The specter of rising crime has become a central point of the 2022 midterm elections. It's been on heavy rotation in Republican campaign ads, and nightly it's the topic de jour on Fox News. Even much of the mainstream media is covering crime as though the country is in the middle of some kind of crisis, defacto accepting the political narrative — especially, but not exclusively, the Republican narrative.
But is there actually a crime wave? Turns out the answer is deeply complicated. So is the question.
