New FBI statistics show a continued decline in US crime through the first six months of 2024

By Josh Campbell and Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — Crime in the United States fell in the first six months of 2024, according to preliminary figures released by the FBI on Monday. This continues the trend in declining crime rates that the agency recently noted for 2023.

The new figures show that murders fell by 23% between January and June compared to the same period in 2023, while violent crime fell by 10% and the number of reported rapes fell by 18%. According to the data, aggravated assaults fell 8% year-over-year during that period, while robberies fell 14% and reported property crimes fell 13%.

Monday’s release is sure to be closely watched by the campaigns of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, as crime has been a prominent political issue in the 2024 presidential election. Trump has papers – made a key point of his campaign and regularly highlights specific attacks on Americans.

Signs at Trump’s event in Wisconsin on Saturday featured photos of non-citizens arrested for alleged violent crimes. A pair of monitors showed the slogan: “End the invasion of small-town America.” Another in a rotating series of slides showed an image of migrants in a crowded classroom with the message: “Open borders = full classrooms.”

“Hundreds of people have been killed because of her action at the border, and thousands more will follow in quick succession. She should be impeached and prosecuted for her actions,” the former president said, referring to Harris.

Trump has also often made false claims, including saying over the weekend that criminal trespassers who had entered the United States for decades, including during Trump’s term, all arrived while Harris and President Joe Biden were in office.

And Trump falsely claimed that the statistics are specifically about people now living freely in the US; the figures actually include people currently in prison serving criminal sentences.

Harris, meanwhile, often invokes her own history as a prosecutor, citing her time as California attorney general and her efforts to prosecute transnational criminal organizations.

She compared that to Trump, who was convicted in New York in May of falsifying corporate records and is facing criminal charges in Georgia and at the federal level for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

During a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona last week, Harris also criticized Trump for his role in introducing a bipartisan border security bill on Capitol Hill earlier this year. And she vowed to do more to reduce illegal border crossings and “bring more serious criminal charges against repeat violators.”

The preliminary figures in the FBI’s Quarterly Uniform Crime Report, which covers January through June, come with important limitations. First, the agency relies on data voluntarily provided by police departments.

The figures released Monday were collected from more than 14,800 of just over 19,300 law enforcement agencies across the country, according to the agency. The new preliminary figures do not include data from Los Angeles and may include only partial figures from Chicago.

Crime analysts also say the quarterly data is inaccurate because law enforcement agencies have the rest of the year to review and correct any reporting errors before the final annual figures are released by the FBI.

Jeff Asher, criminal justice analyst and co-founder of consulting firm AH Datalytics, previously told CNN: “We have other data sources pointing to the same trends, but the extent of those declines is likely overstated due to the methodology used by the FBI.”

The latest preliminary snapshot of declining crime rates in 2024 comes a week after the FBI released a more comprehensive report outlining final numbers for 2023, which showed a decline in crime across numerous categories last year.

The 2023 report, which included figures from every major city in the country, showed a dramatic 12% drop in murder and non-negligent manslaughter, as well as a 3% drop in violent crime.

This story has been updated with additional information.