You've probably seen the headlines: crime is down across America. Murder rates dropped 15% in 2024, and violent crime is at levels we haven't seen since the 1960s. Politicians are celebrating. But here's the problem—these numbers might be telling us more about what's broken in our justice system than about actual safety on our streets.
Why the Numbers Don't Add Up
Four major issues are making crime statistics unreliable:
- Police are solving far fewer crimes than before
- Police departments are severely understaffed
- People have stopped trusting (and calling) the police
- Most crimes were never reported in the first place
Let's break down what's really happening.
Police Are Solving Fewer Crimes Than Ever
Think about this: In the 1960s, police solved more than 90% of murders. Today? Just over 50%. Half of all murders in America now go unsolved.
Other crimes are even worse:
- Robberies: Only 23% solved (down from 29% in 2013)
- Rapes: Only 26% solved (down from 41%)
- Burglaries: Only 13% solved
- Car thefts: Only 9% solved
That means 9 out of 10 property crimes never get solved. When crimes don't get solved, criminals stay on the streets, victims don't get justice, and people lose faith in calling the police at all.
There Aren't Enough Police Officers
Most police departments are struggling just to keep the lights on. A recent survey found that 86% of police officers say their department doesn't have enough staff to patrol properly.
Portland, Oregon shows how bad it can get. They have just 1.26 officers per 1,000 residents (the national average is 2.1). The result? It can take 30 minutes to respond to emergency calls. Almost every available officer is stuck responding to 911 calls, leaving no one to investigate crimes or patrol neighborhoods.
The situation got much worse after George Floyd's murder in 2020. Police resignations jumped 40% in 2021 and stayed high through 2023. Fewer officers means fewer investigations, which means more crimes go undetected and unreported.
People Have Stopped Calling the Police
Here's where it gets really troubling. When people don't believe the police will help, they stop calling 911—and crimes that aren't reported don't show up in statistics.
The LAPD Chief said it plainly in 2024: "Reported crime is down because people don't have confidence that anything is going to be done."
After George Floyd's murder, Harvard researchers discovered something striking. They looked at eight major cities and found that 911 calls dropped 50%—even though actual gunfire (detected by technology, not people) nearly doubled. People heard gunshots but didn't bother calling the police.
In Baltimore during the same period, there were 55,000 fewer 911 calls than the year before. People simply stopped reporting crimes.
Surveys back this up:
- Only 43% of crime victims would report another crime based on their past experience
- 73% of victims don't believe reporting will lead to justice
- 55% say reporting takes too much time
- 49% don't want to involve police at all
Most Crimes Were Never Reported Anyway
Even before these recent problems, most crimes went unreported. According to national surveys:
- Only 41% of violent crimes get reported to police
- Only 33% of property crimes get reported
- About 3.4 million violent crimes go unreported every year
Take shoplifting as an example. In Anaheim, one major retailer reported only 8% of their shoplifting incidents in 2022. In San Francisco, police found one Target had 2,000 unreported thefts in a single month. When they finally ran an operation there, they made 17 arrests in one day—at a store that officially had zero reported incidents.
The Data Itself Has Problems
On top of everything else, the way crime data gets collected is broken. The FBI switched to a new reporting system, but many police departments can't or won't use it. In 2021, 40% of agencies didn't submit any data. The FBI fills in the gaps with estimates, but those estimates can be wildly wrong.
Example: The FBI said Chicago had 499 murders in 2023. Chicago's own police department counted 617—118 missing murders from the federal statistics.
In California, the state reported a 6% drop in violent crime. Sounds good, right? Except Oakland had accidentally reported a 138% increase in assaults due to "human error." When corrected, the actual statewide decrease was only 2%. The state never fixed it.
How It All Connects
These problems create a vicious cycle:
- Not enough police officers leads to slow response times
- Slow response times discourage people from reporting crimes
- Fewer reports mean fewer investigations
- Fewer solved crimes destroy public confidence
- Less confidence means even fewer people report crimes
- And the statistics look better and better—even though public safety isn't actually improving
It's a system where failure produces numbers that look like success.
Communities of Color Are Hit Hardest
These problems are worse for Black communities. Murders with Black victims are less likely to be solved—only 43% cleared compared to 52% for white victims. In 2023, 54% of homicides with Black victims went unsolved.
When the communities that already trust police the least see their crimes go unsolved at even higher rates, the gap between statistics and reality grows even wider.
What This Means
Crime may have actually decreased somewhat in recent years. But the drop is likely much smaller than the headlines suggest. When:
- Half of murders go unsolved
- 911 calls drop 50% after police violence incidents
- 73% of victims don't trust reporting will help
- Federal data is missing hundreds of murders
...we should be very skeptical of any crime statistics.
As the LAPD Chief put it, he'd "rather see the city's crime numbers rise because it would give him a real picture of the problem." Accurate data—even if it looks worse—is more valuable than misleading statistics that look good.
Moving Forward
To actually improve public safety (not just the statistics), we need to:
- Rebuild police staffing to investigation capacity
- Restore public trust in law enforcement
- Fix the broken data collection systems
- Have honest conversations about what the numbers really mean
We can't solve problems we're not willing to see clearly. Only by acknowledging these systemic failures can we develop real solutions—not just better-looking statistics.
Ready to transform your first responder recruitment process? Visit respondcapture.com to see how specialized law enforcement recruitment software can help your agency hire better candidates, retain more recruits, and bridge the critical application-to-academy gap that other systems ignore.
👉 Qualifying agencies can save 20% off their first-year software subscription.
Schedule a demo by contacting us at contact@respondcapture.com