Violent Crime Down, Property Crime Up in 2022: FBI Report
Violent crime fell from pandemic highs but property crimes and theft are on the rise, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) 2022 Crime in the Nation Statistics.
The 2022 report collected data from more than 15,000 law enforcement agencies and contains data on more than 11 million criminal offenses. The FBI said 83.3 percent of all agencies nationwide reported, representing 93.5 percent of the population. That’s a marked increase from 2021 when only 62.7 percent of agencies representing 64.8 percent of Americans reported.
One reason for the differences is that the FBI is switching into the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). However, in 2022, unlike 2021, the FBI allowed some agencies to report under the older Summary Reporting System (SRS).
Violent Crime on the Downswing
Overall, violent crime fell 1.7 percent in 2022, according to FBI data.
Homicides and non-negligent manslaughter dropped by more than six percent from 2021. And experts say preliminary data shows an even greater decrease in killings so far in 2023.
Despite this, the murder rate is still higher than it was pre-pandemic, with 25 percent more homicides in 2022 than in 2019. In 2020 it skyrocketed 29 percent during the onset of the pandemic.
In 2022, rapes fell 5.4 percent and aggravated assault fell 1.1 percent. However, there was a 1.3 percent increase in robbery.
The violent crime rate of 380.7 per 100,000 people was slightly better than 2019, right before the pandemic.
“By and large what we’re seeing is simply a return to something approaching normal after the big changes associated with the pandemic,” Richard Rosenfeld, criminal justice professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis told the Associated Press.
Theft Rising
Property crimes rose over seven percent in 2022. A big driver was motor vehicle theft, which jumped nearly 11 percent and carjackings which were up more than 8 percent.
Criminologists blame security vulnerabilities in Hyundai and Kia vehicles that were highlighted on TikTok, as one of the reasons for the spike in auto thefts.
Hate Crimes Rise Again
In 2022, the FBI reported an increase of 6.9 percent in hate crimes, the fifth straight year of an increase. It recorded over 11,600 criminal incidents motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.
Black people were the victims of more than 3,400 hate crimes, the most of any group. Hate crimes against Jewish people rose 26 percent to 1,124 incidents, the largest jump of any hate crime category.
Despite this, the data is still incomplete, as law enforcement covering about 91 percent of the country reported hate crime data.
"Many jurisdictions don't accurately capture what is a hate crime or not, and it is a much harder crime to accurately capture because it requires sussing out intent," Insha Rahman, vice president for advocacy and partnerships at the Vera Institute of Justice told NPR. "That is just a much more nebulous thing than, say, was property taken, was somebody injured."