President Trump – Potus 45- is known globally for one thing: a penchant for prevarication. Be it dressed up as embellishment, alternative facts, myths, or outright lying, Trump is notorious for his reliance on equivocation to get his point across.
It turns out, there’s another person Trump may have influenced in this regard, and he’s not a family member. Jeff Sessions is the Attorney General of the United States. The duo cannot boast of a warm relationship ever since Sessions recused himself from the FBI’s investigation into Russian election meddling. However, that hasn’t stopped the trickle-down effect of Trump’s values into the Justice department.
These are the claims Attorney General Sessions has made regarding violent crime in the US:
- “After decreasing for nearly 20 years because of the hard but necessary work our country started in the 1980s, violent crime is back with a vengeance.”
— Attorney General Jeff Sessions, remarks at the 63rd Biennial Conference of the National Fraternal Order of Police, Aug. 28, 2017 - “In the 1980s, Miami-Dade was plagued by drugs. Violent crime followed. Police regularly recorded upward of 500 murders a year. The city seemed to be crumbling. But the people of Miami-Dade refused to tolerate this level of violence. And last year, Miami-Dade’s homicide count was barely a third of what it was in the 1980s.”
— Attorney General Jeff Sessions, remarks on “sanctuary cities” in Miami, Aug. 16 - “All of us who work in law enforcement want to keep people safe. That is the heart of our jobs; it is what drives us every day. So we are all disturbed to learn that violent crime is on the rise in America, especially in our cities. And that is what I want to talk about with you today.” (March 15)
- “As you have experienced right here in Memphis, violent crime is on the rise in America.” (May 25)
- “As all of you know first-hand, our nation’s violent crime rate is rising. In many of our urban areas, this increase is staggering.” (June 20)
But are these claims accurate?
Violent crimes include murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault and Assistant Professor of sociology at the University of Miami rebuts Session’s claim. Mr Nick Petersen said that “Crime is at historically low levels. There may be small increases month to month and year to year, but there is a little random noise in the fluctuations.”
Jeff Sessions gets his statistics from a preliminary report citing an increase in violent crime in 2016, as well as an FBI 2015 Crime report. “In 2015, the total number of violent crimes increased by 3.9 percent nationwide, and the violent crime rate increased by 3.1 percent nationwide, according to data from the FBI. ” Washington Post is clear that although the “increases represent the largest single-year increase in the violent crime rate since 1991, it is hardly a staggering rise.” What’s more, “one year of data does not constitute a trend. Many criminologists recommend using a minimum of three years to understand crime trends and to account for small, but random changes in crime over short time intervals.”
This graph tells the true story. Compiled by the FBI each year, it is an analysis of crime statistics from police departments throughout the US. The violent crime rate shows the reported frequency of these crimes per 100,000 people. The year 1991 was the worst possible, peaking at 758 violent crimes for every 100,000 people and dwindling in the years following to the barest minimum. 2015 was the lowest in almost 45 years.
As WashPo puts it, “the violent crime rate would need to more than double to reach the same levels of the 1990s, when violent crime peaked across the country.” Therefore, Sessions claim cannot stand.
A tactic Jeff Sessions uses to buttress his argument of a rising violent crime rate, is holding up cities like Miami-Dade as “proof that the entire nation can do better”, while criticising Chicago for its soaring crime rates. Miami Dade had a horrible crime problem in the 1980’s. In truth, both Chicago and Miami Dade have experienced a decline in violent crime rates.
“In 2015, Chicago recorded 478 murders, up from 411 in 2014 and 413 in 2013, and every murder factors into Chicago’s violent crime rate. Like most cities around the country, murders in Chicago peaked in the 1990’s, with a high of 943 murders recorded in 1992, and then declined by more than half. Overall, violent crime in Chicago is lower than it has been since the 1960’s. Miami-Dade, which has roughly the same population of Chicago, experienced the same decline in violent crime over the past two decades. Violent crime in Miami Dade reached record highs in the ’80s and ’90s. Since then, violent crime has declined. And this decline mirrors the national trend.”
Besides hammering on the rise in violent crimes in the US, Sessions also maintains that the national murder rate has risen. Fact is while the rate did “increase by nearly 11% between 2014 to 2015, it is actually at a historic low.” Like the violent crime rate, the murder rate would have to more than double to reach the peak attained in the 1980s.
Sessions rhetoric ties into Trump’s vow to restore law and order during his tenure. Sessions tough stance on crime has him “advocating for several policies aimed at preventing violent crime from continuing to rise, including tougher policing practices, reinstating mandatory minimum sentences for drug users, providing surplus military equipment to police departments, and a dismantling of ‘sanctuary cities’.” He’s even introduced a new program to tackle “gun, gang, and drug violence across the United States.”
But Ames Grawert, an expert on criminal justice issues at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, says Sessions is cherry picking data. According to Grawert, “It is really easy to cherry pick the data point you want in order to make the claim that decades of progress is being rolled back. Sessions is pinpointing cities and making the case that they are representative when they are not. If you look at any city crime is way down.”
Sources
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