New data show homicides down in Biden's last year vs. Trump's
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An abandoned shoe is seen in the street at the site of an early morning shooting in Washington, D.C. on March 17, 2024. Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images
New preliminary data from major U.S. cities shows that homicides were down during the first full six months of President Biden's last year in office — more than 70% in some places — compared to the same time of President Trump's last year.
Why it matters: The big drop is evidence that the COVID-era crime wave continues to recede, though not entirely in some areas, despite claims by President Trump that violent crime is out of control.
The big picture: Homicides are more straightforward to compare year-to-year from pre-2021 to the present because the criteria for classifying them have remained the same while police have changed their methods of recording other violent crimes.
- Beginning in 2021, the FBI and police departments started shifting to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) from the decades-old Summary Reporting System (SRS).
- That allowed law enforcement agencies to submit more details on crimes like aggravated assaults but resulted in reported surges in violent crime in cities like Chicago and Minneapolis.
By the numbers: An Axios analysis of data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found an overall 13% decline in homicides among 66 cities during the first six months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2020.
- Boston experienced an 80% drop in homicides compared to the same period, while Philadelphia saw a 70% decrease.
- Baltimore saw a 45% fall in homicides, while Miami experienced a 29% drop.
Yes, but: Some notable cities have seen surges in the number of homicides during the same period.
- Portland, Oregon, experienced a 278% surge in homicides, an Axios review found.
- In Seattle, homicides ballooned 59%.
- In Las Vegas, homicides grew by 55%.
State of play: The Major Cities Chiefs Association preliminary data released last week shows a sharp drop in violent crime in the first half of the year compared to last year.
- The Kamala Harris campaign immediately jumped on the news and linked to the Axios story on the numbers to show how the Biden administration's policies were helping reduce crime.
- The Trump campaign attacked the Axios story and called it a "lie."
- In an email to media and supporters, the Trump campaign said violent crime is still up from the first half of 2019, and that charge sparked a conservative social media campaign to discredit the latest drop.
Reality check: The Trump campaign did not, however, use numbers from 2020 — when he was still in office and during the beginning of the pandemic— that would have shown the drop in homicides in 2024.
- Homicides surged 18% from the first six months of 2019 to the first six months of 2020 among 67 comparable cities, an Axios review found.
- Aggravated assaults also jumped more than 6% during the same period.
- Had the Trump campaign compared the first six months of 2020 to the first six months of 2024, the narrative about rising crime wouldn't have been as strong: An Axios review of 64 comparable cities found only a 5% increase in overall violent crime.
Zoom in: The Trump campaign also didn't mention how police moved to more robust crime reporting methods that the Trump administration oversaw but were implemented after he left office.
- That makes it harder to compare violent crime numbers between administrations since now cities are using the change to record more violent crimes, Zoë Towns, executive director of the nonpartisan criminal justice reform group FWD.us, tells Axios.
- "The system has become more sensitive," Towns said.
