The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently released its annual crime statistics report. There hasn’t been much media coverage of the report, but it does show the violent crime rate in 2018 was at its second-lowest point since this particular crime metric peaked in 1991. Generally, crime rates fell across the board compared to 2017.

Perhaps one of the most misleading comments in the past few years is that the United States is seeing a new crime wave develop. Politicians who have long pushed for lengthier prison sentences seized on increases in violent crime and homicides in 2015 and 2016 as justification to oppose legislation in Congress that would bring rehabilitative programming designed to reduce recidivism to federal prisons and modestly reform federal sentencing laws.

For as long as publishers have needed to sell papers and television networks have needed to attract viewers, the promotion of sensational, overblown claims about how terrible everything is has overwhelmed the simple truth that, in fact, things are getting better all the time. This year, the press has been particularly eager to prey on people's fears by highlighting isolated instances of violent crime and claiming that this indicates a trend towards a more lawless society. Of course, as it turns out, this is sheer nonsense. A new analysis of 2015 crime data finds that rates have actually declined by about 5.5 percent since last year, with the murder rate remaining, from a statistical standpoint, flat.

The national violent crime rate continued to decline in 2014, according to data released on Monday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The decline is part of trend dating back to the 1990's and researchers at the Brennan Center for Justice have attributed it to various socio-economic factors, including "growth in income and an aging population."

Media reports are stoking fears of a sharp rise in homicides in some cities in the United States. This has been used by some to advance the notion that crime is rising across the country. In fact, violent crime rates are at historic lows, according to the most recently available data, and there is no indication that there is a concerning national trend developing.