Crime is down because crime is up!

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation

Two different Oregon media headlines say that crime has gone down.

This may be true, but also may be because crime is actually going up.

Here are four reasons why.

• First of all, many cities have defunded their police and have scaled back their employees.  For some cities, there is no law enforcement staff to regularly report crime data to the FBI.  Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago police departments did not report crime stats to the FBI in 2023.

• Also, due to police staff shortages, many police departments are no longer sending patrols to people’s houses for after-crime reporting.  They are requesting crime victims to come into police stations to file a report.  Many victims will not do this.

• Liberal prosecutors continue to drop charges for arrested criminal suspects.  Crime victims have realized that it is no longer safe to report crime, so they don’t.  They know the criminal will be back out on the street very soon.

• As public defenders have been underfunded in Oregon, criminal charges are dropped. Again, crime victims have realized that it is no longer safe to report crime.

In 2022, only about 2 in 5 (42%) violent victimizations were reported to police. People are afraid to report crime and this is a deadly serious issue.

One way we know that crime goes up despite crime data showing it going down is information from the National Crime Victimization Survey which surveys nearly a quarter million Americans.   This is one of the biggest polls in America.  This survey is more accurate than people who self-report because it captures people who did not report.

We hope these two news stories are correct and that crime is dropping after a very long crime wave.