Last week, the Trump campaign falsely asserted that "homicides are skyrocketing in American cities under Kamala Harris." On Tuesday, the campaign offered a more nuanced and sophisticated critique of crime data cited by the Democratic presidential nominee. But it still does not support the earlier claim, which is inconsistent with numbers from several sources.
A "memorandum" headlined "Joe Biden's Lies on Crime" (a title that makes you wonder whether Trump forgot who his opponent is) notes that the FBI changed its crime data collection methods in 2021, switching from the old Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program to the new National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The transition, which was aimed at generating "new and better data," resulted in a big decline in the number of participating law enforcement agencies. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the share of the population covered by participating agencies fell from the previous norm of about 95 percent to just 65 percent in 2021.
