NEWS: U.S.
homicide rate will level off in 2021 after surge in 2020, FBI report finds

The nation­al homi­cide rate, which surged 29.4% last year on the wrath of the pan­dem­ic, is set to flat­ten out in 2021, accord­ing to a new FBI report on crime sta­tis­tics that could make a big polit­i­cal splash as the midterm elec­tions approach. became.

Over­all, the FBI esti­mat­ed vio­lent crimes fell 1% nation­wide, from 1,326,600 in 2020 to 1,313,200 in 2021, accord­ing to a report released Wednesday.

FBI offi­cials have expressed con­fi­dence in the over­all accu­ra­cy of the esti­mates, but there are impor­tant caveats to the numbers.

Crime data for 2021 is more guess­work than before, as the FBI has changed how it col­lects crime data and many major police dis­tricts, such as New York and Los Ange­les, have yet to participate.

Homi­cides are esti­mat­ed to have increased by 4.3% and rob­beries to have decreased by 8.9%, but FBI offi­cials cau­tioned against read­ing too much into the fluc­tu­a­tions. Crime rates were about the same.

“It is impor­tant to note that these esti­mat­ed trends are not con­sid­ered sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant,” the FBI said in a press release.

“The insignif­i­cance of the observed trends is the rea­son for the mes­sage that crime remained con­stant over­all despite these described changes.”

This sug­gests that the surge in homi­cides dur­ing the pan­dem­ic has flat­tened out, but the homi­cide rate is still much high­er than before the pandemic.

Oth­er stud­ies have also found an increase in prop­er­ty crimes over the past year, along with high­er inflation.

The data came out the same day a Politico/Morning Con­sult poll found that more than three-quar­ters of vot­ers said vio­lent crime was a major prob­lem in the Unit­ed States.

But an NBC News poll in Sep­tem­ber showed that crime was vot­ers’ top con­cern, rank­ing sev­enth, ahead of issues relat­ed to the econ­o­my, immi­gra­tion and abortion.