Criminal justice reforms are not boosting crime rates - OCRegister

Overall crime rates declined nationwide for the 15th straight year in 2016, according to FBI crime data released last week, a trend which has continued despite significant decreases in national incarceration rates over the past decade.

According to the annual crime report, which compiles data from more than 16,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, the national rate per 100,000 people for violent crimes increased from 373.7 in 2015 to 386.3, while property crime rates fell from 2,500.5 to 2,450.7.

While any increase in violent crime is of course something that needs to be addressed, it is important to not lose perspective. Americans are still living at a time of near-historic lows in violent crime.

For perspective, the violent crime rates from 2011-2016 haven’t changed much — in 2011 and 2012 the rates were slightly over 387 per 100,000, higher than in 2016 — but were all about or just less than half of the rates seen in 1991.

You wouldn’t know that based on the overstated rhetoric put out by President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions about crime in America.

“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,” Sessions said at an Aug. 28 conference of the National Fraternal Order of Police.

If by “back with a vengeance,” Sessions means a return to roughly, but still less than, 2012 levels of violent crime, then he might have a point, however underwhelming it might be. Sessions’ remarks were only slightly more meaningful than the claim made by President Trump earlier this year at a meeting with sheriffs from across the country that, “The murder rate is the highest it’s been in I guess 45-47 years.”

This was incorrect — from 1991 to 2016, the rate of killings per 100,000 declined from 9.8 to 5.3.

“The data debunk claims from the Trump administration that crime is out of control, but do highlight cities where violence is concerning,” said Inimai Chettiar, director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program in a statement.

Indeed, while murder rates are lower today than they were even a decade ago, violence in a few large cities has contributed significantly to increases in recent years — with 20 percent of national increases due to violence in Chicago alone, according to the Brennan Center.

Fortunately, based on preliminary data from this year, the Brennan Center is projecting decreases in overall crime, violent crime and murder rates this year.

It’s worth keeping in mind that crime nationwide remains at near all-time lows despite the fact that from 2007 to 2015, the nation’s imprisonment rate fell 13 percent, according to Pew Charitable Trusts.

Since 2007, all measures of crime have fallen significantly — with violent crime down from 471.8 per 100,000 to 386.3, and murder rates down from 5.7 to 5.3.

Such reductions also hold true in California, which has seen the sharpest decreases in imprisonment over that time. Violent crime rates from 2007 to 2016 fell from 523.9 per 100,000 to 443.9, while property crime rates have fallen from 3,043.2 per 100,000 to 2,544.5.

Contrary to the mythology that incarcerating more people for longer makes us safer, it is likely that for years we have incarcerated far more people than necessary for the purposes of actually keeping us safe.

While there are those who insist criminal justice reforms put the public at greater risk, this appears to be true neither in California nor across the country.

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