Since the beginning of this year's abbreviated presidential campaign, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have told different stories about crime trends during the Biden administration. As the Trump campaign tells it, "homicides are skyrocketing," and violent crime has risen dramatically since Trump left office.
While the first claim is inconsistent with data from multiple sources, the second claim finds support in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which does not cover homicides but tracks other kinds of violent offenses, whether or not they were reported to police. The Harris campaign, by contrast, prefers the FBI's numbers, which reflect only reported crimes. Judging from those numbers, Harris says, "Americans are safer now than when we took office."
