(NewsNation) — The FBI says the overall rate of violent crime in the U.S. dropped by 3% last year, compared to 2022. That includes a big drop in the very worst crimes.
According to the agency, murders and “non-negligent manslaughters” dropped by 11.6%, rape dropped by 9.4% and aggravated assaults were down by 2.8%.
One category that dropped only slightly was hate crimes, defined as “offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.” That category saw just a .6% decrease.
The FBI statistics for 2023 are based on data collected from more than 16,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States, representing 94.3% of the U.S. population.
The 2023 numbers continue the trend that began in 2022, when violent crimes dipped to near pre-pandemic levels. That rate fell from about 377 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2022 to about 364 per 100,000 people in 2023.
That’s just slightly higher than the 2019 rate, according to Deputy Assistant Director Brian Griffith of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division.
“Are we looking at crime rates at a return to pre-pandemic levels? I think a reasonable person would look at that and say, ‘Yes, that’s what has happened,’” Griffith said in an interview with the Associated Press.
