No, crime has not 'skyrocketed' under Joe Biden, as Rep. Nancy Mace claimed

Echoing a common conservative media talking point, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., posted a video to X in which she said that crime had exploded under President Joe Biden.

"Since Joe Biden took office, crime has skyrocketed across our country," Mace said in the March 30 post. 

Federal data shows that the overall number of violent crimes, including homicide, have declined on Biden’s watch. 

Nationally, property crimes are up — mostly driven by motor vehicle thefts — but have not "skyrocketed" under Biden.

"Reported crime has not surged since 2021, when Biden took office, and the best data on the subject shows declining reported violent crime and massively declining murder rates," said Jeff Asher, a data analyst and co-founder of the firm AH Datalytics.

It’s possible to single out some types of crimes and certain cities for which the numbers have risen since Biden took office, but that isn’t what Mace said.

Criminologists point to the coronavirus pandemic’s physical and economic disruptions as a major factor in crime patterns, in either direction. Even today, homicide and aggravated assault remain at higher levels than before the pandemic, although rape and robbery are down.

Also, the data shows that crime is far less prevalent today than it was from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.

Mace’s office did not respond to an inquiry for this article.

The FBI publishes annual statistics on crime, based on data from local police departments. However, the data has a significant lag— it counts only crimes reported to police. For Biden’s presidency, the FBI has data covering 2021 and 2022, but not 2023.

First, we’ll start with violent crime.

According to the FBI data, the overall violent crime rate — which includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault per 100,000 population  — fell by about 2.9% between 2020 (Donald Trump’s last year as president) and 2021 (Biden’s first year in office). It fell further, by about 1.6%, between 2021 and 2022.

The violent crime rate has moved within a narrow window during Trump’s and Biden’s presidencies, ranging from about 380 incidents per 100,000 people to 398 per 100,000 people. None of this data shows a skyrocketing pattern.

Three of the four components of violent crime also fell between 2021 and 2022, including one of the most closely watched, homicide. The homicide rate rose by 4.6% between 2020 and 2021, but it then fell below its 2020 level, declining by 7.4% between 2021 and 2022.

The rate of rape rose by 10.4% from 2020 to 2021, then fell by 5.7% from 2021 to 2022. The aggravated assault rate declined by 2.7% from 2020 to 2021, then fell again by 1.5% from 2021 to 2022.

The only increase among violent crimes under Biden was in robberies. The rise was small (less than 1% from 2021 to 2022), and followed a record low. Robbery fell by 11.4% from 2020 to 2021.

The crime trends stemming from the pandemic did not exclusively occur on Biden’s watch; they included some of Trump’s presidency as well, since he was president for most of the pandemic’s first year, 2020.

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The Council on Criminal Justice, an independent group based in Washington, D.C., samples reports from law enforcement agencies in several dozen cities to provide a look at crime data on a faster timetable than the FBI’s reporting.

The council’s data shows the declining trend for violent crime continued into 2023.

The number of homicides in the 32 cities that shared homicide data with the council fell by 10%. Aggravated assaults fell by 3%, and robberies rose by 2%. (The council does not track rape statistics.)

The trend lines are more mixed for property crimes. In general, they have gone up modestly under Biden, though three of the four main categories tracked by the FBI — larceny, burglary, and arson — were either at or below their pre-pandemic level by 2022. 

The main exception has been motor vehicle theft, which rose by 4% from 2020 to 2021 and by 10.4% from 2021 to 2022.

For 2023, the Council on Criminal Justice data shows that larcenies and burglaries continued to drop from 2022 to 2023 but that motor vehicle theft rose significantly, by 29%. In four cities (Rochester and Buffalo, New York; Baltimore; and Charlotte, N.C.) the rate doubled.

So, the data on crimes reported to law enforcement shows some positive signs. But that reality coexists with some exceptions.

Some of that depends on where you are. Certain cities had increases in homicides in 2023 even as the rate declined nationally. The hard-hit cities include Syracuse, New York; Washington, D.C.; Chattanooga, Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee; St. Petersburg, Florida; Seattle; and Denver.

Chart courtesy of the Council on Criminal Justice

Also, certain crimes are spiking even as the overall crime rate falls. 

Besides the sharp increase in motor vehicle theft, carjacking in the council’s 10-city sample has risen by 93% over pre-pandemic levels. Although this sample is incomplete, the group calls it a development meriting "significant attention." Motor vehicle theft, the group writes, "is considered a ‘keystone’ crime because stolen vehicles are often used in the commission of a robbery, drive-by shooting, or other violent offense."

Finally, responses to federal surveys show that there might be a gap between crimes being committed and crimes being reported to police. The National Crime Victimization Survey found that respondents reported being victimized by rape, robbery or sexual assault rose by 75% between 2021 and 2022. 

Asher, the data analyst, cautioned that the survey’s margin of error means the 75% increase could be lower (or higher), and polling difficulties during the pandemic may have made the data for 2021 artificially low.

The current level of crime victimization seen on the survey is about where it was in 2018 and remains lower than it was from 1993 to 2008.

Mace said, "Since Joe Biden took office, crime has skyrocketed across our country."

Overall violent crime and homicides are down during Biden’s presidency, according to both the official government measures through 2022 and a private-sector analysis of sampled data through 2023. Some types of property crime are also down, but motor vehicle theft is a notable exception.

Experts caution that specific cities have experienced crime spikes even as the national numbers have generally fallen. Also, a federal survey found that, despite the decline in crimes reported to police, more Americans said they experienced violent crimes in 2022 than said so in 2021.

Still, none of the reported crimes have "skyrocketed" in prevalence under Biden. Recent upticks still leave today’s levels far lower than what prevailed from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.

We rate the statement Mostly False.