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Tag: crime rate

  • Is Trump right that US crime rate is lowest in 125 years?

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    President Donald Trump has been celebrating what he says is a major crime reduction achievement in the United States. 

    On at least 10 occasions from Jan. 29 to Feb. 8, Trump has offered a version of this statement: “The crime rate now is the lowest it’s been since 1900. That’s 125 years.” One of those occasions was during an NBC News interview that aired Feb. 8 before the Super Bowl.

    Trump referred to the crime rate, an umbrella category that includes four types of violent crime (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) as well as property crimes (burglary, larceny, car theft and arson). But when contacted for comment, the White House referred to a narrower measure: the murder rate.

    The White House pointed to a Jan. 22 Axios article about the U.S. murder rate hitting its lowest level since 1900. The article cited a study by the Council on Criminal Justice, an independent criminal justice research group.

    In its 2025 Crime Trends report, the council wrote that the 2025 homicide rate is on pace to become “the lowest rate ever recorded in law enforcement or public health data going back to 1900, and would mark the largest single-year percentage drop” on record. The crimes the report cited — murder and non-negligent homicide — are what’s counted in the FBI’s murder rate.

    By the FBI’s definition, “murder” refers to the willful killing of one human being by another, as determined by police investigation and not requiring conviction of a defendant or a coroner’s ruling. 

    Experts told PolitiFact the 2025 FBI murder rate will likely end up at a 65-year low. But saying it’s the lowest in 125 years is less certain, because data prior to 1960 is not comparable to later data.

    Because the methodology was not consistent for all 125 years, “We just can’t say for sure” whether it’s an all-time low, said Jeff Asher, a crime data researcher.

    Overall crime rate statistics 

    Beyond murders and non-negligent manslaughter, the overall violent crime and property crime rates are also lower today than at least any point since the mid-1970s. Both measures have been on a long-term decline, going back to the early 1990s.

    Ernesto Lopez, a senior research specialist with the Council on Criminal Justice, told PolitiFact the group did not examine any other type of crime rate when it cited the 125-year figure, only murder and non-negligent manslaughter. 

    “So we can’t say that violent crime or property crime rates are at all time lows” going back as far as 125 years, Lopez said.

    The rate for murder and non-negligent manslaughter dropped significantly in 2025

    Because it takes time to fully calculate crime data, the council’s report uses trends in the currently available data to project what the 2025 murder rate will be once the FBI calculates and releases final numbers later this year. 

    The Council on Criminal Justice said the rate for murder and non-negligent manslaughter will be about 4 per 100,000 residents. Asher offered a similar projection of about 4.2 per 100,000. 

    Both estimates are below the previous record low of 4.4 per 100,000 people in 2014 — at least when compared with annual rates going back to 1960, when the FBI began using the same methodology it uses today.

    The council and Asher agreed that the 2025 drop of about 20% is likely to become the largest one-year decline ever recorded.

    Issues with historic recordkeeping

    Whether the homicide drop is the lowest in 125 years is less certain.

    Asher said FBI data on murder and non-negligent homicide is not apples-to-apples between 1930 and 1959, because the older data was based on a smaller share of the U.S. population and used definitions different from today’s. Before 1930, the FBI didn’t produce any equivalent data at all.

    The problem with saying it’s a 125-year record, Asher said, is that doing so means including the not-fully-comparable 1930 to 1959 FBI data and 1900 to 1929 data from public health sources. The public health data counted homicides, a category that’s broader than murders and non-negligent homicides because it also includes killings considered justifiable. 

    Lopez said his group has a “high degree of confidence” that once the final numbers for 2025 are released by the FBI later this year, the 2025 homicide level could be “the lowest ever recorded in the United States since 1900”

    Our ruling

    Trump said, “The crime rate now is the lowest it’s been since 1900. That’s 125 years.”

    Trump referred to the overall crime rate, which includes a range of violent crimes and property crimes. But the White House pointed to evidence of a record low murder rate, not overall crime.

    Experts expect that when the final 2025 murder rate, as defined by the FBI, is released later this year, it likely will be the lowest in at least 65 years. 

    Whether it is the lowest in 125 years is disputed, however, because experts say data prior to 1960 is not comparable to later data.

    Overall violent crime and property crime are also at decades-long lows, but it’s unclear whether they are at record lows going back 125 years.

    The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True.

    CORRECTION, Feb. 12, 2026: This version corrects the percentage drop in the murder rate from 2024 to 2025.

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  • With crime down, Prince William Co. Police Chief Newsham looks ahead – WTOP News

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    Chief Peter Newsham says crime is down in Prince William County, but staffing and recruitment remain key challenges heading into 2026.

    Having seen a 11% decrease in overall crime and an almost 20% reduction in violent crime during his five years in office, Prince William County Police Chief Peter Newsham spoke with WTOP about his department’s focus for 2026 and the many factors that contribute to a safe community.

    “We pay very close attention to crime and we’ve had a lot of success,” said Newsham. “If you look at our homicide rate, you have 100% closure on our cases this year. It’ll be five years since I’ve been here, where we’ve only had one homicide that has remained open.”

    Hiring affects crime rate

    While the crime numbers are coming down, having officers in the community is a huge crime prevention tool. Newsham notes that there has been a slight decrease in the number of applicants looking to become police officers.

    “There’s a shrinking pool of folks that are available to work in law enforcement,” said Newsham. “We are competing with federal agencies are offering these pretty significant signing bonuses, and they’re hiring lots of law enforcement on the federal side, so I think that’s impacting our pool of applicants.”

    “Prince William County is in pretty good shape with vacancies less than 12%, but with over 500,000 residents, you’ve got make sure you have enough police officers to provide an adequate police service,” said Newsham.

    Community shapes the plan

    Every two years, the Prince William County Police Department is required to do a satisfaction survey with the community to maintain its national accreditation.

    “It’s a random survey, and it touches all of the different diverse groups that we have in the county and our satisfaction rating, our department satisfaction rate about 96% which is something we’re very, very proud of,” said Newsham. “People are not afraid to talk to us at this department.”

    “People who do this work are really, really phenomenal people. They operate under some very, very difficult circumstances, and they go out there every single day and they’re out there helping people,” said Newsham.

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    LaDawn Black

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  • Catalytic converter thefts plummeted in Denver with new laws, lower prices

    Catalytic converter thefts plummeted in Denver with new laws, lower prices

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    Data Source: Denver Police Department

    Catalytic converters were black-market goldmines over the last few years.

    Back in 2019, the Denver Police Department recorded just 14 stolen. By 2023, that number had skyrocketed to 3,037. More than a third of those went missing from parking lots around the airport that year. The devices, which are on the bottom of gasoline-burning cars, use precious metals to suck pollution out of exhaust.

    But there’s good news for people who park cars. So far in 2024, only 106 converters have been reported stolen, a 95% drop so far compared to 2023.

    The changes come after local and state leaders passed new laws to crack down on sales of stolen auto parts. The market is playing a role too: Prices for precious metals used in converters have dropped.

    Local police say new laws are working.

    “While it is difficult to point to any specific causes for the decrease, there have been several initiatives that could have contributed to the reductions,” a department spokesperson wrote us.

    Back in 2022, the city passed a new law. It requires secondhand dealers and auto parts recyclers to check ID cards and record information about people trying to sell catalytic converters. That makes it harder to unload stolen goods. Similar requirements were signed into state law that year.

    Luis Carrasco knows all about those new rules. He’s operated a scrap recycling company in Globeville for the past three years, and said the new requirements be a little awkward — especially because he’s supposed to take photos of people who get paid over $300 in cash for catalytic converters that they bring to his yard. He showed us a few, with people smiling while holding their newly earned greenbacks.

    “It’s kind of weird, when I tell a person I need to take your photo. I don’t like doing that, but I have to do that,” he said.

    An identifying tag on a catalytic converter at Grease Monkey on Colfax Avenue in Denver, April 10, 2023.
    Hart Van Denburg/CPR News

    Some would-be customers still “cry” about the rules, he said. They may not want their photo taken, or to have the time and date of their visits recorded, or to be paid with a check (which the authorities have encouraged.) For a few months, he said, police told him to stop buying catalytic converters from the public altogether; he has some corporate clients, but it was a rough hit for his business.

    “It was hard,” he said. “We were super slow for a few months.”

    We also visited the Denver Scrap Metal Recycle Center, which is also in Globeville, where we were told they stopped buying converters altogether about six months ago, to avoid any shady deals.

    DPD’s spokesperson also said the department held events to help people etch identifying info onto their converters, should they be stolen, and “teamed up” with the airport to watch over travelers’ cars.

    But enforcement is not the whole picture.

    Carrasco, and another exhaust professional we met while knocking warehouse doors in Globeville, pointed out that market prices for catalytic converters’ precious metals have dropped, too.

    One of those metals, rhodium, was fetching almost $30,000 per ounce in 2021. Today, it’s down to about $4,800, according to one industry tracker.

    Data Source: Moneymetals.com

    That market shift has been cited as a reason for fewer thefts across the country and also in Canada.

    Carrasco said those lower prices are also affecting his business, but he’s happy that thefts have subsided.

    Police told him that he could start buying gear from regular people again, as they’ve paid his yard fewer visits to look for stolen metal.

    “Not no more, because of the new laws,” he said. “It did drop a lot.”

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  • Unbelievable facts

    Unbelievable facts

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    Singapore’s crime rate is so low that many shops do not lock their doors at night.

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