2 days ago
When and Where Does Crime Happen? At Home, After Midnight
Crime fell in the US in 2024. This was not exactly news when the Federal Bureau of Investigation disclosed it in its annual crime report last week — the Major Cities Chiefs Association, Real-Time Crime Index and Council on Criminal Justice released data months ago showing almost every category of crime down in 2024 in the cities they track, and they have put out subsequent reports showing continued declines in 2025.
Still, it was nice to see the FBI's annual report (1) arriving earlier than in past years and (2) again covering more than 95% of the US population as it had before a botched switchover to a new reporting system led to a collapse in 2021 in the share of law-enforcement agencies that sent in data. That new National Incident-Based Reporting System (which is up to 87.2% population coverage, with about 2,000 mostly smaller agencies still using the old summary reporting system) is also beginning to deliver on its promise of providing much more detailed information about crime in the US.
