Crime of almost every type decreased in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to new Federal Bureau of Investigation data released Tuesday.

Murder was down 13%, violent crime was down 6% and property crime fell 4% compared with a year earlier, based on reporting from 13,000 law enforcement agencies nationally.

What You Need To Know

  • Crime of almost every type decreased in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to FBI data released Tuesday

  • Murder was down 13%, violent cfrime was down 6% and property crime fell 4% compared with a year earlier

  • Crime in the U.S. has been falling since 2022

  • The FBI's full 2023 crime report will be released in October

The fourth quarter data continues a trend of decreasing crime following the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, murders declined by 6.1% and rapes declined 5.4% compared with 2021. The only violent crime to see an increase in 2022 was robbery, which increased 1.3%.

The decreases are at odds with widespread public perception that crime is on the rise. In December, 77% of respondents in a Gallup poll said they believed crime rates were worsening.

Following the 2023 crime data release, President Joe Biden issued a statement celebrating the report as "good news for the American people" while contrasting his record with that of his predecessor and opponent in November's election, former President Donald Trump.

“In 2020, before I took office, the prior administration oversaw the largest increase in murders ever recorded,” Biden said in the statement. “My Administration got to work on day one to fix that.”

The president credited 2023’s crime reductions to the American Rescue Plan he signed into law in 2021, providing cities and states with $15 billion in public safety funding for things like community violence intervention, mental health services and additional law enforcement, as well as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major piece of gun safety legislation signed into law in decades.

"Keeping communities safe is my priority," Biden said. "While we’ve made major progress, we still have more work to do. That’s why I’ll keep fighting to make more investments in preventing crime, to fund additional accountable police officers to ensure trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve, and to ban assault weapons to keep guns out of dangerous hands – and I will continue to urge Republicans in Congress to join me."

The FBI’s full 2023 crime report will be released in October.