Donald Trump ran for president promising a return to law and order, a pledge which was supported largely by falsehoods. As president, he has repeated these claims, stating that the murder rate in America is the highest it’s been in the past 45-47 years. In fact, the murder rate has been consistently low since the early 2000’s, and crime rates overall have been steadily declining since the early 1990’s. The graph on the left shows the percent change in rates for murder, all violent crime, and all property crime from 1970 to 2015 (the last year complete data is available). To show how much lower the current rates are compared to the highest levels of the past 45 years, the graph also projects these highest levels out to 2015 for easy visual comparison. In order for today’s rates to reach those historic highs, and for Trump’s claim about murder in America to be correct, an entire sold-out audience at the Hollywood Bowl would need to be murdered (over 17,000 people). To match the highest rates of all violent crime, the entire population of Dallas would need to be assaulted (over 1,200,000 people), and to match the highest property crime rate, the entire population of New Jersey would need to be robbed (over 9,000,000 people).
Data on the Rocks 