While headlines from CBS News and other outlets claim that crime dropped “in every category” in 2024, a closer examination of the FBI’s newly released data shows that such summaries exclude key categories of criminal activity that remain serious or are getting worse.
The FBI’s 2024 Uniform Crime Report (UCR) shows that the violent crime rate (which includes murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) declined by 4.5% from the previous year. Property crime rates also fell by 8.1%, including decreases in burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. However, a review of the complete FBI data sets reveals that the total number of murders increased, with 16,935 people killed in 2024, up from the previous year. This happened even as the murder rate per 100,000 people dropped from 5.7% to five percent, reflecting population growth rather than fewer killings. The FBI also reported 40,995 incidents of cargo theft in 2024, including large volumes of merchandise stolen from commercial vehicles and storage facilities. These cases are not included in the general property crime totals cited in most news coverage.
In addition, 3,725 human trafficking offenses were reported nationwide. While this number remained relatively unchanged from recent years, the FBI and advocates routinely note that trafficking is under reported and difficult to track due to the nature of the crime. More than 8,000 hate crime incidents were reported in 2024. The data show that most known offenders were White. Black individuals, Jewish communities, LGBTQ+ people, and Asian Americans were among the most targeted groups. Hate crimes are reported through a separate FBI system and were not referenced in CBS’s coverage. The FBI also published data showing that 24 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty last year. Thousands of additional assaults on officers were reported, including those involving firearms and knives. The most common hours for assaults were during evening shifts. During a press briefing on the data release, when asked by CBS News why the violent crime rate had declined, an FBI official said: “It’s difficult, if not impossible, for us to say why, and each reporting agency would have a different reason why.”
That level of caution comes at a time when Trump removed Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner William Beach after the agency released a jobs report that reportedly displeased the White House. The firing has raised questions about the independence of federal agencies and the potential political risks of reporting inconvenient data. While it is factually correct that the rate of reported violent and property crimes decreased in 2024, omitting the raw totals (such as the rise in murders) and failing to account for categories like hate crimes, human trafficking, and cargo theft creates an incomplete public understanding of crime in the United States. The FBI data shows that several serious threats remain. Focusing solely on year-over-year percentage declines without context or complete transparency can mislead the public and obscure the risks that many communities continue to face.
