Kari Lake says Arizona was safer in 1994, but crime statistics say otherwise

In Arizona’s sole U.S. Senate debate, Republican Kari Lake began her opening statement by saying the Arizona she first moved to in 1994 was a far better place than it is today.

Lake, a longtime Phoenix news anchor, ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022, aligning herself with former President Donald Trump’s debunked 2020 election claims. She faces Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in the contest to succeed the retiring independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Lake began her opening statement Oct. 9 by recalling her relocation to the state three decades ago, when she was 24. She blamed politicians including Gallego for making the state less livable. 

In 1994, she said, "I bought a house for $88,000, a three-bedroom home. Arizona was affordable back then. Arizona was safe back then, and Arizona was a place everyone wanted to come to live. And now, unfortunately, we're not seeing that anymore. Arizona has become unaffordable and unsafe because of career politicians who have voted against our needs and what's important for our safety."

On home affordability, Lake has a point. The median home sale price in metropolitan Phoenix in 2023-24 was about $450,000, according to the Maricopa Association of Governments. That’s five times higher than what Lake said she paid in 1994. By contrast, inflation-adjusted personal disposable income is 2.2 times as high as in 1994.

But what about crime? Lake’s nostalgia may have blinded her to the facts.

Violent crime has declined sharply in Arizona, as it has in the country as a whole, since the early 1990s.

The crime rate has dropped even as Arizona’s population has nearly doubled in the past three decades from about 3.7 million to about 7.4 million.

In 1994, Arizona's violent crime rate was 703 per 100,000 residents, according to official FBI data provided by Jeff Asher, co-founder of AH Datalytics, a crime statistics research group. 

In 2023, the state’s violent crime rate was 409 per 100,000 residents. That’s a 42% decline in violent crime from when Lake first arrived in Arizona.

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Another key crime metric, the murder rate, has declined similarly in Arizona during that period.

The state’s murder rate in 1994 was 10.5 per 100,000 residents, compared with 5.9 per 100,000 residents in 2023. That’s a decrease of 44%.

Arizona media outlets have reported on the crime decline. When the FBI released new crime data statistics in September, the Phoenix-area broadcast group AZ Family reported, "Arizona cities see drop in violent crime, mirroring nationwide trend."

Different localities may have seen different crime trends in recent years. For instance, the city of Maricopa — home to 66,000 people, within the county of more than 4.5 million — saw an increase in violent crimes between 2022 to 2023, the two most recent years available. 

Violent crimes in other locales, such as the smaller communities of Safford, Pima, and Thatcher northeast of Tucson in the state’s Gila Valley, fell during the same period. 

Notably, the variations in crime experienced nationally over the past few years — and discussed constantly by politicians who want to argue that crime is up — are minor variations compared to the massive drop since the early 1990s.

Lake’s staff did not respond to an inquiry.

Lake said "Arizona was safe" when she moved to the state in 1994, but has become "unsafe." 

This ignores that in Arizona, both violent crime generally and murder specifically have declined by more than 40% during that period.

We rate the statement False.