Biden-Harris administration says crime is down, but independent data shows rise in violent crime in 66 cities

While the Biden-Harris administration touts preliminary data released last week by a coalition of cities as evidence of a decline in violent crime under its watch, a crime data expert tells Fox News Digital that his analysis of crime reporting data shows that violent crime is actually increasing compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.

“Americans are safer today than when Vice President Harris and I took office,” said a statement from President Biden's office. “We can't stop now. That's why I will continue to push Congress to fund 100,000 additional police officers, crime prevention and community violence prevention programs, and common sense gun safety reforms like an assault weapons ban.”

The Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), which has published annual crime statistics for 69 major cities across America since 2014, has released a preliminary dataset showing that violent crime rates decreased from January to June 2023 compared to 2024. There were 3,124 violent crimes in 2024, down from 3,783 in 2023.

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The Harris-Biden administration touts low crime rates. (Bloomberg / Contributor / Kali9 Getty Images Signature)

Laura Cooper, executive director of the MCCA, told Fox News Digital that they request violent crime data from their member agencies, which include only the largest police departments in the U.S. This data is voluntarily shared each quarter by the departments themselves. The MCAA does not use public or open-source data and only includes participating agencies.

However, when looking at a longer period of time, rather than just year-to-year comparisons, the data – which may be influenced by underreporting or changes in crime classification – show that crime is actually increasing.

“The problem with this game of Chinese whispers is that authorities don't always submit the correct data. Or the MCCA may make a typo or falsify the data. That becomes a problem when the data doesn't match what the law enforcement agency has publicly disclosed.”

“If you compare to pre-COVID, we're trending in the right direction, but aggravated assaults are still up over 16% compared to 2019,” Cooper said. “That's significant. And especially when people are feeling unsettled by crime, aggravated assaults are a better barometer of sentiment when it comes to crime than murders. Murders are still up since 2019.”

According to an Axios review of MCAA data, the portal reported a 6% decline in violent crime in 69 cities in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period last year. The review found that 54 of those cities reported a decline in violent crime – such as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – in the first six months of 2024.

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Police officers investigate a crime scene following a shooting at a garden party on September 19, 2020 in Rochester, New York. (Rashaad McFadden/Getty Images)

The survey includes Albuquerque, New Mexico; Arlington, Texas; Atlanta, GA; Aurora, Colo.; Austin, Texas; Baltimore; Boston; Buffalo, New York; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; DeKalb County, Georgia; Denver; Detroit; El Paso, Texas; Fairfax County, Va.; Fort Worth, Texas; Fresno, California; Honolulu; Houston; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Kansas City, Missouri.

However, the independent political advocacy group Coalition for Law, Order, and Safety (CLOS) argues that, according to its analysis, violent crime has increased in 66 major cities.

CLOS data from January to June 2019 for the same period in 2024 suggest there was a 9.6% increase in overall violent crime, with aggravated assault increasing by nearly 25% and murder increasing by 6.4%.

“The problem with this game of telephone is that agencies don't always submit correct data, or the MCCA may make a typo or falsify the data,” Sean Kennedy, executive director of CLOS, told Fox News Digital. “So that becomes a problem when you see data that doesn't match what law enforcement is publicly reporting.”

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“The most blatant example is publicly available on Philadelphia's website,” Kennedy said. “During the period described there, Philadelphia had twice as many murders as the MCCA reported.”

CLOS violent crime data, first shared with Fox News Digital, excludes Oklahoma City, LA County Sheriff, New Orleans and St. Louis County due to missing data.

“The data sets are fallible,” Kennedy said. “There is no such thing as perfect data. The FBI data is not perfect. The MCCA data is not perfect, even the law enforcement data is not perfect. They all try to get an approximation of the trend lines and the level of crime in the United States, so you can look at your region and look at the local numbers and local factors and then say, 'Does this trend hold elsewhere?'”

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Milwaukee police car at a crime scene. (Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images)

One example, Kennedy said, is that Washington, DC, has not become safer compared to the first six months of Biden's term, contrary to the Axios analysis. The number of murders has remained unchanged, while rapes have actually increased in the first half of 2024 compared to 2021, according to CLOS data.

According to CLOS, 1,025 robberies were reported in the first six months of 2024, compared to 817 in the same period in 2021, indicating an increase in robbery rates. Although the number of serious assaults decreased from 755 to 538, this decrease is modest compared to historical levels.

Overall, however, violent crime in Washington, DC has increased slightly: A total of 1,744 violent crimes were reported in the first half of 2024, compared to 1,747 in 2021. This suggests that while crime has decreased compared to the previous year, it is still higher than it was during Biden's first six months in office.

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“Some of the numbers make sense in the context of robberies. If you compare those numbers, they're actually going to be worse in some categories if you compare the first half of 2020 to the first half of 2024. And that makes perfect sense if you know what you're looking at. In the first half of 2020, robberies in many jurisdictions were generally down because of COVID,” Kennedy said. “Basically, you can't mug people if they're not there.”