HOW DOES THAT HELP FOMENT RACIAL HYSTERIA?:

The murder rate remained essentially flat in 2021 and declined slightly in 2022. Nevertheless, violent crime became "a key midterm voting issue," as politicians on both sides of the aisle ran thousands of ads focused on the topic. 

Beyond election day, the quantity and tenor of crime coverage matters. It shapes public sentiment about crime and ultimately shapes important decisions around public safety budgets, police tactics, and criminal justice policy. 

Earlier this month, Jeff Asher, a national expert in criminal justice data, published a piece in the Atlantic revealing that "[m]urder is down about 12 percent year-to-date in more than 90 cities that have released data for 2023, compared with data as of the same date in 2022." Asher described the rapid decrease in the murder rate as "astonishing." In a follow-up piece published in his newsletter, Asher said that, if the trend holds, it will be "the largest decline ever recorded." It would also be the first time ever the murder rate declined by double digits in a single year. (The FBI began keeping statistics in 1961.) 

The cause of this decrease is unclear but may be related to the end of the emergency phase of the pandemic and, for most, a return to more routine activities. 

The precipitous decline in the murder rate, however, has not merited any dedicated coverage in the nation's largest newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press. It also has been rarely mentioned on cable news channels. 

In many large cities, the decline in the murder rate, year-to-date, is even more pronounced. Year-to-date murders have declined 40% in Minneapolis, 28% in Atlanta, 26% in Los Angeles, 20% in Philadelphia, and 18% in Baltimore. But local coverage of these declines has been sparse or nonexistent. 

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