fund 100,000 additional police officers and community violence intervention programs, as well as implement commonsense gun safety reforms such as a ban on assault weapons."

Since 2014, the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) has been publishing year-by-year data on crime in 69 major cities across America. In a recent release, the MCCA reported that violent crime levels decreased from January to June 2023 compared to 2024 levels. Specifically, there were 3,124 violent crime incidents in 2024, a decrease of 659 incidents from the 2023 level of 3,783.

Laura Cooper, executive director for MCCA, stated to Planet Chronicle Digital that their member agencies, which are the largest police departments in the U.S., voluntarily share violent crime data with them every quarter. MCCA does not rely on public or open-source data and only includes participating agencies in their analysis.

When analyzing crime trends over a longer period, the data, which may be influenced by underreporting or changes in crime categorization, indicates that crime is increasing.

"The problem is in this game of telephone, the agencies don't always submit correct data or possible the MCCA creates a typo, or gets the data mangled. So, that becomes a problem where you see data not matching what the law enforcement agency publicly reports."

"Cooper stated that while we are moving in the right direction in terms of pre-COVID trends, aggravated assault is still up by over 16% compared to 2019. This is significant, especially considering the current unease people feel about crime. Aggravated assault is a better indicator of sentiment when it comes to crime than homicide numbers, which are also up since 2019."

An Axios review of MCAA's data showed a 6% decrease in violent crime across 69 cities during the first half of 2024 compared to the same period last year. Out of these cities, 54 reported reductions in violent crimes such as homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault during the first six months of 2024.

The survey includes cities such as Albuquerque, New Mexico; Arlington, Texas; Atlanta, GA; Aurora, Colorado; Austin, TX; Baltimore; Boston; Buffalo, NY; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus, OH; Dallas; DeKalb County, GA; Denver; Detroit; El Paso, TX; Fairfax County, VA; Fort Worth, TX; Fresno, CA; Honolulu; Houston; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, FL; and Kansas City, MO.

The Coalition for Law, Order, and Safety (CLOS) claims that their analysis shows a 66% increase in violent crime across 66 major cities.

The data from CLOS for the January to June 2019 period indicates a 9.6% increase in total violent crime, with aggravated assault increasing by nearly 25% and murder rising by 6.4%.

"The issue lies in the game of telephone, where agencies may not submit accurate data or possibly make errors, or the MCCA may create a typo or mangle the data," Sean Kennedy, the executive director for CLOS, told Planet Chronicle Digital. "This results in a problem where the data reported by law enforcement agencies does not match what is publicly reported."

"Kennedy stated that the most obvious example is publicly available on the Philadelphia website, where there are twice as many murders in the described period compared to what the MCCA reported."

The violent crime data shared by CLOS with Planet Chronicle Digital does not include information on Oklahoma City, LA County Sheriff, New Orleans, and St. Louis County because of missing data.

"Kennedy stated that the data sets are not infallible, and there is no ideal data. The FBI, MCCA, and law enforcement agency data are all imperfect. Despite their efforts to estimate crime trends and volumes in the United States, these data sets are only approximations. To determine if a trend holds true in a local area, one must consider the local factors and numbers."

Despite Axios' analysis, Washington, D.C., has not become safer during Biden's term, as the number of murders has remained constant and rapes have increased in the first half of 2024 compared to 2021, according to CLOS data.

In 2024, there was a significant increase in robberies, with 1,025 reported in the first six months, compared to 817 in the same period in 2021. However, aggravated assaults decreased only slightly, from 755 to 538, which is a modest decrease compared to historical levels.

Despite a slight decrease in violent crime in Washington, D.C., the number of violent crimes reported in the first half of 2024 was higher than during Biden's initial six months in office.

"Robberies generally went down in a lot of jurisdictions because of COVID in the first half of 2020, as some numbers make sense in the context of robbery when comparing 2020 to 2024," Kennedy said. "In essence, you can't mug people if they're not there."