Mostly good news: https://www.newsweek.com/rates-most-violent-crimes-2018-fell-while-rape-increased-according-annual-fbi-report-1462110.

According to an FBI press release published today, there were an estimated 1,206,836 violent crimes committed in the United States in 2018—368.9 crimes per 100,000 residents. This was down four percent from the same statistic in last year’s annual report for crimes committed in 2017, which said that there were 382.9 offenses per 100,000 people.

The report broke down violent crime into four broad distinctions: robbery, aggravated assault, “murder and nonnegligent manslaughter” and rape. Each of these, except rape, had decreased since 2018, according to the FBI. On the contrary, the report said that there were 7.7 reported rapes per 100,000 people, which corresponded to a 2.7 percent increase from 2017 and an 18.1 percent increase from 2014.

In particular, note the trends (my bolding):

The Pew Research Center stated that the rate of violent crime dropped 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to previous FBI reports. The report released today said the rate of robbery fell by 12 percent, murder decreased by 6.2 percent and aggravated assault dropped by 0.4 percent.

So why do people think that crime is increasing? Because they see it on the news all the time, without considering the purpose of the news.

(1) Journalists want to tell you what’s new — and small improvements are not big news, even if they add up to something remarkable after several years. Remember, it’s not called the olds.

(2) People are generally more interested in news that directly affects them, especially news about dangerous things. They’re not so interested in things that don’t directly affect them or aren’t a threat of some kind. And journalists give this to their readers.

(3) Journalists did cover this. They do every year. But only one day a year, when the new numbers are released. If you missed it, you missed the good news.